"answer for him to Christ." But we are not told that he exercised the power of the Keys. Moreover, the man of God may indeed be a priest (as in this instance of the Apostle), but he need not be such. Any Christian who is sufficiently advanced in perfection and worthy of the title of "gnostic" can be called on to direct and correct his brethren. Clement has said elsewhere that those who live according to the rules of perfection and the gnosis can be enrolled among the Apostles, and indeed that such men, even though not members of the official hierarchy, are true priests in the eyes of God.

On another point, however, the power of repentance to wash away sins committed after baptism-Clement's message is clear. According to him, any Christian who has lapsed into sin can find in repentance "a second baptism." Thus, when St. John considered that the brigand had been sufficiently purified in his tears, he restored him to the Church. It is in Clement that we first find this doctrine of the power of repentance. True, he claims to get it from Hermas; but he is mistaken. In reality, Hermas claims to be sticking to the old principle that a Christian who falls into sin must remain outside the Church, since repentance is of no avail except before baptism. And if he announces "repentance for once" to his sinning brethren, it is by exception and in virtue of a revelation from on high. For once only, God will receive guilty Christians if they repent. But this departure from the principle will not be renewed. In the Pastor, this is a privilege granted to the contemporaries of Hermas. Clement sees in it a general law applicable to every generation of Christians. This was a misinterpretation of the text, but it was widely adopted. After Clement, the Fathers admitted guilty Christians to repentance; but "for once only."

Orders. Clement shows knowledge of our hierarchy of three degrees. He sees in it a reflection of the angelic hierarchies, an image of the world of the elect in which also he discerns three degrees of glory. He says in the Stromata: "In my opinion, the grades here in the Church, of bishops, priests, and deacons, are imitations of the angelic glory, and of that economy which, the Scriptures say, awaits those who follow in the footsteps of the Apostles." In the Pædagogus also we find mention of the three ecclesiastical orders. However, in several passages of the Stromata the episcopate is passed over in silence where we

Strom. vi, 13.

In the Quis dives, 42, Clement proves his thesis by appealing to Luke xv. 7; Osee vi, 13; Ezech. xviii, 23; Luc. v, 21; Luc. xi, 13.

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should expect to see it mentioned, and only the two other grades are referred to. For instance: "In the Church the priests attend to the department which has improvement for its object: and the deacons to the ministerial. Also, when praising the gnostic, or perfect Christian: "He is worthy to be enrolled among the Apostles. Such an one is in reality a priest of the Church and a true minister (deacon) of the will of God...not as being ordained by men...but enrolled in the presbyterate because righteous. And although here upon earth he be not honored with the chief seat, he will sit down on the four-and-twenty thrones judging the people, as John says in the Apocalypse.' It must be granted that in the former of these two passages Clement is led by his subject to mention only two grades of the ministry. He had therefore a reason for leaving unmentioned the episcopal order, although a theologian of later times would no doubt have found a way of bringing in the bishops as well as the priests. However, this explanation does not hold good of the second text. Here the perfect Christian is spoken of as being worthy to belong to the ranks of the Apostles, worthy to be accounted among the priests, among those who are honored with the "chief seat." It is difficult to avoid the impression that the priests are the inheritors of the Apostles, and the holders of the "chief seat." To sum up: Clement is acquainted with the episcopal order, and yet seems to consider the presbyterate as the chief ecclesiastical dignity. The solution of this difficulty is probably to be found in the letter of St. Jerome to Evangelius when he says that during the second century and the first thirty years of the third, the episcopate at Alexandria was merely a commission granted by the clergy to one of their members by a majority vote.

Clerical Celibacy. At the end of Book II. of the Stromata Clement lays down, concerning the conduct of married people, rules which he seems to apply to himself: "Let us purge away from marriage every foul and polluting practice.... Marriage must be kept pure as a sacred statue. We are to arise from our slumbers with the Lord, and retire to sleep with thanksgiving and prayer." These passages give some grounds for believing that their author was himself married— and Clement was a priest. Further on, in the course of a dissertation which aimed at establishing against the Gnostics the lawfulness of marriage, the author of the Stromata writes: "The apostle receives the man of one wife, whether he be priest, deacon, or laic, so long as

8 Strom. vi, 13; viii, 1.

he uses his marriage lawfully." Here, it is evident, marriage is allowed to the priest and the deacon equally with the layman, on condition of proper use of it. The same teaching is found in another passage where we read: "What answer can be given to these texts (of St. Paul) by those who claim that marriage, though approved by the Mosaic Law, is no longer tolerated under the new Covenant? What answer can be given by those who hold in horror the act of cohibition and generation? Moreover, the apostle puts at the head of the Church the bishop who rules well his household-by which expression he indicates marriage."

'Strom. ii, 23; iii, 12; iii, 18; cf. Funk Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen. i, 146.

NOTES.

Some months ago we hazarded the statement that "the storm-center of the Catholic intellectual movement is shifting rapidly from France to Italy." At that time the word "storm" in the above phrase seemed somewhat too strong to describe the situation, but even then there were floating straws which indicated a rising wind-the decision about the Pentateuch, the condemnation of Il Santo, the Pope's letter on Italian seminaries, etc. And certain events chronicled in our last issue the suspension of Abbate Murri, the condemnation of Il Rinnovamento, and the Pope's address to the new Cardinals-point in the same direction. On account of the distance which separates us from the scene of strife, we must depend for information on the news purveyed by Roman correspondents to British and American journals. Here are a few selections which relate to the two men who seem to be most directly under fire, the Abbate Murri and Signor Fogazzaro.

The first is from Rome:-The two leading "liberal" Catholics of Italy just now are Don Murri and Senator Fogazzaro. Against the former the Holy Father himself has been obliged after waiting long and patiently to take very severe measures. The second has just inaugurated in Turin a series of "religious" lectures with one on "the biological origin of religious consciousness." The ecclesiastical authorities had previously made the following announcement: "To the Catholic Church alone belongs the instruction of her children in Christian dogma and morals. It is fitting, therefore, that priests, who should always be an example to the laity, abstain from attending any religious conference given independently of the ecclesiastical authority." Before the lecture Fogazzaro alluded thus to the opposition of the authorities: "The only opposition I anticipate to our enterprise is that of those who profess a negative dogmatism about the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, or who consider religious questions as unworthy of study. I am aware of these hostilities and I rejoice in them." These lectures have been founded with the proceeds of a book placed on the Index and they are to be managed by a Committee of Catholics whose Catholicity is swallowed up in their liberalism.

The correspondent of the Tablet puts it as follows: Great prominence has been given in the Liberal papers of Italy like the Corriere della Sera and the Giornale d'Italia to the inauguration this week at Turin of the scientifico-religious lectures instituted by Senator Fogazzaro. Before writing his book Il Santo, which has since been placed on the Index of prohibited books, the Senator determined to devote the profits of it to a foundation of lectures of this kind. The Cardinal Archbishop of Turin forbade any of his priests to attend the opening lecture, which was delivered by Piero Giacosa, and had for its subject "the biological origin of the religious consciousness." The treatment of the subject was about

as non-Catholic as could well be imagined, but Fogazzaro had already explained to the audience that he had no intention of binding his lectures down to Catholic teaching. It is very likely that the ecclesiastical authori-ties will either issue a general prohibition against Catholics attending these lectures, or will forbid them one by one as they are announced.

The correspondent of the New World sees things on a brighter side:Signor Antonio Fogazzaro, the author of Il Santo, has received a letterfrom President Roosevelt, who, after complimenting him highly on his literary work, has given him a most cordial invitation to come to America. In a recent interview with the representative of the "Stampa," SignorFogazzaro referred to this book, and its condemnation, saying that the measures taken by the ecclesiastical authorities had caused him the profoundest sorrow, but that he had done his duty by submitting to the Church, and his submission was both spontaneous and entire. It is to be hoped, indeed, that his submission was not merely a matter of form, though there have not been wanting signs, which make one fear he is not altogether sincere in his protestations. In the same interview he speaks with great sympathy of Don Romolo Murri, living in retirement with the shadow of Holy Church's condemnation on him, at the same time he bears witness to Don Murri's firm attachment to the Catholic faith, adding he is sure that Don Romolo will accept the Church's chastisement in the spirit of a good Catholic. We have heard the same said of Don Murri by a priest who was a college friend of his, "Don Romolo will never apostatize, he is at heart a good Catholic, and in his private life a most holy priest."

some

The condemnation of Il Rinnovamento naturally arouses curiosity about the personality of its editors. Turning to the Hibbert Journal of January last we find in an article by M. Paul Sabatier the following warm, and probably flattering, appreciation of one of them-Tommasso Gallarati Scotti. "Scotti belongs to the most aristocratic circles in Milan, but he has had the good fortune of finding among the members of the clergy who had charge of his education a man of peerless mental and moral worth. The pupil has proven worthy of his master, and for the past ten years Scotti, who is now about twenty-eight, has not ceased to live his ideas with an ever increasing intensity and sincerity." Sabatier then tells how the young layman allied himself with the movement controlled by the. Abbate Murri. It will be remembered that Signor Scotti presided last year at the meeting of the Christian Democrats which Don Murri was forbidden to attend.

Concerning the Holy Father's allocution in answer to the address of Cardinal Cavallari there are all sorts of speculations and prophecies from the unsoberly wise who know exactly what it means and what it portends.. The newspaper writers who inform us periodically that such and such an English Catholic author is to be put on the Index (for no other reason that anyone can assign unless presumably that he can write an article on a modern topic in decent English) would have us believe that henceforth and forever no Catholic scholar, under the penalties of "The Jackdaw of Rheims," shall discuss any religious question from a modern point of view.. Such views of the Holy Father's position are impertinences and absurdities..