Temple at Jerusalem were still in existence, it has been concluded that he wrote that epistle, and therefore sat as Bishop of Rome, if not in A.D. 66, yet at latest before the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. His words, however, as Cotelerius and others have observed, are not conclusive, or necessarily to be received in a literal sense. And if we may infer anything relating to questions of chronology from a document which is in no way concerned with such subjects, but is occupied with matters entirely different, we might rather perhaps bring up S. Clement as a witness on the other side of the question. For, further on in his Epistle, he complains that those whom the Apostles had ordained were unlawfully deprived of their offices, although they had, for a long time, been well regarded by all.' He says, that S. Paul wrote to the Corinthians in the beginning of the Gospel." He speaks of the martyrdom of that Apostle and S. Peter as if it had taken place some time back.* These, as Tillemont justly observes, are not the expressions of one who is describing the events of three or four years ago merely. All, therefore, that can be really decided on the question is, that at the latter end of the century, either in A.D. 70, or from 90 to 100, S. Clement was sitting in the see of Rome as its Bishop. We should not omit to state that Bishop Pearson, from his own calculations, supported by the authority, such as it is, of Eutychius, (for we conceive it will be readily agreed that of the two, Pearson would rather support him, than that he could give authority to any statement or conclusion of that great scholar,) gives a much earlier date to S. Clement, concluding his episcopate A.D. 83, some years before Eusebius and S. Jerome begin it. But But among other difficulties to which his scheme gives rise, the Bishop is thus compelled to give S. Clement fourteen years, instead of the period from six to nine ascribed to him by ancient writers: that is, if it be fair to infer anything from an incomplete chapter of a posthumous, and perhaps unfinished work. At least those best entitled to decide, tell us that S. Clement died at the end of the century, and was succeeded by Evarestus; from whose time, whatever merely chronological difficulties there may be, the succession itself is without dispute,

But we will no further inflict on our readers a dry chronological dissertation on a subject which has charms for few; which, with the scanty materials afforded by history, can never

The perpetual sacrifices, whether of prayers, or for sin and error, are not offered everywhere, but in Jerusalem alone, and not in every place there, but before the Temple, at the altar, and the offering is examined by the chief priest and the forementioned ministers.'

2 Ep. § xliv.

NO. XCVII.-N.S.

3 Ib. § xlvii.

D

4 Ib. § v.

be settled, and to enter fully into which would require a volume rather than a few pages.

Mr. Greenwood rejects, or at least greatly suspects, the works of S. Cyprian, thinking that they uphold too strongly the claims of the see of S. Peter.

"The Cyprianic theory coming so soon after the opinions expressed by Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Origen, is indeed too sudden and abrupt not to startle the student of ecclesiastical history: Cyprian himself shines out like a meteor-no one knowing whence it came, or whither it vanishedin the Christian atmosphere; and if we may take Tertullian as in any respect the mouthpiece of public opinion of Africa in his day, or Origen as the exponent of the Alexandrian Church upon the "Tu es Petrus," it must indeed surprise us, within thirty years of their times, to hear a voice from Africa not only re-echoing the broadest claim of the Bishop of Rome to the heirship of Peter, but boldly presenting him to the world as the representative of that sacramental unity beyond whose pale there is no Christian life here below, and no hope of salvation hereafter. Yet throughout the whole of the third century the hierarchical and monarchical principles appear to have proceeded pari passu towards that fulness of pretension we find them to have arrived at in the fourth. And, indeed, it is believed that the Cyprianic writings, or those among them which are most open to suspicion, must have seen the light before the close of the latter era-probably within the same period of time which gave birth to the Clementine and pseudo-Ignatian fictions.'-P. 110.

Like the works of S. Ignatius, they contain a different doctrine to Mr. Greenwood's own on the subject of the Christian priesthood; and they therefore meet the same fate-rejection. He decides peremptorily and at once-in a tone and manner, we must say, the least likely of any that he could well have adopted to influence the opinion of his readers-that they were produced 'certainly not earlier than the fourth century,' and by some writers' of that age-he unfortunately neglects to tell us whom. If this be so, we can only submit that S. Basil greatly needed Mr. Greenwood at his side, when he cited the opinion and custom of S. Cyprian with regard to the Novatians and other heretics, expressed only in the writings hitherto thought his own, but now ruled otherwise. And S. Gregory Nazianzen was very much in the dark when he dedicated an entire oration to his life and doctrines, even selecting him as especially worthy of commemoration above other martyrs: où δὲ μοὶ Κυπριανὲ τὸ τιμιώτατόν μοι καὶ πράγμα καὶ ὄνομα πλέον ἢ κατὰ τοὺς ἄλλους μάρτυρας. κ. τ. λ. We must either side with these and other like authorities, as they have been considered, or with Mr. Greenwood.

To us there seems nothing extraordinary in the history of S. Cyprian. He was the first Bishop of note and the first martyr-Bishop of Carthage.3 A Bishop who was a man of

1 Vol. iii. pp. 269, 270. Ed. Bened.

See his Life by Pontius.

2 Orat. xviii.

1

energy and ability might easily, one would think, gain for his see, during his life, a notoriety and an importance to which it had no intrinsic claim, and which it would lose on his death; without presenting any very great phenomenon in ecclesiastical history, much less necessitating his every act being questioned, and at last his very existence, against all common sense and reason, denied: yet this is in brief the case with S. Cyprian. It is very true that his works are garbled and disfigured by Romanist additions and interpolations; but a little care in the study of them will suffice to put the reader on his guard. Most of these blots have been introduced into the text since the time of Minucius, and they rest on the authority of one, or at the most, two MSS. only; and Bishop Fell, in his edition of the martyr's works, has carefully noted at the foot of each page all that is not genuine or trustworthy. One cause of Mr. Greenwood's condemnation of an author whose actions and writings have as a whole as good testimony to authenticity as those of any primitive writer, is, we think, his having put too much faith in the Benedictine edition of his works. Thus he mistrusts the De Unitate Ecclesiæ,' on account of what he considers its undue development of the hierarchical system, and the prominent manner in which it enforces the claims of S. Peter. But the fact is, he has admitted more than one forged interpolation for a genuine reading. His extract from this piece is too long to be transferred to our pages; but we cannot avoid pointing out one or two instances in which the expressions that offend him, are not those which were written by S. Cyprian himself.

6

6

Thus, for the Latin, Super illum unum ædificat Ecclesiam suam, et illi pascendas mandat oves suas,' which Mr. Greenwood translates-upon him (Peter) singly, He builded His Church, and to him He commits His sheep to be pastured-read 'super unum ædificat,' and omit the whole of the latter clause. in the following passage, the italicized words, which are most emphatic against the dogma of Petrine supremacy as held by modern Rome, he totally omits, Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur.' Hence, Rigaltius admits that nowhere in the De Unitate' is the primacy or the supremacy of S. Peter treated of, but the unity of the Church. Nay,' he continues, the primacy destroys the unity; for he who is one, is not first nor last, but is the only one.' Considering how S. Cyprian himself, in another part of his writings, comments on the words in S. Matt. xvi. 18, which he quotes here; saying-'Hence, through the changes of time and of successions, the 'order of Bishops and the course of the Church flow down, that the Church may be placed upon Bishops, and every act of the 'Church be governed by those same præpositi;' and remembering 1See Fell's S. Cyprian, p. 76, note 2. 2 Fell's S. Cyprian, p. 77, note 1.

also his emphatic repudiation, at the opening of the Council of Carthage (which discussed the subject of heretical baptisms), of any one Bishop making himself an episcopus episcoporum,' or compelling his colleagues to obey him through fear; and his assertion of the inalienable right which every Bishop has to judge and decide for himself: we think that there are, indeed, few writers of the early Church whose testimony is more adverse than his to claims such as those of modern Rome.

Our limited space compels us to pass over much that we should have wished, if possible, to notice. We must, therefore, confine our remaining observations to Mr. Greenwood's account of some of the chief movements and events of the Church. The chapters which contain the history of the Arian controversy are well and vigorously penned; but even in these the author's tendencies to mistrust occasionally peep out. He tells us in a brief note that the Ecumenical character of the Council of Nice is very doubtful; but gives us no reason for that opinion. Again, he says that its creed was signed by two hundred out of three hundred and twenty Bishops. Three hundred and eighteen is the mystical number commonly stated to have been present, of whom Socrates says that five, and Sozomen that seventeen only, refused to sign the creed. Even Philostorgius, who would of course make the best he could of the matter, says that the number of recusants was at first but twenty-two; and afterwards, when threats of banishment were held out against them, that two only, Secundus and Theonas, were found to remain firm to the cause of Arius. So, too, say Theodoret, Gothofred on Philostorgius, Cave, and others.

There are in this portion of the work one or two other inaccuracies of less note, such as the inadequate translation of a canon admitted and undoubted by Mr. Greenwood, of the (according to him) questionable and doubtful Council of Sardica : a Council which is, in fact, as well attested as any other event of the times. In his translation (p. 205), he omits the ei doxeî vμv Tŷ ȧyáπ-If it please your charity. The result of this omission is to make, so far, the cause of the Bishop of Rome better than it really is.'

But when we come to his account of the Pelagian and Nestorian heresies, we find much, especially in the latter, from which we are compelled to dissent. If we may judge from the little he has said, he seems to think that the truth in the former question lay with the semi-Pelagians rather than with S. Augus

1 Mr. Greenwood appears not to have consulted with much attention the work 'De Concordiâ Sacerdotii et Imperii,' of the great and learned Peter de Marca, Archbishop of Paris. In the fourth and following chapters of his seventh book, he would have found much tending to strengthen his view; as also in the first volume, page 48 and following, of the Historia Conciliorum' of Richer.

6

tine or with the Pelagians; for he considers Divine grace to be not the sole, but merely the principal efficient cause of our salvation, after the sacrifice of the Cross; which, of the three doctrines then held on the subject, is, in essence, that of the semiPelagians. And we think that he is somewhat unjust to S. Augustine, when he says that he (Augustine) succeeded in obtaining from the two synods of the Numidian and Mauritanian provinces of Africa a formal and unqualified condemna'tion of the alleged heresies' (p. 285). The account of those Councils shows no other influence used by S. Augustine on the component members, than that which would inevitably be exercised by one of so great name and power over ordinary persons. And we strongly object to the terms in which Mr. Greenwood suffers himself to speak of the great S. Jerome, a doctor to whom the whole Church owes so much. At one time (p. 269), he terms him 'an atrabilious eremite,' and now he says, 'the fierce Jerome fixed his talons into the Pelagians,' &c.

He errs too, most seriously and most remarkably, when, throwing the onus of the Nestorian heresy on S. Cyril and the Church, he says that men had exalted the Virgin Mary to the eminence of Divinity, under the title of Theotokos' (p. 326); and that it was this object of religious veneration before which, by this time, almost the whole Christian world had bowed the knee, which Nestorius attacked. Mr. Greenwood forgets that it was not above fifty years, at the furthest, since S. Epiphanius had written his piece against the Collyridian heresy, in which everything approaching to worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is expressly and indignantly forbidden, as a form of idolatry; and in which he says so emphatically-Ναὶ μὴν ἅγιον ἦν τὸ σώμα τῆς Μαρίας· οὐ μὴν Θέος. Ναὶ δὴ παρθένος ἦν ἡ Παρθένος, καὶ τετιμημένη, ἀλλ ̓ οὐκ εἰς προσκύνησιν ἡμῖν δοθεῖσα, ἀλλὰ προσκυνοῦσα τὸν ἐξ αὐτῆς σαρκὶ γεγεννημένον ἄπ' οὐρανῶν δὲ ἐκ κόλπων πατρῴων παραγεννόμενον.

But we can scarcely wonder if his account of the Nestorian heresy is somewhat confused; for, to him, the doctrine of S. Cyril is scarcely intelligible;' and that of Nestorius himself involves a mystical and unexplained combination of the humanity and divinity.' He leans throughout to the side of Nestorius, in whom he sees only the victim of an attempt to remove a crying abuse. With him S. Cyril 'revels in mysticism;' is a teacher of a new and peculiar dogma ;' is calculated only to entangle and perplex his adversaries;' is 'one who filled the Christian world with pamphlet clamour.'

The truth is, that the dignity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was in no manner the subject of this controversy. Nestorius

1 Collyrid. Her., lxxix. § 4.