Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE FIRST AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.201For if I in a short time have had such familiaritywith your bishop, and that not htual, how much more should I think you happy,who are so fused with him as the Church withJesus Christ, and as Jesus Christ with the Father,that " all things may be accordant in unity. "24This is an incidental passage out of a veryshort letter, in which the speaker is addressingpractical exhortations to the people of a greatchurch, founded by S. Paul about sixty years before,dwelt in by S. John up to about fifteen yearsof the time at which he was speaking. We shouldnot in such a writing expect S. Ignatius to spealwith the scientific correctness of a theologian, noris he completely exhibiting his subject in a treatise; yet here, as it were at the first moment afterthe Apostles have left the earth, we have a pictureof the Church as a world-wide institution, held togetherby a divine unity, which has its seat in thePerson of Christ as the mind of the Father. Itis a composite unity which is contemplated in theimage of a harp with its strings pouring forth one*song-the song of Christ-to the Father. It is aunity wide as the earth ; for the bishops, placedin their several limits, constitute the mind ofChrist, who is Himself the Father's mind. It isthe unity of the diocese, for it is summed up inthe bishop : but it is the unity likewise of thewhole Church, for the bishops are linked together24 S. Ignat. ad Epltes. i.-iv.