Apostolic Sentence Examples

Their works comprise the whole literature of our faith during the decisive centuries which followed the apostolic age.

His conquest of death is most frequently appealed to in the apostolic teaching.

Towards the end of Ruysbroeck's life, in 1378, he was visited by the fervid lay-preacher Gerhard Groot (1340-1384), who was so impressed by the life of the community at Groenendal that he conceived the idea of founding a Christian brotherhood, bound by no monastic vows, but living together in simplicity and piety with all things in common, after the apostolic pattern.

The events prior to the exodus are relegated by Ewald to a preliminary chapter of primitive history; and the events of the apostolic and postapostolic age are treated as a kind of appendix.

Frederick retorted by announcing his intention of reducing "the clergy, especially the highest, to a state of apostolic poverty," and by ordaining the severest punishments for those priests who should obey the papal sentence.

Their writings, like those of the apostles, are epistolary; but editions of the apostolic fathers now usually admit also the early Church order known as the Didache, the allegory entitled the Shepherd, and a short anonymous apology addressed to one Diognetus.

There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic Fathers.

The Apostolic miracles, to which the New Testament bears evidence, were wrought in the power of Christ, and were evidences to His church and to the world of His continued presence.

Zahn, of an edition of the works of the Apostolic Fathers, Patrum apostolicorum opera, a smaller edition of which appeared in 1877.

Nothing marks the secular attitude of the Italians at an epoch which decided the future course of both Renaissance and Reformation more strongly than the mundane proclivities of this apostolic secretary, heart and soul devoted to the resuscitation of classical studies amid conflicts of popes and antipopes, cardinals and councils, in all of which he bore an official part.

In the struggle against the Jansenists he used all the influence he had with the clergy to secure the passage of the apostolic constitution of the 31st of March 16 J3 (Relation de ce qui s'est fait depuis 1653 Bans les assemblies des iveques au sujet des cinq propositions, 1657); but in the rebellion raised by Retz, archbishop of Paris, against the king, he took the part of the king against the pope.

With regard to the changed state of affairs in the Church, it must be said that this can be a conclusive argument only to one who holds the view of the Tubingen scholars, that the Apostolic Age was all of a piece and was dominated solely by one controversy.

In Antioch itself Meletius continued to have adherents, who held separate services in the "Apostolic" church in the old town.

During this controversy Dionysius became convinced that the victory of mystical theology over "Jewish" chiliasm would never be secure so long as the book of Revelation passed for an apostolic writing and kept its place among the homologoumena of the canon.

He accordingly raised the question of its apostolic origin; and by reviving old difficulties, with ingenious arguments of his own, he carried his point.

There were pure evangelical forces at work in it; and many Anabaptists need not shun comparison with the Christians of the apostolic and post-apostolic ages.

He was ordained priest on the 31st of December 1837, and a few weeks later was made apostolic delegate of the small papal territory of Benevento, where he had to deal with brigands and smugglers, who enjoyed the protection of some of the noble families of the district.

In the same year he was raised to the office of chancellor of Scotland, and was appointed protonotary apostolic and legate a latere by the pope.

It is very striking that in his appeal to tradition Vincent assigns no part to the bishops as such - apart from the council; he appeals to the ancient "teachers," not to any apostolic succession.

The Roman Catholics have an archbishop in Serajevo, a bishop in Mostar and an apostolic administrator in Banjaluka.

He was in truth the Sicilian bee, and, plucking the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow, he produced a wonderfully pure knowledge in the souls of the listeners."

On the other hand, some of these have in recent times adopted the surplice, and in one at least (the Catholic Apostolic Church) the traditional Catholic vestments have been largely revived.

The first, on the 27th of June 1906, affirmed, with some significant but unworkable reservations, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; and the second (29th of May 1907) strenuously maintained the Apostolic Zebedean authorship of the fourth Gospel, and the strictly historical character of the events and speeches recorded therein.

At the council of Clermont in 1095 he showed great zeal for the crusade, and having been named apostolic legate by the pope, he accompanied Raymond IV., count of Toulouse, to the east.

The Catholic Apostolic church at the foot of Broughton Street is architecturally noticeable, and one of its features is a set of mural paintings executed byMrsTraquair.

Whether they were the successors, as most of the Fathers believed, of the seven chosen by the church of Jerusalem 1 A partial exception may be made in favour of the " Catholic Apostolic Church " founded by Edward Irving.

Therein we are told that the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons may be traced back to apostolic times, and in the final revision of 1662 a clause was added to the effect that no one is to be accounted " a lawful bishop, priest or deacon in the Church of England," unless he has had episcopal consecration or ordination.

The bishops, individually and collectively, are thus the essential ties of Catholic unity; they alone, as the depositories of the apostolic traditions, establish the norm of Catholic orthodoxy in the general councils of the Church.

Southey said that "no age ever provided a man of more fervent piety or more perfect charity, and no church ever possessed a more apostolic minister."

They called themselves the Apostolic Catholic Church, but hearing themselves nicknamed Paulicians by their enemies, probably interpreted the name in the sense of "followers of St Paul."

Created secular prelate, he was sent as apostolic delegate to Viterbo, where he early manifested his reactionary tendencies in an attempt to stamp out Liberalism.

Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine and the Apostolic Constitutions make no reference to any such feature either in the public or private worship of the Christians of that time.

It is practically synonymous with the word council (q.v.); concilium is used in the same technical sense by Tertullian c. 200, and auvoSos a century or so later in the Apostolic canons.

The Roman Catholic chaplains are classed as parish priests, curates and assistants, and are subject to an army Vicar Apostolic. In war, at an army headquarters there are a "field-rabbi," a "military imam," an evangelical minister, as well as the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

Thus this epistle is the earliest of the Apostolic Fathers, and as such of special interest.

According to the constitution of 1860 "the nation professes the apostolic Roman Catholic religion; the state protects it, and does not permit the public exercise of any other."

A second mock trial was held by two apostolic commissioners specially appointed by the pope.

He stood equally remote from the old Voluntary principle, that " the State had nothing to do with religion," and from the sacerdotal position that the clergy stood in an apostolic succession, and either constituted the Church or were the persons into whose hands its guidance had been committed.

But as the claims of the church to be the guardian through its episcopate of the apostolic tradition, of the Christian faith itself, were magnified, and unity in practice as well as in doctrine came to be regarded as essential, this distinction became a theoretical rather than a practical one.

But on the other hand the church in maintaining its place and power may condemn as heretical genuine efforts at reform by a return, though partial, to the standard set by the Holy Scriptures or the Apostolic Church.

A very good list of writers on heresy, ancient and medieval, is given in Burton's Bampton Lectures on Heresies of the Apostolic Age (1829).

The evidence of the apostolic fathers is disappointing.

Creed of Antioch quoted in the Apostolic Constitutions.

The Eastern Church has no general doctrinal tests beyond the Nicene Creed, but from time to time synods have approved exposi (without the words And the Son "), and the Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church.

If the superscription be not from the hand of the actual brother of Jesus, the question may well be asked why some apostolic name was not chosen which might convey greater authority?

Papias, his ETaZpos (Irenaeus), turns in fact from " the vain talk of the many, and from the " alien commandments " to such as were " delivered by the Lord to the faith," offering to the Christian world his Interpretation of the Lord's Oracles based upon personal inquiry from those who " came his way," who could testify as to apostolic tradition.

This work was valuable for the use which its author made of the Greek of the Septuagint, of the Old and New Testament Apocrypha, of Josephus, and of the apostolic fathers, in illustration of the language of the New Testament.

He lays no further burden on his readers than those required by the Apostolic Decree of Acts xv.

If the writer of the Fourth Gospel was the Apostle John, then the difficulties for the assumption of an apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse become well-nigh insuperable.

Nay more, the difficulties attending on the assumption of a common authorship of the Gospel and Apocalypse, independently of the question of the apostolic authorship of the Gospel, are practically insuperable.

Philip had also reported the king's anxiety for instruction in Catholic discipline and for reconciliation with the apostolic see in regard to all discrepancies, and his desire to have a church in Rome and an altar at Jerusalem.

It shows a fine combination of mildness with severity; the language is simple but powerful, and, while there is undoubtedly a lack of original ideas, the author shows remarkable skill in weaving together pregnant sentences and impressive warnings selected from the apostolic epistles and the first Epistle of Clement.

Polycarp thus becomes the living link between the Apostolic age and the great writers who flourished at the end of the 2nd century.

In spite therefore of much modern criticism there seems to be no solid reason for rejecting the statements of Irenaeus and regarding Polycarp as the link between the Apostolic age and the first of the Catholic fathers.

It was in no small degree due to his stanch and unwavering leadership that the Church was saved from the peril of being overwhelmed by the rising tide of the pagan revival which swept over Asia during the first half of the 2nd century, and it was his unfaltering allegiance to the Apostolic faith that secured the defeat of the many forms of heresy which threatened to destroy the Church from within.

Much occurred between the Apostolic age and the age when the faith of the Church was.

The Apostolic tradition might have been perverted and corrupted.

The use of excommunication as a form of Christian discipline is based on the precept of Christ and on apostolic practice.

If it be not the same it shows the Corinthian church exercising discipline independently of apostolic advice.

During the three or four years which followed the signing of the Augsburg Confession in 1530 and the formation of the Schmalkaldic League, England, while bitterly dep ouncing and burning Lutheran heretics in the name of the Holy Catholic Church, was herself engaged in severing the bonds which had for well-nigh a thousand of years bound her to the Apostolic See.

The whole work was in the hands of the writer of the seventh book of the Apostolic Constitutions, who embodies almost every sentence of it, interspersing it with passages of Scripture, and modifying the precepts of the second part to suit a later (4th-century) stage of church development; this writer was also the interpolator of the Epistles of Ignatius, and belonged to the Syrian Church.

Whether the second part was known to the writer of the Apostolic Church Order is not clear, as his only quotation of it comes from one of the eucharistic prayers.

The Congregationalism of the Apostolic Church was, to begin with, part of its heritage from Judaism.

Thus the recent defenders of the apostolic authorship, the Unitarian James Drummond (1903), the Anglican William Sanday (1905), the Roman Catholic Theodore Calmes (1904), can tell us, the first, that " the evangelist did not aim at an illustrative picture of what was most characteristic of Jesus "; the second, that " the author sank into his own consciousness and at last brought to light what he found there "; the third, that " the Gospel contains an entire theological system," " history is seen through the intervening dogmatic development," " the Samaritan woman is.

Hence the precariousness of the proofs derived from more or less close parallels to Johannine passages in the apostolic fathers.

Justin Martyr (163-167) certainly uses the Gospel; but his conception of Jesus' life is so strictly Synoptic that he can hardly have accepted it as from an apostolic eyewitness.

But could Christians sufficiently numerous to deserve a long discussion by St Epiphanius in 374-377, who upheld the Synoptists, stoutly opposed the Gnostics and Montanists, and had escaped every special designation till the bishop nicknamed them the " Alogoi " (irrational rejectors of the Logos-Gospel), dare, in such a time and country, to hold such views, had the apostolic origin been incontestable ?

The real situation that confronts us is not an unbroken tradition of apostolic eye-witnesses, incapable of re-statement with any hope of ecclesiastical acceptance, except by another apostolic eye-witness.

The Roman Catholics number 2 30% of the whites, the head of their church in the province being a vicar apostolic. At the head of the Anglican community, which is in full communion with the Church of England, is the bishop of Bloemfontein, whose diocese, founded in 1863, includes not only the Orange Free State, but Basutoland, Griqualand West and British Bechuanaland.

The liturgical use of the word in apostolic times is attested by the passage from 1 Cor.

The other districts are managed by an apostolic vicar at Dresden, under the direction of the minister of public worship. Two nunneries in Lusatia are the only conventual establishments in Saxony, and no others may be founded.

While the title "Fathers" was given from at least the beginning of the 4th century to church writers of former days, as being the parents of Christian belief and thought for later times, the expression "Apostolic Fathers" dates only from the latter part of the 1 7th century.

Cotelier published at Paris the writings current under the names of Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius and Polycarp. But the name itself is due to their next editor, Thomas Ittig (1643-1710), in his Bibliotheca Patrum Apostolicorum (1699), who, however, included under this title only Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp. Here already appears the doubt as to how many writers can claim the title, a doubt which has continued ever since, and makes the contents of the "Apostolic Fathers" differ so much from editor to editor.

The degree of historic claim which these various writings have to rank as the works' of Apostolic Fathers varies greatly on any definition of "apostolic."

But the convenience of the category "Apostolic Fathers" to express not only those who might possibly have had some sort of direct contact with apostles - such as "Barnabas," Clement, Ignatius, Papias, Polycarp - but also those who seemed specially to preserve the pure tradition of apostolic doctrine during the sub-apostolic age, has led to its general use in a wide and vague sense.

Or to put it more exactly, the "Apostolic Fathers" represent, chronologically in the main and still more from the religious and theological standpoint, the momentous process of 1 Cotelier included the Acts of Martyrdom of Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp; and those of Ignatius and Polycarp are still often printed by editors.

The Apologists no doubt show us certain fresh factors entering into this development; but on the whole the Apostolic Fathers by themselves go a long way to explain the transition in question, so far as knowledge of this saeculum obscurum is within our reach at all.

The Preaching and Apocalypse of Peter, for instance, are quite typical of the same period, and help us to read between the lines of the Apostolic Fathers.

Yet they do not really add much to what is there already, and they have the drawbacks of pseudonymity; they lack concrete and personal qualities; they are general expressions of tendencies which we cannot well locate or measure, save by means of the Apostolic Fathers themselves or of their earliest Catholic successors.

Its original members, those still best entitled to their name in any strict sense, are epistles, and in this respect also most akin to Apostolic writings.

But one and all are influenced by study of apostolic epistles, and witness to the impression which these produced on the men of the next generation.

Unconsciously, too, they correspond to the apostolic type of writing in another respect, viz.

Nor is this pre-literary and vital quality really absent even from the writing which is least entitled to a place among "Apostolic Fathers," the Epistle to Diognetus.

But while literary in form and conception, its appeal is in spirit so personal a testimony to what the Gospel has done for the writer and his fellow Christians, that it is akin to the piety of the Apostolic Fathers as a group. It is true that it has marked affinities, e.g.

If thus related to the Apologists of the middle of the 2nd century, the Epistle to Diognetus has also points of contact with one of the most practical and least literary writings found among our Apostolic Fathers, viz.

The former, besides embodying catechetical instruction in Christian conduct (the "Two Ways"), which goes back in substance to the early apostolic age and is embodied also in "Barnabas," depicts in outline the fundamental usages of church life as practised in some conservative region (probably within Syria) about the last quarter of the 1st century and perhaps even later.

The whole is put forth as substantially the apostolic teaching (Didache) on the subjects in question.

It expresses the feeling common to the Apostolic Fathers and general in the sub-apostolic age, at any rate in regions where apostles had once laboured, that local tradition, as held by the recognized church leaders, did but continue apostolic doctrine and practice.

It is in contrast to these that the Didache is justly felt to be genuinely primitive and of a piece with the Apostolic Fathers.

The relation of these writers to the apostolic teaching generally has become pretty evident.

Hence there appear constant traces of study of the Apostolic writings, so far as these were accessible in the locality of each writer at his date of writing (for the details of this subject, and its bearing on the history of the Canonical Scriptures of the New Testament, see The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, Oxford, 1 9 05).

Yet their very use of the same terms or ideas makes us the more aware of "a marked contrast to the depth and clearness of conception with which the several Apostolic writers place before us different aspects of the Gospel" (Lightfoot).

While Apostolic phrases are used, the sense behind them is often different and less evangelic. They have not caught the Apostolic meaning, because they have not penetrated to the full religious experience which gave to the words, often words with long and varied history both in the Septuagint and in ordinary Greek usage, their specific meaning to each apostle and especially to Paul.

It is not merely that "there is no dogmatic system in Clement" or in any other of the Apostolic Fathers; that may favour, not hinder, religious insight.

There is a want of depth in Christian experience, in the power of realizing relative spiritual values in the light of the master principle involved in the distinctively Christian consciousness, such as could raise Clement above a verbal eclecticism, rather than comprehensiveness, in the use of Apostolic language.

It is lack of this organic quality in the thought, not only of Clement but also of the Apostolic Fathers generally - with the possible exception of Ignatius, who seems to share the Apostolic experience more fully than any other, to which Reuss rightly directs attention.

The passages in which these things are laid bare by Paul's remorseless analysis of his own experience "under Law" seem to have made practically no impression on the Apostolic Fathers as a whole.

Hence a new sort of legalism, known to recent writers as Moralism, underlies much of the piety of the Apostolic Fathers, though Ignatius is quite free from it, while Polycarp and "Barnabas" are less under its influence than are the Didache, Clement, the Homilist and Hermas.

Impressive as is their witness to the persistence of the Apostolic teaching in its essential features, amidst all personal and local variations, perhaps the most striking thing about these writings is the degree in which they fail to appreciate certain elements of the Apostolic teaching as embodied in the New Testament, and those its higher and more distinctively Christian elements.'

Firstly, it suggests the supernormal level to which the Apostolic consciousness was raised at a bound by the direct influence of the Founder of Christianity, and justifies the marking-off of the Apostolic writings as a Canon, or body of Christian classics of unique religious authority.

Secondly, it means that the actual development of ecclesiastical doctrine began, not from the Apostolic consciousness itself, but from a far lower level, that of the inadequate consciousness of the subapostolic Church, even when face to face with their written words.

There is continuity in character; the Apostolic Fathers strike us as truly good men, with a goodness raised to a new type and power.

This is what the Gospel of Christ aims chiefly at producing as its proper fruit; and the Apostolic Fathers would have desired no better record than that they were themselves genuine "epistles of Christ."

The most useful edition for ready reference, containing critical texts (up to date) and good translations, is Lightfoot's one-volume edition, The Apostolic Fathers (London, 1891).

On the whole the evidence does not seem sufficient to prove the contention that an order of deaconesses - in the ecclesiastical sense of the term - existed from the apostolic age.

The Papacy, favouring a prince who had recovered Sicily from Greeks and Moslems, granted to him and his heirs in 1098 the Apostolic Legateship in the island.

Early in 1873 the pope named him "vicar apostolic of Geneva," but he was expelled a few weeks later from Switzerland, not returning till 1883, when he became bishop of Lausanne, being made cardinal in 1890.

This led to the erection of safeguards, which should prevent the continuance of the unseemly conditions (on Paul's action in the matter, see McGiffert's Apostolic Age, p. 52 3).

This found expression in the formulation of an apostolic scripture canon, our New Testament, and of an apostolic rule of faith, of which the old Roman symbol, the original of our present Apostles' Creed, is one of the earliest examples.

But these standards proved inadequate to the emergency, for it was possible, especially by the use of the allegorical method, to interpret them in more than one way, and their apostolic origin and authority were not everywhere admitted.

This is the famous theory known as " apostolic succession."

The Church was thus in possession not only of authoritative apostolic doctrine, but also of a permanent apostolic office, to which alone belonged the right to determine what that doctrine is.

Saving grace is recognized as apostolic grace, and the bishops as successors of the apostles become its sole transmitters.

Documents of various kinds, including gospels and apostolic epistles, circulated widely.

At the council of Nicaea, and at the ecumenical councils which followed, the idea of an infallible episcopate giving authoritative and permanent utterance to apostolic and therefore divine truth, found clear expression, and has been handed down as a part of the faith of the Catholic Church both East and West.

His original name was Octavian, but when he assumed the papal tiara as successor to Agapetus II., he adopted the apostolic name of John, the first example, it is said, of the custom of altering the surname in connexion with elevation to the papal chair.

It was the deep impression made by these which prepared Christians generally to accept the apostolic writings as inspired, and therefore sacred.

It drew together and gathered up into itself the forces at work in the apostolic age; and, by reaching out a hand as it were (through the preface) towards Greek philosophy, it succeeded in so formulating the leading doctrines of Christianity as to make it more acceptable than it had as yet been to the Gentile world, and in securing for the Gospel a place in the main stream of European thought.

Most nearly on the lines of the New Testament are the so-called Apostolic (really Sub-Apostolic) Fathers (Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, Didache, Barnabas, the letters of Ignatius and the single letter of Polycarp, the Shepherd of Hermas, the homily commonly known as the Second Epistle of Clement).

With him the twilight period which succeeds to the apostolic age is over, and we enter upon the main course of ecclesiastical history.

Throughout the apostolic age Christians were conscious of being carried forward in a great movement, the origin and motive-power of which they regarded as supernatural.

And this belief was the fundamental principle that determined the marking off of the writings of the first, or apostolic, age from the rest.

England has made many weighty contributions both to Introduction and Canon, especially Lightfoot, Essays on Supernatural Religion (collected in 1889); editions of Books of the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers; Westcott, editions; Hort, especially Romans and Ephesians (posthumous, 1895); Swete, editions; Knowling and others.

The subject of the chronology of the New Testament falls naturally into two distinct sections - the chronology of the Gospels, that is, of the life of Christ; and the chronology of the_Acts, that is, of the apostolic age.

It is not a priori improbable that the year of the central event from which the Christian Church dated her own existence should have been noted in the apostolic age and handed down to the memory of succeeding generations; and the evidence does go some way to suggest that we have in favour of A.D.

The Chronology of the Apostolic Age, The chronology of the New Testament outside the Gospels may be defined for the purposes of this article as that of the period between the Crucifixion in A.D.

But the book of Acts, our only continuous authority for the period, contains two synchronisms with secular history which can be dated with some pretence to exactness and constitute fixed points by help of which a more or less complete chronology can be constructed for at least the latter half of the apostolic age.

The emperor of Austria bears the title of apostolic king of Hungary.

It was now taught that prophecy in general was a peculiarity of the Old Testament ("lex et prophetae usque ad Johannem"); that in the new covenant God had spoken only through apostles; that the whole word of God so far as binding on the Church was contained in the apostolic record - the New Testament; 2 and that, consequently, the Church neither required nor could acknowledge new revelations, or even instructions, through prophets.

And as these writings were attributed to Dionysius, the disciple of the apostles, the scholastic mysticism which they unfold was regarded as an apostolic, not to say a divine, science.

Peter Mogilas, metropolitan of Kiev, drew up in 1643 the Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church.

The circumstances which led to his admission into the apostolic circle are not stated; while the motives by which he was actuated in enabling the Jewish authorities to arrest Jesus without tumult have been variously analysed by scholars.

But "the terrible power in the universal church, the great riches and the extraordinary prestige" of the Society, which Palafox complained had raised it "above all dignities, laws, councils and apostolic constitutions," carried with them the seeds of rapid and inevitable decay.

If here a return was made to the old material view of the resurrection (the apostolic avaaraacs -rijs vapKOS), entirely abandoning the more spiritual conception which had been arrived at as a compromise by Paul, this is probably the result of a reaction from the views of Gnosticism.

Paul's lieutenants possess the central deposit of the apostolic faith, and have the duty as well as the right of exercising the authority with which that position invests them.

In the Catholic Apostolic Church ("Irvingites") confirmation is called "sealing," and is administered by the "angels."

His activity as a Christian falls between 190 and 220, a period of very great moment in the history of the Catholic church; for within it the struggle with Gnosticism was brought to a victorious close, the New Testament established a firm footing within the churches, the " apostolic " rules which thenceforward regulated all the affairs of the church were called into existence, and the ecclesiastical priesthood came to be developed.

Esztergom is one of the oldest towns of Hungary, and is famous as the birthplace of St Stephen,the first prince crowned "apostolic king" of Hungary.

When in 1866 the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore considered the matter of new diocesan developments, he was selected to organize the new Vicariate Apostolic of North Carolina; and was consecrated bishop in August 1868.

The benediction "Peace be to this house," with which, in accordance with apostolic usage, he greeted every dwelling he entered, was not inappropriate to his figure and aspect, and it is said "took the people's attention wonderfully," the more especially after the magic of his personality found opportunity to reveal itself in close and homely intercourse.

Some years previously he had expressed his conviction that "one of the chief needs of the age was to make inroad after the alien, to bring in the votaries of fashion, of literature, of sentiment, of policy and of rank, who are content in their several idolatries to do without piety to God and love to Him whom He hath sent"; and, with an abruptness which must have produced on him at first an effect almost astounding, he now had the satisfaction of beholding these various votaries thronging to hear from his lips the words of wisdom which would deliver them from their several idolatries and remodel their lives according to the fashion of apostolic times.

The first stage of his later development, which resulted in the establishment of the "Irvingite" or "Holy Catholic Apostolic Church," in 1832, was associated with conferences at his friend Henry Drummond's seat at Albury concerning unfulfilled prophecy, followed by an almost exclusive study of the prophetical books and especially of the Apocalypse, and by several series of sermons on prophecy both in London and the provinces, his apocalyptic lectures in 1828 more than crowding the largest churches of Edinburgh in the early summer mornings.

After he and those who adhered to him (describing themselves as of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church) had in 1832 removed to a new building in Newman Street, he was in March 1833 deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland by the presbytery of Annan on the original charge of heresy.

Evidence may, however, be adduced which goes far to show that he regarded it, also, as of apostolic authority.

There is a good deal of difference of opinion still as to whether Justin reckoned other sources for the Gospel-history besides our Gospels among the Apostolic Memoirs.

And it is, indeed, difficult to suppose that agreement on this subject between different portions of the Church could have manifested itself at this time in the spontaneous manner that it does, except as the consequence of traditional feelings and convictions, which went back to the early part of the century, and which could hardly have arisen without good foundation, with respect to the special value of these works as embodiments of apostolic testimony, although all that came to be supposed in regard to their actual authorship cannot be considered proved.

Reference has already been made to the fact that during the greater part of the Apostolic age the Gospel history was taught orally.

The difficulties of exhibiting and maintaining it are probably far greater now than they were in the apostolic age; and as nothing but a present divine support can enable us to overcome these, so, when they are overcome, a testimony is given to the fact that God is with us."

There, beyond the Great Wall, a large but scattered population of native Christians had found a refuge from the persecutions of KiaKing, to be united half a century later in a vast but vague apostolic vicariate.

The assiduity with which Huc devoted himself to the study of the dialects and customs of the Tatars, for whom at the cost of much labour he translated various religious works, was an admirable preparation for undertaking in 1844, at the instigation of the vicar apostolic of Mongolia, an expedition whose object was to dissipate the obscurity which hung over the country and habits of the Tibetans.

All that was done or taught in Rome was immediately echoed through all the other Churches; Irenaeus and Tertullian constantly lay stress upon the tradition of the Roman Church, which in those very early days was almost without rivals, save in Asia, where there were a number of flourishing Churches, also apostolic in origin, forming a compact group and conscious of their dignity.

After Cyprian the African episcopate, in proportion as it perfected its organization, seemed to feel less and less the need for close relations with the apostolic see.

From the 6th century onwards the apostolic vicars of Arles and Thessalonica were merely the titular holders of pontifical honours, with no real authority over those who were nominally under their jurisdiction.

The question of reform having arisen, from the apostolic see alone could its fulfilment be expected, since in it, with the succession of St Peter, were preserved the most august traditions of Christianity.

The apostolic see hardly ever interfered in the government of the local Churches.

It was in the 14th century more especially that the Apostolic Chamber spread the net of its fiscal administration wider and wider over Christian Europe; but at the close of the 13th century all the preliminary measures had been taken to procure for the papal treasury its enormous and permanent resources.

They lost, for example, their jurisdiction, which they were seldom able to exercise in their own names, but in almost every case as commissaries delegated by the apostolic authority.

Subsequently they were represented by the apostolic notaries, who were charged to exercise throughout Christendom the gracious jurisdiction of the leaders of the Church and to preside over the mosit important acts in the private lives of the faithful.

The restoration of the Apostolic See to its original and proper seat was now possible; and the need for such a step was the more pressing, since residence in the castle at Avignon had become extremely precarious, owing to the ever-increasing confusion of French affairs.

The synod grounded its procedure against the rival popes on a fact, ostensibly patent to all, but actually believed by none - that they were both supporters of the schism, and not merely this, but heretics in the truest and fullest sense of the word, since their attitude had impugned and subverted the article of faith concerning the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The latter are actually the Apostolic Letters, i.e.

The Apostolic Letters alone may be ex cathedra documents, and may have the privilege of infallibility, if the matter admit of it.

The missions begin by establishing apostolic prefectures under the charge of priests; the prefecture is later transformed into an apostolic vicariate, having at its head a bishop; finally, the hierarchy, i.e.

To the former were attached two commissions, one for the approbation of those religious congregations which devote themselves to missions, which is now transferred to the Congregation of the Religious Orders; the other for the examination of the reports sent in by the bishops and vicars apostolic on their dioceses or missions.

Le Clerc's new edition of the Apostolic Fathers of Johann Cotelerius (1627-1686), published in 1698, marked an advance in the critical study of these documents.

It was the common belief in the apostolic age that the second advent of Christ was near, and would give the divine completion to the world's history.

The doctrines of the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, the Reward of the Righteous and the Punishment of the Wicked are not less distinctly expressed than in the other apostolic writings.

Even if the common beliefs of the apostolic age have not modified the evangelist's reports of Jesus' teaching, it must be remembered that He used the common prophetic phraseology, the literal fulfilment of which is not to be looked for.

The North German or Bremen Society split into a strict Lutheran or Leipzig agency and the Hermannsburg Mission, which aimed at a more primitive and apostolic method.

The pamphlet is supposed to have been written by Chrysostomus Dudulaeus of Westphalia and printed by one Christoff Crutzer, but as no such author or printer is known at this time - the latter name indeed refers directly to the legend - it has been conjectured that the whole story is a myth invented to support the Protestant contention of a continuous witness to the truth of Holy Writ in the person of this "eternal" Jew; he was to form, in his way, a counterpart to the apostolic tradition of the Catholic Church.

Other Protestant bodies are the Walloons, who, though possessing an independent church government, are attached to the Low-Dutch Reformed Church; the Lutherans, divided into the main body of Evangelical Lutherans and a smaller division calling themselves the Re-established or Old Lutherans (Herstelde Lutherschen) who separated in 1791 in order to keep more strictly to the Augsburg confession; the Mennonites founded by Menno Simons of Friesland, about the beginning of the 16th century; the Baptists, whose only central authority is the General Baptist Society founded at Amsterdam in 1811; the Evangelical Brotherhood of Hernhutters or Moravians, who have churches and schools at Zeist and Haarlem; and a Catholic Apostolic Church (1867) at the Hague.

The profits on publications were to be divided between Paolo Manuzio and the Apostolic camera.

C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 663 (1897).

The sources of the Apostolic Canons (which date between 140-180) lay down the rule that even the smallest community of Christians, though it contain only twelve members, must have its bishop and its presbyters.

His original map, which was probably intended to illustrate, above all, the distribution of the Apostolic missions throughout the world - depicting the head of Peter at Rome, of Andrew in Achaia, of Thomas in India, of James in Spain, and so forth - has survived in ten more or less modified copies.

One only of these - the "Osma" of 1203 - preserves the Apostolic pictures; among the remaining examples, that of "St Sever," now at Paris, and dating from about 1030, is the most valuable; that of "Valcavado," recently in the Ashburnham Library, executed in 970, is the earliest; that of "Turin," dating from about 110o, is perhaps the most curious.

In the later Armenian tradition we find other notices of this celebrated man' - such as, that he was the nephew of Mesrob, that he was publicly complimented by the emperor Marcian, that he had been ordained bishop of Bagrewand by the patriarch Giut, and that he was buried in the church of the Apostolic Cloister at Mush in the district of Taron; but these accounts must be received with great caution.

Apostolic vicariates exist in Dresden (for Saxony), and others for Anhalt and the northern missions.

The unity of the monarchy is expressed in the common head of the state, who bears the title Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, and in the common administration of a series of affairs, which affect both halves of the Dual Monarchy.

By a letter to Beust of the 14th of November 1868 the emperor ordered that he should henceforward be styled, not as before " Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, &c.," but " Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, &c., and Apostolic King of Hungary," thereby signifying the separation of the two districts over which he rules.

His shorter style is " His Majesty the Emperor and King," and " His Imperial and Apostolic Royal Majesty "; the lands over which he rules are called " The Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy " or " The Austrian-Hungarian Realm."

He hurried back to Rome upon the accession of Pius V., who made him apostolic vicar of his order, and, later (1570), cardinal.

In 1610 James had three Scottish bishops consecrated by three English bishops, ensuring for the northern country apostolic succession; and justices of the peace were created in Scotland.

In 1845 he was appointed select preacher, and published in 1847 a volume of Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age, which not only laid the foundation of his fame as a preacher, but also marked his future position as a theologian.

True, the presbyter Caius (c. 200) who first mentions the situation of the apostolic tombs on the Vatican and the road to Ostia, and refers to the memorials there erected, has nothing to say of foreign Christians journeying to Rome in order to visit them.

His best known publication is a History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age (1897).

Inspired by apostolic zeal the friars braved the terrors of life in the remote villages, raised the natives The Friars from barbarianism and taught them the forms of Christianity.

To him the divine authority of the Catholic Church was an axiom, and in 1889 he published two works, the larger of which, The Church and the Ministry, is a learned vindication of the principle of Apostolic Succession in the episcopate against the Presbyterians and other Protestant bodies, while the second, Roman Catholic Claims, is a defence, couched in a more popular form, of the Anglican Church and Anglican orders against the attacks of the Romanists.

In addition to lives of his father (1862), Professor Robert Lee (1870) and William Carstares (1876), he published a devotional book Christ the Consoler; a volume of sermons, Creed and Conduct (1878); The Apostolic Ministry in the Scottish Church (Baird Lecture, 1897), and several pamphlets on church questions.

In the lists of the Apostles given in the Synoptic Gospels and in Acts, Matthew ranks third or fourth in the second group of four - a fair index of his relative importance in the apostolic age.

The whole episcopal body, with the pope at its head, should be considered as succeeding to the apostolic college, presided over by St Peter; and the head of it, now as then, as personally invested with all the powers enjoyed by the whole body, including the head.

It is the one really primitive Church history, primitive in spirit as in substance; apart from it a connected picture of the Apostolic Age would be impossible.

Gradually their statement of this position underwent serious modifications, as it became realized that neither Jewish nor Gentile Christianity was a uniform genus, but included several species, and that the apostolic leaders from the first stood for mutual understanding and unity.

It is implied that the present distress is but a passing phase, resting on some misunderstanding; meantime, the example of apostolic constancy should yield strong reassurance.

Finally as to such historical difficulties in Acts as still perplex the student of the Apostolic age, one must remember the possibilities of mistake intervening between the facts and the accounts reaching its author, at second or even third hand.

But 1 "It is, perhaps, by surveying India that we at this day can best represent to ourselves and appreciate the vast external reform worked upon the heathen world by Christianity, as it was organized and executed throughout Europe by the combined authority of the Holy Roman Empire and the Church Apostolic."

These titles are generally assigned to bishops appointed to Apostolic Delegations, Vicariates and Prefectures, or to the office of coadjutor, auxiliary or administrator of a diocese.

The scattered communities of the Uniat Armenian Church in Russia are subordinate to Latin vicars apostolic. The Uniat Armenian Church in the Caucasus, however, is under the jurisdiction of the patri archate of Cilicia.

There are not more than 10,000 to 15,000 Uniat Bulgarians, who have been ruled since 1883 by three vicars apostolic. The Uniat Armenians and Melchites in Constantinople belong to the Eastern patriarchates.

Such as there are are under the authority of a vicar apostolic residing at Keren.

The general canonical legislation of the Church, the legislation by papal rescript and the Congregation of the Propaganda, the decisions of the Apostolic Delegation at Washington, and a certain amount of immemorial custom and practice, form the code that governs its domestic relations.

Indeed it was freely admitted by the most learned men of the middle ages and Renaissance that celibacy had been no rule of the apostolic church; and, though writers of ability have attempted to maintain the contrary even in modern times, their contentions are unhesitatingly rejected by the latest Roman Catholic authority.3 The gradual growth of clerical celibacy, first as a custom and then as a rule of discipline, can be traced clearly enough even through the scanty records of the first few centuries.

In 1 774 some of the Virginia brethren became convinced that the apostolic office was meant to be perpetuated and induced the association to appoint an apostle.

But he left behind him a "Wholesome Counsel" to Scottish heads of families, reminding them that within their own houses they were "bishop and kings," and recommending the institution of something like the early apostolic worship in private congregations.

He was created a protonotary apostolic, and in July returned to Germany, as papal nuncio, with the celebrated bull Exsurge Domine directed against Luther's writings.

His History of the Apostolic Church (in German, 1851; in English, 1853) and his History of the Christian Church (7 vols., 1858-1890), opened a new period in American study of ecclesiastical history.

Not a few such traditions Irenaeus has embodied in his work Against Heresies, so preserving in some cases the substance of Papias's Exposition (see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1891, for these, as for all texts bearing on Papias).

In the Apostolic age itself, "apostle" often denotes simply an "envoy," commissioned by Jesus Christ to be a primary witness and preacher of the Messianic Kingdom.

Other apostles soon went forth 1 By analogy, that is; for the wider sense of "apostle" in the Apostolic age need not be identical with a sub-apostolic use of the term (see below, 4 fin.).

The same lesson emerges when we note that one such apostolic "pillar" stood outside the Twelve altogether, viz.

So the notion of formal or constitutional authority attaching to the apostolate, in its various senses, is an anachronism for the apostolic age.

This change of conception helped to further the notion of a certain devolution of apostolic powers to successors constituted by act of ordination.

The earliest idea of an apostolical succession meant simply the re-emergence in others of the apostolic spirit of missionary enthusiasm.

Of the notion of apostolic succession in ministerial grace conferred by ordination, there is little or no trace before Irenaeus.

Nor is there mention of sacerdotal grace attaching to the succession in apostolic truth.

But once the idea of supernatural grace going along with office as such (of which we have already a trace in the Ignatian bishop, though without the notion of actual apostolic succession) arose in connexion with successio ab apostolis, the full development of the doctrine was but a matter of time.4 Literature.

The Lutheran bishops, as a rule, do not possess or claim unbroken "apostolic succession"; those of Finland and Sweden are, however, an exception.

Ecclesiastical ceremonies are part of the divine service; most of them have apostolic origin; and those connected with the sacrament must not be omitted by priests under pain of mortal sin.

The indications of the use of this Gospel in the two or three generations following the Apostolic Age (see Gospel) are more plentiful than of any of the others.

He returned to his native city in 1672 to become professor of anatomy, but, having become a Roman Catholic, he found it expedient to return to Florence, and was ultimately made apostolic vicar of Lower Saxony.

The Brethren, generally known, from their place of origin, as the Plymouth Brethren, have " rooms " and adherents throughout England; the Catholic Apostolic Church ("Irvingites ") have some 80 churches; the New Jerusalem Church(Swedenborgians) had (1908) 75 " societies "; the Christian Scientists, the Christadelphians, the British Israelites and similar societies, such as the New and Latter House of Israel, the Seventh Day Baptists, deserve mention.

He filled the offices of apostolic vicar of Avignon, legate at the council of Trent, nuncio to Venice, and president of the Inquisition.

The Apostolic Fathers say nothing about Simon Magus, but with Justin Martyr we get startling developments.

His mother, the duchess, died in 1472, and his first wife in 1473; in 1475 and the following year he went on pilgrimage to the holy places of Italy; from this time forth there was a strong tincture of serious reflection thrown over his character; he was now, as we learn from Caxton, nominated "Defender and Director of the Siege Apostolic for the Pope in England."

It is suggested that the legend arose from a desire to trace the christianizing of his kingdom to an apostolic source.

A serious conflict arose between Hincmar on the one side and Charles and the pope on the other in 876, when Pope John VIII., at the king's request, entrusted Ansegisus, archbishop of Sens, with the primacy of the Gauls and of Germany, and created him vicar apostolic. In Hincmar's eyes this was an encroachment on the jurisdiction of the archbishops, and it was against this primacy that he directed his treatise De jure metropolitanorum.

The patriarch receives confirmation from Rome, and the political representation of the Maronites at Constantinople is in the hands of the vicar apostolic. Rome has incorporated most of the Maronite saints in her calendar, while refusing (despite their apologists) to canonize either of the reputed eponymous founders of Maronism.

Mgr Rahmani's view, that it is a work of the 2nd century, is universally discredited; nor has Funk's contention found acceptance, that it and the Canons of Hippolytus are alike derived ultimately from the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions.

But the Campbellite doctrines differed widely from the hyper-Calvinism of the Baptists whom they had joined in 1813, especially on the points on which Stone had quarrelled with the Presbyterians; and after various local breaks in 1825-1830, when there were large additions to the Restorationists from the Baptist ranks, especially under the apostolic fervour and simplicity of the preaching of Walter Scott (1796-1861), in 1832 the Reformers were practically all ruled out of the Baptist communion.

It will be observed that these make no claim to apostolic authorship; but otherwise their origin is like that of the rest, unless indeed, as has been suggested, they represent the work of an actual Roman synod.

The apostles no longer speak jointly, but, one by one in an apostolic council, and the section closes with a joint decree of them all.

The third section consists of the Apostolic Canons already referred to, the last and most significant of which places the Constitutions and the two epistles of Clement in the canon of Scripture, and omits the Apocalypse.

These, however, stand on an entirely different footing, since they are simply collections of existing documents, and no attempt is made to claim apostolic authorship for them.

Thus the only pseudo-epigraphic document preserved in the law of the Greek Church is the small collection of the eighty-five so-called " Apostolic Canons " (q.v.).

Towards the same date, also, the so-called " Apostolic Canons " were placed at the head of the group. Such was the condition of the Greek collection when it was translated and introduced into the West.

The manuscript which he used contained only the first fifty of the Apostolic Canons; these he translated, and they thus became part of the law of the West.

Under the provisions of this statute, the " archbishops and bishops of the ancient Apostolic and Catholic Church of Ireland " (so they describe themselves), together with representatives of the clergy and laity, assembled in 1870, in " General Convention," to " provide for the regulation " of that church.

The apostolic age supplied this identification, and the normal use during it seems to have been " into Christ Jesus," or " in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ," or "of Jesus Christ " simply, or " of the Lord Jesus Christ."

But opinion was still fluid about baptism in the apostolic age, especially as to its connexion with the descent of the Spirit.

He gathered from the Apocalypse a vision of "resurrections" of apostolic Christianity, first under John Hus, and now under himself.

Churchmen, small and great, as he held, had been corrupted, because they had fallen away from the early Christian idea of apostolic poverty.

The usage of the Christian church during the earlier centuries was in this, as in so many other matters, influenced by traditional Jewish feeling, and by the force of old habit, quite as much as by any direct apostolic authority or supposed divine command.

Unitarians carry their history up to the Apostolic age, claim for their doctrine a prevalence during the ante-Nicene period, and by help of Arian communities and individual thinkers trace a continuity of their views to the present time.

In the apostolic age the duties of deacons were naturally vague and undefined.

The bishops constitute the episcopal synod, the supreme court of appeal, 1 During the long period of proscription, the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland survived in scattered groups; after the Reformation it was at first under the jurisdiction of the English arch-priest, but from 1653 to 1694 it was governed by prefects apostolic and from 1694 to 1878 by vicars apostolic appointed by the pope.

The ultramontane and oppressively burdensome church had been taunted with its lack of Christian charity, apostolic Dovertv and primitive virtue.

But three years after the arrival of Frontenac a former vicar apostolic, Francois Xavier de Laval de Montmorenci, returned to Quebec as bishop, with a jurisdiction over the whole of Canada.

After the protonotaries left the sketching of the minutes to the abbreviators, those de Farce majori, who ranked as prelates, were the most important officers of the apostolic chancery.

In the common faith of the Gentile churches after the Apostolic Age "the present dominion of evil demons, or of one evil demon, was just as generally presupposed as man's need of redemption, which was regarded as a result of that dominion.

He induced Nicholas, however, to appoint him as apostolic vicar-general in Savoy, Piedmont and other parts of his own dominions, and to make him a cardinal.

Soon he founded an Apostolic congregation at whose head he placed himself.

The Book of Baruch was never accepted as canonical by the Palestinian Jews (Baba Batra, 4 b), though the Apostolic Constitutions, v.

This is the only Church which is truly apostolic.

Pet. was seen to be tainted with the Docetic heresy, and the Shepherd was not apostolic.

Graham, I have understood apostolic succession to be through Christ and the Holy Spirit and " passed down " to all believers.

This is the true apostolic succession from Paul to men like ML-J and on to the coming of the Lord.

In the second century the bias was very strongly in the direction of attributing Apostolic authorship to documents accepted into the Canon.

And for Matthew's Gospel the claim of apostolic authorship was made.

With these wishes to you all, I send with a pledge of continuing affection, a special apostolic benediction.

For apostolic motives, some lay men and women embrace celibacy as a gift from God.

For their seizure of Roman Apostolic power was to become definitive - unto this day.

He was appointed apostolic exarch for Ukrainian Catholics in Great Britain on 24 June 1989 and installed in London on 10 October that year.

However, the context of the apostolic exhortation is always the grace of God.

They needed to go back to the apostolic gospel.

But it has some venerable apostolic and catholic heft behind it.

Beale's volume is a valuable resource for many major articles on apostolic hermeneutics.

Further, the epistles at least echo the faith of the apostolic kerygma.

He spent himself in apostolic works and practiced austere mortification.

The unity of early Christianity and the stress on apostolic authority counts heavily against the entirely mythical Jesus.

The spontaneity, the sheer human verve, and the naivety at times of the apostolic writings is there for all to see.

To you, dear Brother Bishops, I commend this Year, confident that you will welcome my invitation with full apostolic zeal.

A papal bull of the 15th of June 1520, which condemned forty-one propositions extracted from Luther's teachings, was taken to Germany by Eck in his capacity of apostolic nuncio, published by him and the legates Alexander and Caracciola, and burned by Luther on the 10th of December at Wittenberg.

Or it may be described as denying (i) that the apostolic office is perpetual and should still exist in the Christian Church; (2) that all church power should be vested in the clergy; (3) that each congregation should be independent of all the rest; and as asserting (r) that the people ought to have a substantial part in the government of the Church; (2) that presbyters, i.e.

In both capacities, however, a certain undefined pre-eminence was conceded to the occupants of " Apostolic " sees, i.e.

In the original form of the Nicene creed itself it does not occur; but in the creed of Jerusalem (348), an amplification of the Nicene symbol, we find " one Holy Catholic Church," and in the revision by Cyril of Alexandria (362) " Catholic and Apostolic Church " (see Creeds).

It strengthened the hands of church democracy; it formed an alliance with the pure souls who held up to the church the ideal of apostolic poverty; it united itself for a time even with mysticism in a common opposition to the supremacy of the church; nay, it lent the strength of its convictions to the support of states and princes in their efforts to break the political power of the church.

Before this he had been sent by Archbishop Affre to Rome, and had been appointed Roman prelate and protonotary apostolic. For thirty years he remained a notable figure in France, doing his utmost to arouse his countrymen from religious indifference.

The secular power over riches and worldly goods which the clergy possesses in contradiction to Christ's precept, to the prejudice of its office and to the detriment of the secular arm, shall be taken and withdrawn from it, and the clergy itself shall be brought back to the evangelical rule and an apostolic life such as that which Christ and his apostles led...

The consciousness of being in the line of apostolic succession helped the English clergy to revert to the principle Ecclesia est in episcopo, and the great periodical conferences of Anglican bishops from all parts of the world have something of the character, though they do not claim the ecumenical authority, of the general councils of the early Church (see Lambeth Conferences).

It is the chief port of Queensland for the New Guinea trade; and is also the seat of a Roman Catholic vicariate apostolic whose bishop has jurisdiction over the whole of Queensland north of lat.

In Kerk Street, on the outskirts of central Johannesburg, is the Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, the headquarters of the vicar apostolic of the Transvaal.

If the superscription be not from the hand of the actual brother of Jesus, the question may well be asked why some apostolic name was not chosen which might convey greater authority ?

In addition the Histories of the Apostolic Age, by Hausrath, Weizsacker, McGiffert, Bartlet, Ropes and others, and the kindred works of Baur, Schwegler and Pfleiderer should be consulted.

As regards Papias's Exposition, which Lightfoot describes as "among the earliest forerunners of commentaries, partly explanatory, partly illustrative, on portions of the New Testament," we need here only remark that, whatever its exact form may have been - as to which the extant fragments still leave room for doubt - it was in conception expository of the historic meaning of Christ's more ambiguous Sayings, viewed in the light of definitely ascertained apostolic traditions bearing on the subject.

These personal traits determine by selective affinity, working under conditions given by the special local type of tradition and piety, the elements in the Apostolic writings which each was able to assimilate and express - though we must allow also for variety in the occasions of writing.

The idea of the apostolic appointment of church officers is as old as Clement of Rome (see 1 Clement 44), but the use of the theory to guarantee the apostolic character of episcopal teaching was due to the exigencies of the Gnostic conflict.

Written sources from the 1st and 2nd centuries are relatively few, comprising, in addition to some scattered allusions by outsiders, the New Testament, the Apostolic Fathers, the Greek Apologists, Clement of Alexandria, the old Catholic Fathers (Irenaeus, Tertullian and Hippolytus) and a few Gnostic fragments.

The bishops kept their old title, but they described themselves accurately as " bishops by grace of the apostolic see," for they administered their dioceses as plenipotentiaries of the pope; and as time went on even the Church's criminal jurisdiction became more and more concentrated in the hands of the pope (see Inquisition).

In 1830, however, there was opened up to his ardent imagination a new vista into spiritual things, a new hope for the age in which he lived, by the seeming actual revival in a remote corner of Scotland of those apostolic gifts of prophecy and healing which he had already in 1828 persuaded himself had only been kept in abeyance by the absence of faith.

But from this enormous increase of territory and influence arose a whole series of new and difficult problems. The court of Rome had to substitute for the old Greek hierarchy a hierarchy of Latin bishops; to force the remaining Greek clergy to practise the beliefs and rites of the Roman religion and bow to the supremacy of the pope; to maintain in the Greco-Latin Eastern Church the necessary order, morality and subordination; to defend it against the greed and violence of the nobles and barons who had founded the Latin Empire; and to compel the leaders of the new empire to submit to the apostolic power and execute its commands.

The consequent loosening of the ties between the individual provinces of the Church and the Apostolic See, combined with the capricious policy of the court at Avignon, which often regarded nothing but personal .and family interests, accelerated the decay of the ecclesiastical organism, and justified the most dismal forebodings for the future.

This is really the earliest extant Christian homily (see Apostolic Fathers).

Believing that the ordinances and apostolic church organization had been lost in the general apostasy, he became convinced that it was presumptuous for any man or company of men to undertake their restoration without a special divine commission.

He calls him a man of small mental capacity, who took the figurative language of apostolic traditions for literal fact.

It maintained the simplicity of Apostolic Christianity against the elaborate system of a corrupt Philp t hierarchy, the teaching of Scripture alone against the commentaries of the fathers and the traditions of the church, the right of private judgment against the dictation of ecclesiastical authority, the individual responsibility of every human soul before God in opposition to the papal control over purgatorial punishments, which had led to the revolting degradation of venal indulgences.

For this exercise of the primacy as for the others, we must conceive of the pope and the episcopate united to him as a continuation of the Apostolic College and its head Peter.

Several conventions guarantee the free communication of the bishops, clergy and laity with the Holy See; and this admits of the publication and execution of apostolic letters in matters spiritual.

In the initial stages of the Apostolic Church it was no doubt sufficient to have a plurality of presbyters with absolutely similar duties and powers.

Even, therefore, where people desired the Reformation there were powerful influences opposed to the setting up of church government and to the exercise of church discipline after the manner of the apostolic Church; and one ceases to wonder at the absence of complete Presbyterianism in the countries which were forward to embrace and adopt the Reformation.

It is not then surprising that we hear little of it after the apostolic age.

They obtained the sanction of Innocent III., and returning to Assisi they gave themselves up to their life of apostolic preaching and work among the poor.

Perceiving the advantage of a visit to the imperial and apostolic court after the Italian occupation of Rome and the suppression of the religious orders, and convinced of the value of more cordial intercourse with the German empire, Visconti-Venosta and Minghetti advised their sovereign to accept both the Austrian and the subsequent German invitations.

Notwithstanding the pontiffs bestowal of the apostolic benediction in articulo mortis upon Victor Emmanuel, the attitude of the Vatican had remained so inimical as to make it doubtful whether the conclave would be held in Rome.

After obtaining the establishment of an apostolic prefecture in Eritrea under the charge of Italian Franciscans, Baratieri expelled from the colony the French Lazarist missionaries for their alleged complicity in the Bath-Agos insurrection; and in March 1895 undertook the conquest of Tigr.

The theory, as expressed in legal phrase by St Cyprian in the 3rd century, was that the apostolic power of delegated sovereignty from the Lord, alike legislative and judicial, was held in joint-tenancy by the whole body of Catholic bishops.

He was denounced by the pope himself in an apostolic brief of the rlth of December 1862, and students of theology were forbidden to attend his lectures.

The ante-Nicene period of patristic literature opens with the "apostolic fathers," 5 i.e.

The fathers of the first six or seven centuries, so far as they agree, may be fairly taken to represent the main stream of Christian tradition and belief during the period when the apostolic teaching took shape in the great creeds and dogmatic decisions of Christendom.

He continued to work at his editions of the Apostolic Fathers, and in 1885 published an edition of the Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp, collecting also a large store of valuable materials for a second edition of Clement of Rome, which was published after his death (1st ed., 1869).

As to the canonicity and apostolic authorship of the Johannine Apocalypse no doubts were ever entertained in the West; indeed an Apocalypse of Peter was still retained in the canon in the 3rd century.

It strengthened the hands of church democracy; it formed an alliance with the pure souls who held up to the church the ideal of apostolic poverty; it united itself for a time even with mysticism in a common opposition to the supremacy of the church.

The vision at Valarshapat was invented later by the Armenians when they broke with the Greeks, in order to give to their church the semblance, if not of apostolic, at least of divine origin.

On the 29th of September Cardinal Ant onelli further apprised Baron Blanc that he was about to issue drafts for the monthly payment of the 50,000 crowns inscribed in the pontifical budget for the maintenance of the pope, the Sacred College, the apostolic palaces and the papal guards.

By Article 15 the government relinquished its rights to apostolic legation in Sicily, and to theap. pointment of its own nominees to the chief benefices throughout the kingdom.