undervaluing, or limiting, the atonement of our Saviour: —but, nevertheless, he certainly did hold, with the universal church in the second century, that martyrdom was in some way efficacious as an expiatory act. He agrees, likewise, with the preceding writers in accounting it a necessary part of the Christian economy, its crown and perfection this, he tells us, arises from the martyr's assimilation to the divine impatibility: and he enforces the Pythagorean figment, of striving after the indifference of God to earthly pains and pleasures, as the best preparative for it.28

Yet the New Testament only teaches, that he "who endureth persecution" is "blessed," as well as he whose life exemplifies the other Christian graces;29 and that he "who abideth to the end shall be saved."30 And far from any thing meritorious in the act of martyrdom, we are expressly told concerning it that," he who giveth his body to be burned, and hath not charity, it profiteth him nothing."31

We could not have selected a question, which more forcibly displays the total neglect of the spirit of the New Testament that prevailed in the early church, than the opinions of the fathers of the two first centuries upon the subject of martyrdom.

28 See § 19, 21. This last opinion seems to have been peculiar to himself.

29 Matt. v. 10-12, &c.

30 Id. xxiv. 13.

31 1 Cor. xiii. 3.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SUPREMACY OF ROME.

THE error we are now about to consider, like that of the preceding chapter, does not fall within the scope of our original design; inasmuch as it is expressly repudiated by all the Protestant churches, and by many of the ancient ones. The history of its origin and progress, however, are not without instruction upon a point, on which the eye of the visible church is intensely fixed at the present moment; and it therefore seemed desirable, to conclude our analysis of the ecclesiastical opinions of the second century with a brief account of them.

The Supremacy of the See of Rome, is a doctrine which, pretending to no scriptural sanction, and resting solely on the unwritten tradition, we shall not waste a word upon its confutation, but at once proceed with its history.

The circumstance that Clement of Rome addressed to the Corinthian church, the epistle to which we have so frequently referred, has been eagerly seized upon by the Romanists as an early avowal of the supremacy of the former see; and the writer has, in consequence, been honoured with the style and title of Pope St. Clement: though nothing can be more humble, or less popish than the tone and temper of the entire production, whatever

may be said of the purport of it. He enforces no authority but that of argument and persuasion: and though he writes, not in his own name, but in that of the church at Rome, yet internal evidence is not wanting, that the Corinthian clergy had appealed to him rather than to any other bishop, merely because he had formerly been a pastor of the church at Corinth, and was, therefore, familiar with the circumstances in which the schism originated.1 And, far from the assumption of any authority as bishop of Rome, that city is never once mentioned, except in the superscription. These considerations lead me to conclude, that the dogma of Rome's supremacy receives no countenance whatever from the epistle of Clement: a conclusion, be it remembered, altogether unimportant to my view of the question, having already admitted that other false doctrines had an equally early origin.

The superscription of Ignatius's epistle to the Romans addresses, "the church which presides in the region of Rome, worthy of God, most becoming, worthy to be most blessed, worthy to be praised, most worthy to have her prayers answered, most pure, presiding in love, named after Christ and the Father." This is certainly a mode of speaking which strongly favours the doctrine in question: if, indeed, the whole of the epithets have not been artfully interpolated at a later period; which I cannot help suspecting.

Shortly afterwards, also, Irenæus declares it in terms which cannot be mistaken, in the passage we have already referred to, regarding the apostolic tradition :— "Since it would be tedious, in a volume like this, to enumerate the successions of all the churches, we the rather insist upon that of the very great, and most ancient,

1 Clem. ad Cor., c. 1.

and universally celebrated church, which was founded and constituted at Rome by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul." He proceeds to inform us that it was needful for the churches every where3 to resort to Rome, because that city was the seat of government; and, therefore, they had made her the depository of their apostolical tradition. The reason here given for the supremacy in question is a very probable one. The circumstance that Rome was, at that time, the metropolis of the world in every sense of the word, would have an inevitable tendency to confer a corresponding metropolitan dignity upon the church established there.

Tertullian thus enumerates the apostolical churches, to which he exhorts the heretics to repair, in order that they might there hear for themselves the tradition of the apostles, and compare it with their inspired epistles. "Is Achaia near thee? thou hast Corinth. Art thou not far from Macedonia? there is Philippi. Wilt thou go into Asia? there thou wilt find Ephesus. If thou livest

adjacent to Italy, thou hast the Roman church; whence the authority (of the apostolic tradition) is immediately derived to us, (at Carthage.) Blessed church, to whom the apostles poured forth their whole doctrine, along with their blood; where Peter's passion was likened to that of the Lord, (crucifixion) where St. Paul was crowned with John Baptist's martyrdom, (decollation,) whence St. John, after he had been plunged into boiling oil and suffered

2 Adv. Hær., lib. 3. c. 3. I strongly suspect that here also, the epithets have been inserted by the Romanists.

3 Undique.

4" Propter potentiorem principalitatem." The allusion is, doubtless, to the many appeals which the Christians had to prefer to the emperors against the governors of provinces, as Grabe unanswerably demonstrates in his note on the place.-Edit. Oxon., p. 201.

nothing, was banished to Patmos. Let us see there, what these holy men said and taught.'

995

It appears to me, that these passages betray considerable anxiety, on the part of their authors, to give to the Roman see the full benefit of the advantages which her situation in the metropolis of the world conferred upon her. Else, why does Irenæus heap laudatory epithets upon the church at Rome, because of a privilege which she only enjoyed in common with so many others of the apostolic churches? Or why does Tertullian enumerate privileges peculiar to that church, the value of which it is not very easy to estimate? That St. Peter and St. Paul were martyred at Rome, and that St. John was there exposed to a cruel torture, from which he was miraculously delivered, are somewhat singular reasons why the supremacy should be conferred upon that see! Our Saviour was of a very different opinion regarding Jerusalem.

We find from other passages of the same authors, that the early church had a more cogent reason than any that are expressed in our citations, for upholding the supremacy of Rome. The well-known prophecy of St. Paul regarding the man of sin, was always interpreted by her of antichrist; whom she supposed to be a man who was to possess himself of the dominion of the world, and, by means of unheard-of cruelties towards the Christians, to succeed in re-establishing the Roman idolatry, and the worship of himself as its supreme god. His destruction, which would speedily follow, was to usher in the consummation of all things, and the end of the world. In the course of the prophecy, St. Paul thus addresses the Thessalonians :- "Remember ye not that when I was yet with

8

5 De. Præs. Hær., c. 36.

7 See Irenæus., lib. 5. c. 25.

6 2 Thess. ii. 1-12.

8 Idem, c. 26.