the Romish controversy out of our heads if the parts of Victor and Irenæus had been interchanged. Suppose it had been Irenæus who had rashly broken communion with the Asiatic Churches; suppose that Victor had then written a letter to Irenæus, sharply rebuking him,* and had written also to other bishops, warning them not to separate from those who had been unwarrantably excommunicated; and suppose that in consequence of this action of Victor's the threatened schism had been averted, would not that have been paraded as a decisive proof of Papal Supremacy? and certainly it would be one far stronger than any which, as things are, early Church history can furnish.

In my opinion this was not the first time on which the Gallic Church had come forward to defend the independence of the Asiatic Churches; but the passage which I have in my mind is one which has been differently understood. In the Montanist controversy the chief subject of difference was that the Montanists regarded certain women as prophets, and reverenced their utterances as inspired by God's Spirit, while the local bishops considered them to be under the influence of demoniacal possession, and even attempted to exorcise the evil spirit which possessed them.† Now Eusebius (v. 3), in relating the events of the year 177, tells that the brethren in Gaul then drew up a judgment of their own on this Montanist question, a judgment pious and most orthodox, in which were also set forth letters which the martyrs in the great persecution of that year had written while yet in prison to the brethren in Asia and Phrygia, and, moreover, to Eleutherus, the then bishop of Rome, pleading on behalf of the peace of the Churches. From the last phrase it has been very commonly inferred that these letters were an unsuccessful attempt to avert the schism which actually took

* φέρονται δὲ καὶ αἱ τούτων φωναὶ πληκτικώτερον καθαπτομένων τοῦ Βίκτορος. (Euseb. H. E. v. 24.)

+ I consider that it was this way of testing prophets which is forbidden in the Didache, xi. 7: πάντα προφήτην λαλοῦντα ἐν πνεύματι οὐ πειράσετε οὐδὲ διακρινεῖτε πᾶσα γὰρ ἁμαρτία ἀφεθήσεται, αὕτη δὲ ἡ ἁμαρτία οὐκ ἀφεθήσεται. Το offer the indignity of exorcism to one really inspired of God's Spirit might naturally be regarded as a sin against the Holy Ghost.

place, and that they had pleaded for the retention of the Montanists in the Church, by either acknowledging the inspiration of their prophets, or at least leaving that an open question. But I cannot believe that Eusebius would have characterized such advice as pious and orthodox; for a little later (c. 14) he describes these Montanist prophets as poisonous serpents sent against the Church by the devil, the hater of all good, who was determined to leave no form of injury untried. And I conceive the object of the letter to Eleutherus to have been to impress on him the propriety of not going behind the judgment passed on these pretenders by the bishops on the spot, since any contrary course would be a breach of the 'peace of the Churches.'

In the third century the importance of the bishop of Rome increases; yet even so late as the episcopate of Callistus (A. D. 217-222), it seems to me that it still depends on his being able to speak in the name of his Church. Hippolytus, who was an adversary of Callistus, reproaches him (Ref. Haer. ix. 12) for the laxity of his discipline. There is every reason to think that this was the same prelate whose decision, that persons excommunicated on account of adultery might be admitted to penance and restoration, gave rise to Tertullian's treatise, De Pudicitia, in which the rigorist view is strongly maintained, that such persons ought never in this life to be readmitted to the Church. It used to be thought that Zephyrinus was the bishop in question; but the only ground for that opinion was a mistaken belief that the life, or at least the literary activity, of Tertullian had not continued beyond his episcopate. The De Pudicitia belongs to the latest period of Tertullian's life, in which he had come to formal separation from the Church. Hippolytus gives no hint that the laxity of Callistus had received any sanction from his predecessor.

Be this, however, as it may, what we are here concerned with is, that in discussing whether adulterers can be readmitted to communion, Tertullian, after considering several other texts of Scripture, comes to the texts, 'On this rock will I build my Church,' 'I have given thee the keys of the

Kingdom of Heaven,' 'Whatsoever thou shalt bind or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven.' Now, since at the time this tract of Tertullian was written the story that Clement had been ordained by Peter had come to be received belief at Rome, it would not have surprised me if Callistus had already made the claim for the bishop of Rome to be heir to Peter's prerogatives. But it is remarkable that while Tertullian altogether denies that it lies within the competence of the bishop of Rome to give absolution to an adulterer, his whole argument shows plainly that no claim of the kind had been made for the bishop personally, but only for his Church, or rather for every Church which could claim like relationship with Peter ('ad omnem ecclesiam Petri propinquam '). If a personal claim had been made for the bishop, Tertullian would completely play into his adversary's hands; for what he takes pains to maintain is, that the powers described in the verses in St. Matthew were not conferred on the Church, but on Peter personally (see p. 335). The absence of any claim for the bishop is so striking, that two learned Roman Catholics (Cardinal Orsi and Morcelli) have refused to believe that Tertullian's controversy was with a bishop of Rome at all. It must have been a bishop of Carthage. If he was addressing a bishop of Rome, argues Orsi, Tertullian would not have said, 'Thou imaginest that to thee also, that is to every Church united with Peter, this power has been committed,' but he would have said, 'To thee who boastest that thou dost sit on the seat of Peter, and to thy Church founded by him.' But since Tertullian sarcastically calls his adversary 'Pontifex Maximus,' and, Episcopus Episcoporum,' it cannot well be doubted that he had a bishop of Rome in view; and Orsi's argument simply proves that the bishop of Rome in the days. of Tertullian had not made the claims which were afterwards advanced by his successors.

In this controversy we are disposed to sympathize with the clemency of Callistus rather than with the rigour of his critics, Tertullian and Hippolytus. But since I have spoken of the controversy between Callistus and Hippolytus, I must tell you all that is known about it, although the case is not one on which I lay stress, in a controversial point of view; for

I take the side of the bishop of Rome against his assailant. The story is an interesting one; and as it has only comparatively recently come to light, so that it is not to be found in the older text-books, it is fitting that I should give you some account of it. A book known as the Philosophumena had been long included among the works of Origen, though learned men had given reasons for thinking that Origen could not have been really the author. It was but the introduction to a larger work, the greater part of which has been since recovered in a MS. brought from Mount Athos to Paris, and published at Oxford in 1851, still under the name of Origen's Philosophumena. On the publication of the whole, however, it became abundantly plain that the work was not Origen's, for the author appears to claim to be a bishop, and also to have taken a leading part in the affairs of the Church of Rome. The almost unanimous opinion of the learned (whether Roman Catholic, Church of England, or Rationalistic) is, that the book, whose proper title is a 'Refutation of all Heresies,' is the work of Hippolytus, who has been honoured as a saint, and who had been known as one of the most learned members of the Church of Rome between 200 and 235. There are still one or two learned men who do not think the authorship fully proved; but I have examined the question myself, and consider that it is beyond all doubt. Among the heresies refuted in this book is one which denied the distinct personality of the Father and the Son, so that these were said to be merely different names given to the same divine being, according as he existed in different relations or different ways of manifestation. Hence its promoters have been called Patripassians, the consequence having been deduced from their teaching (whether they themselves expressly asserted it or not), that it was the Father who suffered on the Cross. It was nearly the same heresy as that which afterwards became notorious under the name of Sabellianism. We learn from Hippolytus's contemporary, Tertullian, that Praxeas, who introduced this heresy at Rome, had also made himself conspicuous by his opposition to Montanism, and so, probably by his admitted orthodoxy on one point, gained a more indulgent hearing for his erroneous teaching on another. This newly-discovered

writing, in refuting the Patripassian doctrine, stigmatizes as patrons of that heresy Zephyrinus and Callistus, who occupied the see of Rome between 202 and 223, who had always hitherto held an unblemished reputation in the Church, and are entered in the Roman breviary as martyrs. Zephyrinus is dealt with with comparative gentleness. He is described as an illiterate and covetous man, very much under the influence of Callistus, and partly inveigled, partly corrupted, by him to give his episcopal patronage to the Noetians. But with Callistus no terms are kept. He is said to have been originally a slave of an influential Christian in Cæsar's household. Under his master's patronage he set up as a banker, and was entrusted with large deposits by the widows and brethren. These Callistus embezzled, and became bankrupt. He attempted to run away, but was overtaken, and, failing in an attempt to commit suicide, was brought back, and sent by his master to the pistrinum. After a time he was released, on the intercession of some who thought that if he were set free he might discover the embezzled money. But this he could not do, and being watched, and unable to run away again, he devised a desperate plan to restore his credit among the Christians. He went into the Jewish synagogue, and disturbed their worship, for which he was beaten, and brought before the prefect. His master hastened to the tribunal, and begged the prefect not to believe that he was a Christian, as he was only seeking an occasion of death, having embezzled much money; but this was thought a mere subterfuge for the extrication of the accused, and Callistus was scourged, and sent to the mines in Sardinia. Some time after, Marcia, the favourite concubine of the Emperor Commodus, who had strong sympathies with the Christians, the eunuch who brought her up being a Christian priest, was able to obtain an order for the release of the Christians in these mines, and applied to Pope Victor for their names. But he, knowing the circumstances, did not include the name of Callistus in the list. However, Callistus so earnestly wept and besought the bearer of the release, that the latter, being a kind-hearted man, took the responsibility of adding the