1 2 gations. But this necessity existed from the time of St. Paul's preaching at Corinth, and throughout the whole course of the Apostolic times. The next observation I would, therefore, make is, that no time can be assigned, nor any person alleged, when and by whom this article was first introduced into the Creed. If it was not in the Baptismal Creed used by the Apostles, it must have been introduced at some time between the death of St. John, about A.D. 100, and the birth of Tertullian, about A.D. 150. If so, the name of the person who introduced it, or of the Church where it was first received, or the time of the insertion, or the cause of its adoption, would surely have been at least hinted in the history of the Church. But there is not so much as the slightest trace of such an event: which strange silence on so great a matter in a circle and series of so many Churches, both Greek and Latin, in the East and in the West, which must have adopted it gradually and in succession, puts this conjecture past all belief. The acknowledged additions made to the Creed were noted, and the reasons avowed, as in the insertion of the words "of one substance" against the Arians; and indeed in this particular article, in the addition of the word "Catholic," which was first 'Annotata J. E. Grabe in Judic. Eccl. Cathol. ad cap. vi. s. 11. 2 Bishop of Lincoln's History of the Second and Third Centuries, p. 12. inserted by the Greek Churches for the purpose, as St. Cyril tells us, of distinguishing the true Church from all schismatical congregations. The addition of the epithet "Catholic" to the words " "Holy Church" is thus carefully recorded, but the origin of the article to which the addition was made must be sought in the same teaching from whence the Baptismal Confession was itself derived. Still, in thus referring to the institution of the Apostles it is hardly necessary that we should refute in express terms the story which narrates that the Apostles' Creed was compiled by a synod of the Apostles, each making his several contribution of one of the articles as they now stand: the article, which is the subject of our present inquiry, being the portion assigned to St. Matthew. This fanciful account had its rise in the fifth century; is a Latin tradition, being unknown to the Eastern Churches; and is self-convicted of untruth, as the Creed commonly called the Apostles' Creed is well known to be an augmented form of the earlier and simpler confession. * 2 3 Having seen in the foregoing evidence that all Churches consented in professing at baptism a belief in the Holy Church-that there is direct evidence 'S. Cyril. Catech. xviii. s. 26. 2 When the Latins at the Council of Florence affirmed that their creed was composed by the Apostles, the Greeks answered hutc οὔτε ἔχομεν οὔτε ἔιδομεν σύμβολον τῶν Αποστόλων. “ We neither possess nor have seen any creed of the Apostles." See Suicer. Thesaur. Eccl. in voc. oúμßodov. 3 Dupin. History of Eccl. Writers, vol. i. p. 378, folio, 1723. of the existence of this article in the baptismal forms of the second century-that no baptismal form can be adduced from which it is omitted, and no time assigned for such an insertion, nor any intimation that such an addition to the Creed was made between the beginning and the end of the first century (for to this short tract of time the question is finally narrowed)-I conclude that a belief in the Unity of the Church, however expressed in words, was required of every candidate for Christian baptism from the beginning of the Gospel. For "whatsoever the Universal Church maintains, the same being instituted by no council, but always retained, is rightly believed to be handed down from no other authority than that of the Apostles." 1 1 1 S. Aug. de Bapt. contra Donatistas, lib. iv. c. xxiv. tom. ix. 140. CHAPTER II. 66 THE INTERPRETATION OF THE ARTICLE THE HOLY CHURCH," AS TAUGHT BY UNINSPIRED WRITERS. In the foregoing chapter we have considered what may be called the history of the article before us. No attempt has been made to attach to it any definite interpretation. So far as we have hitherto proceeded, every class of Christians, except those who reject the Catholic Creeds, may claim the authority of the Baptismal Confession, as a witness to confirm each several way of explaining the Unity of the Church. For in teaching that there is only one Church of Christ all Christians agree, the only controversy being wherein that one Church consists. I wish it to be clearly understood that in this chapter we shall follow exactly the same course as in the foregoing. Our inquiry will be strictly historical. I shall abstain with all carefulness from seeming to assert what is the true doctrine of the Unity of the Church, and shall confine myself to inquiring in what sense this article was expounded in the earliest times. Whether such expositions be right or wrong will be a matter for discussion hereafter. For the present it is enough to examine how this article was wont to be interpreted, or, to use the same form of speech as before, to consider the history of the interpretation. The only point, therefore, for the reader's judgment is, whether or no the mind of the writers, hereafter adduced, be truly represented. It will be both the simpler and surer course to take first the direct expositions of the article, and next the general teaching of Christian writers on the doctrine of the Unity of the Church. Of the direct exposition of the Creed, the earliest is that of St. Cyril. It is preserved to us in the form of catechetical lectures to candidates for holy baptism. They were delivered about A.D. 347, before he was raised to the bishopric of Jerusalem. In the creed of that Church, as in most of the Eastern creeds, the word "Catholic" had been already inserted. 6 "Let us therefore speak," he says, "of what remains, namely, on the article, and in One Holy Catholic Church.' It is called, then, Catholic, because it is throughout the whole world, from one end of the earth to the other; and because it teaches universally and without fail all doctrines that are necessary for man to know, concerning |