perhaps, even, an apostolic rule-to a heresy? Aërius has, in fact, anticipated the arguments of both Blondel and Salmasius; arguments for which these require to be considered as teachers (and the only teachers) of truth, but for which he was condemned as a heretic. S. Epiphanius, against Aërius, well observes that S. Timothy could not have had the power given to him to judge a presbyter, unless he had been superior to a presbyter; and that no presbyter has power given him to rebuke S. Timothy. This power did not of course depend on his age. (1 Tim. iv. 12).

Salmasius also has alluded to the case of Aerius, 'wondering 'what error Aerius held in saying that presbyters were of equal rank and privileges with Bishops.' This is the very point on which both S. Epiphanius and S. Augustine insist as a conclusive proof of his heresy. Our view, as stated above, of S. Jerome's meaning in identifying Bishops and priests, is so far supported by the history of Aerius as that S. Jerome does admit the three degrees of priesthood, and is held a father of the Catholic Church; while Aërius denies them, and is therefore condemned and cast out of her pale.

Salmasius' argument, indeed, here as elsewhere, is fatal to itself. He thinks that Aërius could not have been so commonly ignorant as to deny that the power of ordination had been peculiar to Bishops alone, since the Council of Ancyra in 314, though allowed to presbyters before an assumption which, if we were in controversy with him, could easily be exposed.

Blondel has offered a catena of witnesses to prove that the original opinion accorded with that which he imagines S. Jerome to have held, and which considered a Bishop and priest as one and the same ecclesiastical order; but none of his witnesses do prove it.

This question is clearly one of much weight with reference to Mr. Greenwood's particular subject. For if presbytery were equally with episcopacy the order of the apostles; and a presbyter headed, or might have headed, the Church of Rome; there is at once an end of any claim, not merely of superiority, but even of existence, on the part of the Bishop of Rome. But an argument which proves too much is always a fundamentally bad one; and error may always be refuted without the destruction of essential truth. As far as regards the historical part of the argument, we have endeavoured to show that Mr. Greenwood's theory has not the testimony of history in its favour, but rather is opposed by it. We have dwelt on

this at more length, perhaps, than will be agreeable to our readers but familiar and primary truths require to be restated from time to time, as fresh denials of them are spread abroad.

For the abstract part of the question, we shall do well to consider the forcible and pertinent words of Bishop Pearson :

Our opponents confess that, about 140 years after Christ, the Episcopate was universally received, and churches throughout the whole world flourished under Bishops truly so called. When they grant this, it is according to reason that they should confess that this episcopate flowed downwards from the Apostles. For no other way could ever be thought of by which one form of government was impressed on all Christian churches. There was at that time no general Council in which all might at once unite in the admission of the same order; nay, there was no Council at all before Bishops; none but by Bishops. Let, then, these innovators tell us by what machinery the episcopal chair was introduced into all presbyteral consistories. In truth, if all other arguments should fail, this one alone, invented by themselves, would deter all religious minds from all opposition to Bishops. For if the episcopate were received by all the churches agreeing together at once (as they would have it), it is right that it should not be rejected except by the agreement of all the churches together; which doubtless will never be done unless also that promise of Christ be made of no effect; "I will be with you always,

even to the end of the world.” '1

In a word, to this original idea of ecclesiastical discipline, not only is there the great and fatal objection at the outset, that it is contrary to the testimony of history; but there are continually rising up minor difficulties that must be accounted for and explained; and any or all of which are very apt to prove fatal to the whole idea.

S. Peter, then, according to history, having certainly visited Rome, and there died; and a Bishop (as the word is now understood, i. e. an officer of the first grade, an Apostle ordinary) having succeeded him; and so much depending on that succession, as Mr. Greenwood admits: we will now, to leave no link of our chain imperfect, inquire briefly into the order and chronology of that early succession. Mr. Greenwood, after some hesitation, admits that there were Bishops at Rome immediately after the Apostles; but if he have once proved that presbyterian government was the authorized order in some churches, his mere opinion that it was not such in any particular church will not suffice to prove it. Chevalier Bunsen's opinion appears to weigh with Mr. Greenwood more than that of any other individual; not to say of all history. And hence, when he expresses his own sentiments of the manner of government of the early Church, he varies, and concludes differently in different places. And it is only when supported by the Chevalier that he seems finally to admit that the Roman Church was governed by Bishops.

Chevalier Bunsen pledges himself, as Mr. Greenwood tells us, to settle, in a forthcoming work, more than one of the great

1 Ordo Episcopalis, Apostolicus, § iv. Opuscula Tom. i. p. 281.

questions as to the order and chronology of the early Bishops of Rome, which have hitherto proved to the historian invincible perplexities. The want of contemporary records has surrounded the subject with impenetrable obscurity; and where such men as Baronius, Patavius, Pearson, Pagi, &c., have laboured so long and so diligently, and yet, overcome by the sheer impossibility of the task, have been compelled to leave the subject hardly less confused than they found it, we hope we may be pardoned if we express a doubt as to whether it is destined to receive the solution of its many and intricate difficulties from the Chevalier. That gentleman may, and, we doubt not, will succeed in redeeming his pledge to his own. satisfaction and that of his admirers: but we question whether the world at large will receive the conclusions at which he may arrive, as final and decisive; or be inclined to repose in them with a reliance at all proportioned to the confidence with which he offers them to its acceptance.

There were no records kept of the Bishops of Rome who immediately succeeded the Apostles; and the little we know of their order and chronology that is really trustworthy, is derived from a few scattered passages of the early writers. S. Irenæus, Eusebius, S. Epiphanius, S. Jerome, S. Augustine, and a few others, have left us catalogues of their names and the order of their episcopate; but on the subject of the dates of their succession they are unfortunately silent. These are, therefore, involved in obscurity. It happens, too, to complicate the whole matter still more hopelessly, that even on the order of their succession itself, there have arisen in later times, questions which, settling nothing, have had only power to shake men's confidence in what does seem trustworthy. Bishop Pearson thinks that Fabian, the successor of Auteros, collected the Acts of the Martyrs about the year 236, after the brief Maximinian persecution; and he says that from that time forward there was kept a record of such of the Bishops of Rome as received the crown of martyrdom; to which were added (about the age of Julius, he supposes) the names of the rest.1

The difficulties of this subject then belong first, to the order, and secondly and chiefly, to the chronology of this succession. Ancient records and modern, and East and West, differ from each other on both points. These difficulties can now only be stated their solution is beyond the power of any one; except, indeed, (as he himself thinks,) of Chevalier Bunsen.

S. Irenæus, every way a trusty witness, writes as follows:

1 'De Successione primorum Romæ Episcoporum.'-Dissert. I. ch. iv. §§ 4, 5.

The Apostles committed the Church to Linus, (of whom 'S. Paul makes mention in his First Epistle to Timothy,) and to Linus succeeded Anacletus; after him, in the third place from the Apostles, came Clement, who also saw the 'Holy Apostles .... to whom succeeded Evarestus.'1 The same order is given by S. Epiphanius, 2 and S. Jerome, 3 S. Augustine in his letter to Generosus, in the printed edition of his works, puts Anacletus after Clement; but in one of the Vatican MSS. he gives the same order as the others here cited.*

But there is another class of authorities which gives the succession differently. The missals and breviaries make five popes before Evarestus; their succession is-Peter, Linus, Cletus, Clement, for Clement, Cletus,] Anacletus, Evarestus: and the question, which will probably never be solved, but on which much that closely affects the subsequent history turns, is whether Cletus and Anacletus are one and the same person, or two different persons. The testimony of the ancients is, as we have seen, decisive of the former opinion. The moderns are divided on the point. Baronius, Petavius, Pagi, and others, admit both Cletus and Anacletus. Valesius, Cotelerius, Natalis Alexander, Tillemont, and Pearson, consider the two names to belong to the same Pope. Bishop Pearson thinks the cause of the confusion to have been that S. Cyprian, following S. Irenæus, said that Hyginus was the ninth Bishop including S. Peter; but that those Latins who had no knowledge of S. Irenæus, ' and had been used to consider Linus as the first Bishop, were ' compelled to place seven Bishops between him and Hyginus 'to make the number correspond; and this obliged them to ' add the name of Anacletus to that of Cletus.'

Whether this, however, is cause sufficient to account for the spread of the mistake-for such it appears to be-and whether any Latins could be ignorant of the true succession, may perhaps be a question. Indeed the mention of them as distinct persons in the rude lines of the ancient poem against Marcion, composed about the time and published under the name of Tertullian, may suggest a doubt whether the idea be not possibly more ancient than S. Cyprian. Bishop Pearson rejects the statement of the missals and breviaries, as being founded on the Liber Pontificalis,' a work, in his opinion, of too doubtful authority to be set against the assertions of the early writers, especially of S. Irenæus."

On the other hand, it may be urged in favour of considering

1 Lib. iii. cap. 3.

3 De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis.

Dissertationes II. cap. i. § vi.

2 Her. 27.

Epist. liii. tom. ii. Ed. Bened.

them to be different persons, that they have two days given them in the martyrologies, and quite different histories, which could not have been derived from one source originally common to both. Cletus' day is April 26th, and he is described as a Roman by birth; Anacletus' is on July 13th, and he is said to have been a Grecian, and native of Athens. But, as Bishop Pearson asks, 'Who can suppose the family, the country, and the death-days of those Popes to have been known to any one 400 years and more after their time, on which nothing is 'known to have been written by any of the ancients?'1

Chevalier Bunsen's promise appears to us of no real value in itself, if for no other reason, yet from the fact that in the glimpse Mr. Greenwood has given us of the manner in which it is to be performed, we detect at the very outset a flaw which must vitiate and render null and worthless the whole undertaking. He pledges himself to establish, among other things, his opinion that Linus and Cletus, the two Bishops who immediately succeeded the Apostles, sat together. This is, of course, the very idea we should expect from him on the subject, for it is that which he has already maintained in his Hippolytus; yet it is one wholly unsupported by ancient authority. It began, says Bishop Pearson, with Rufinus in the fourth and fifth centuries, and it was certainly unknown to S. Irenæus or those who more immediately succeeded him. The ancients, as we have seen, agree in stating the order of the Bishops, and they also state decidedly that they succeeded each other, not that they were contemporary Bishops. We reject, then, the idea that there were two Bishops sitting at Rome (or anywhere else) at once: nor can even the labours and the learning of Baronius or Pagi convince us that Cletus and Anacletus were different persons; for the opinion is modern, and however imposing the authorities on which it rests, they are (with the one exception of the poem ascribed to Tertullian) mediæval and not ancient, and thus are not entitled to displace the express statements of S. Irenæus and other early writers who could not but have known the truth, and who are therefore the true sources to which we must look for a decision of the question. Eusebius, in the dates he assigns to S. Clement and his predecessors in his 'History' and 'Chronicon,' is not quite consistent with himself; yet we see no difficulty in accepting his general statement, (which agrees with that of S. Irenæus, and is supported by S. Jerome, in his De Script. Eccles.,') that, before S. Clement, there had sat two successive Bishops, whose united episcopates carry us down to the close of the first century. But because S. Clement, in chapters xl. and xli., seems to speak as if the service of the Ibid. cap. i. § 7.