An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

There are writers who refer to the first centuries of the Church as a time when opinion was free, and the conscience exempt from the obligation or temptation to take on trust what it had not proved; and that, apparently on the mere ground that the series of great theological decisions did not commence till the fourth. This seems to be M. Guizot's meaning when he says that Christianity "in the early ages was a belief, a sentiment, an individual conviction;" [Note 2] that "the Christian society appears as a pure association of men animated by the same sentiments and professing the same creed. The first Christians," he continues, "assembled to enjoy together the same emotions, the same religious convictions. We do not find any doctrinal system established, any form of discipline or of laws, or any body of magistrates." [Note 3] What can be meant by saying that Christianity had no magistrates in the earliest ages?—but, any how, in statements such as these the distinction is not properly recognized between a principle and its exhibitions and instances, even if the fact were as is represented. The principle indeed of Dogmatism developes into Councils in the course of time; but it was active, nay sovereign from the first, in every part of Christendom. A conviction that truth was one; that it was a gift from without, a sacred trust, an inestimable blessing; that it was to be reverenced, guarded, defended, transmitted; that its absence was a grievous want, and its loss an unutterable calamity; and again, the stern words and acts of St. John, of Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenæus, Clement, Tertullian, and Origen;—all this is quite consistent with perplexity or mistake as to what was truth in particular cases, in what way doubtful questions were to be decided, or what were the limits of the Revelation. Councils and Popes are the guardians and instruments of the dogmatic principle: they are not that principle themselves; they presuppose the principle; they are summoned into action at the call of the principle, and the principle might act even before they had their legitimate place, and exercised a recognized power, in the movements of the Christian body.

5.

The instance of Conscience, which has already served us in illustration, may assist us here. What Conscience is in the history of an individual mind, such was the dogmatic principle in the history of Christianity. Both in the one case and the other, there is the gradual formation of a directing power out of a principle. The natural voice of Conscience is far more imperative in testifying and enforcing a rule of duty, than successful in determining that duty in particular cases. It acts as a messenger from above, and says that there is a right and a wrong, and that the right must be followed; but it is variously, and therefore erroneously, trained in the instance of various persons. It mistakes error for truth; and yet we believe that on the whole, and even in those cases where it is ill-instructed, if its voice be diligently obeyed, it will gradually be cleared, simplified, and perfected, so that minds, starting differently will, if honest, in course of time converge to one and the same truth. I do not hereby imply that there is indistinctness so great as this in the theology of the first centuries; but so far is plain, that the early Church and Fathers exercised far more a ruler's than a doctor's office: it was the age of Martyrs, of acting not of thinking. Doctors succeeded Martyrs, as light and peace of conscience follow upon obedience to it; yet, even before the Church had grown into the full measure of its doctrines, it was rooted in its principles.

6.

So far, however, may be granted to M. Guizot, that even principles were not so well understood and so carefully handled at first, as they were afterwards. In the early period, we see traces of a conflict, as well as of a variety, in theological elements, which were in course of combination, but which required adjustment and management before they could be used with precision as one. In a thousand instances of a minor character, the statements of the early Fathers are but tokens of the multiplicity of openings which the mind of the Church was making into the treasure-house of Truth; real openings, but incomplete or irregular. Nay, the doctrines even of the heretical bodies are indices and anticipations of the mind of the Church. As the first step in settling a question of doctrine is to raise and debate it, so heresies in every age may be taken as the measure of the existing state of thought in the Church, and of the movement of her theology; they determine in what way the current is setting, and the rate at which it flows.

7.

Thus, St. Clement may be called the representative of the eclectic element, and Tertullian of the dogmatic, neither element as yet being fully understood by Catholics; and Clement perhaps went too far in his accommodation to philosophy, and Tertullian asserted with exaggeration the immutability of the Creed. Nay, the two antagonist principles of dogmatism and assimilation are found in Tertullian alone, though with some deficiency of amalgamation, and with a greater leaning towards the dogmatic. Though the Montanists professed to pass over the subject of doctrine, it is chiefly in Tertullian's Montanistic works that his strong statements occur of the unalterableness of the Creed; and extravagance on the subject is not only in keeping with the stern and vehement temper of that Father, but with the general severity and harshness of his sect. On the other hand the very foundation of Montanism is development, though not of doctrine, yet of discipline and conduct. It is said that its founder professed himself the promised Comforter, through whom the Church was to be perfected; he provided prophets as organs of the new revelation, and called Catholics Psychici or animal. Tertullian distinctly recognizes even the process of development in one of his Montanistic works. After speaking of an innovation upon usage, which his newly revealed truth required, he proceeds, "Therefore hath the Lord sent the Paraclete, that, since human infirmity could not take all things in at once, discipline might be gradually directed, regulated and brought to perfection by the Lord's Vicar, the Holy Ghost. 'I have yet many things to say to you,' He saith, &c. What is this dispensation of the Paraclete but this, that discipline is directed, Scriptures opened, intellect reformed, improvements effected? Nothing can take place without age, and all things wait their time. In short, the Preacher says 'There is a time for all things.' Behold the creature itself gradually advancing to fruit. At first there is a seed, and a stalk springs out of the seed, and from the stalk bursts out a shrub, and then its branches and foliage grow vigorous, and all that we mean by a tree is unfolded; then there is the swelling of the bud, and the bud is resolved into a blossom, and the blossom is opened into a fruit, and is for a while rudimental and unformed, till, by degrees following out its life, it is matured into mellowness of flavour. So too righteousness, (for there is the same God both of righteousness and of the creation,) was at first in its rudiments, a nature fearing God; thence, by means of Law and Prophets, it advanced into infancy; thence, by the gospel, it burst forth into its youth; and now by the Paraclete, it is fashioned into maturity." [Note 4]

8.

2. Europ. Civ. p. 56, tr.

3. p. 58.

4. De Virg. Vel. 1.