There were, to be sure, a few individuals and groups here and there who while calling themselves Christians rejected the teaching of the Apostles in certain matters, and set up their own opinions, but such persons were by this very fact self-condemned. St. John writes of such, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." (I St. John 2:19.) St. Paul speaks of those who "have erred concerning the faith" (I Tim. 1:19 and 6:21), and directs Titus "a man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject." (Titus 3:10.) He warns the Galatians against those who teach some variant doctrine, and says, "though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." (Gal. 1:8.) We read in the Second Epistle of St. Peter (2:1) that "there shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies," and St. Jude, warning against false teachers, urges Christians that they "earnestly contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." (Jude 3.)

Clearly, then, there existed in the first century (a) on the one hand the organized body of those who followed the Apostles in doctrine, discipline and worship, i. e., the Church which Christ founded through His Apostles, and (b) various sects or denominations of those who called themselves Christians and no doubt considered that they were following Christ, but who differed from the doctrines and practice taught by the Apostles whom Christ had commissioned. And it is to be noted that the Apostles-men who had been trained by Christ Himself, who had seen Him after His resurrection, and had received the power and

illumination of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, whom Christ had commissioned and empowered as the official teachers of His Gospel, and who must have known if ever any men could what that Gospel was and what His aims and His spirit were these Apostles showed no tolerance whatsoever of divergence from the doctrines which they had been commissioned to teach. They repudiated with energy the idea of religious differences being insignificant.

The reason for this uncompromising attitude is one which it is very important to realize. It is simply the principle which guides the action of an honorable man in the case of a trust. The Christianity which the Apostles and those acting under their direction were teaching was not a matter of their opinions or speculations. If it had been, men of their good sense and good will would gladly have allowed freedom of thought and welcomed the contribution of the ideas of others. The reason that the Apostles were so dogmatic, and showed such hostility to differences from their doctrine was simply that the religion which they were teaching was not one which had grown out of their own speculations, but one which had been revealed by incarnate God, who had solemnly commissioned and charged them to teach it to the world,—a divine propaganda. "As My Father hath sent Me," He had said, "even so I send you." "He that heareth you heareth Me." "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Such a body of doctrine was no mere human opinion, perhaps true, perhaps false; it was absolute truth, divinely revealed. The warrant for their teaching was not "we think," but "our Lord taught." "That which we have seen and heard

declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." (I St. John 1:13.) St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, " For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received" (I Cor. 15:3), and to Timothy, "The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also." (II Tim. 2:2.) In the sphere of opinion differences were quite legitimate; but in the sphere of the Christian Faith Christ's appointed agents and teachers would have felt themselves false to a divinely committed and all-important trust unless they had used every effort to guard the faith from admixture or subtraction or perversion. Indifference to heresy would have been betrayal of their Lord's trust.

But what was to be done when questions arose, as with the passing of the years and the experience of new conditions the faith was subjected to scrutiny and attack, and deductions and applications were made necessary?

Obviously unless the work of incarnate God was to fail, the agency which He left in the world to teach His Gospel must continue to set forth that Gospel correctly. And the Church felt sure that it would be guided in such a way as to insure this. Christ had said of His Church, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (St. Matt. 16:18), and had promised the Apostles that the Holy Ghost should guide them into all truth (St. John 16:13); and as He had given commission to them to go into all the world and teach the Gospel He had declared, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

An example of the practical application of this faith of the Church that it could rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit is given in the 15th chapter of the Book of the Acts

of the Apostles. A perplexing question arose, highly important for the future of Christianity. A council of the Church was called, and after full discussion and careful consideration a decision was reached; and in setting this forth in the form of a letter the council declared, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." They felt that the corporate mind of the Church in such a matter expressed the mind of God. And as such the decision was accepted by the Church at large. This same procedure, in the same faith, was followed in the great General Councils, seven in all, in which certain points of the faith were explicitly defined. The writer on the Ecumenical Councils in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia says of these, "They form, so to speak, the mental process by which the Christian Church became conscious of the full meaning and proper bearing of its own fundamental doctrines."

Thus far it is largely the teaching function of the Church which has been emphasized. This, to be sure, was one of its chief purposes. The Christian Gospel was on its intellectual side as has been said a divine propaganda, a body of truth which incarnate God made known and commanded His missionaries to teach to the world. Pagans speculated; Christians knew; for God had told them. But our Blessed Lord did more than simply to tell men what was true in belief and right in conduct. He gave them the power to follow His teaching, by means of actual spiritual union with Himself. This was by means of the sacraments. Christ gave command to baptize, for example, as well as to teach.

The Church, then, had two important functions to perform: first to teach the faith, and second to administer the sacraments.

There was in the Apostolic Church a ministry apparently

existing in three grades: first the Apostles, second those called presbyters, and third the deacons. Men were commissioned to these offices with the laying on of hands.

As the years passed and Christianity spread, the continuous identity of the Church which Christ founded through His Apostles remained perfectly clear. But just as in the days of the Apostles there were those who departed from the faith and fellowship of the Church, so it was later. In the second, third, and fourth centuries various sects or denominations arose, Gnostics, Montanists, Manicheans, Donatists, Arians - a host of them differing from the Church on various matters and at variance among themselves. Some of these bodies were short-lived, others continued to exist for many years, but all finally dwindled and died.

It is not necessary to discuss the sincerity or the intelligence of the founders and members of these religious organizations. The plain fact is that such organizations were not the Church which Christ founded and commissioned, and where they differed from the faith taught by this divinely founded and guided Church they were wrong.

The Christian writers of the early centuries were perfectly clear about this. St. Clement in the first century and St. Ignatius in the early part of the second urge the necessity of unity with the Apostolic Church. St. Irenaeus in the early part of the second century, calling attention to the continuity and unanimity of the teaching of the Church and the diversity of heretical beliefs, speaks of "our faith" as having been received from the Church, and adds, "For this gift of God has been intrusted to the Church as breath was to the first created man for this purpose, that all the members receiving it may be vivified, and the means of communion with Christ has been distributed throughout it,