the
worldliness and lack of genuineness pertaining to the system. But to the
layman who seeks from the Church nothing more than aid in raising
himself to God, this worldliness and unveracity do not exist. During the
Greek period, however, laymen were only able to recognise this advantage
to a limited extent. The Church dogmatic and the ecclesiastical system
were still too closely connected with their own interests. It was in the
Middle Ages, that the Church first became a Holy Mother and her house a
house of prayer--for the Germanic peoples; for these races were really
the children of the Church, and they themselves had not helped to rear
the house in which they worshipped.

ADDENDA.

I. THE PRIESTHOOD. The completion of the old Catholic conception of the
Church, as this idea was developed in the latter half of the third
century, is perhaps most clearly shown in the attribute of priesthood,
with which the clergy were invested and which conferred on them the
greatest importance.[259] The development of this conception, whose
adoption is a proof that the Church had assumed a heathen complexion,
cannot be more particularly treated of here.[260] What meaning it has is
shown by its application in Cyprian and the original of the first six
books of the Apostolic Constitutions (see Book II.). The bishops (and
also the presbyters) are priests, in so far as they alone are empowered
to present the sacrifice as representatives of the congregation before
God[261] and in so far as they dispense or refuse the divine grace as
representatives of God in relation to the congregation. In this sense
they are also judges in God's stead.[262] The position here conceded to
the higher clergy corresponds to that of the mystagogue in heathen
religions, and is acknowledged to be borrowed from the latter.[263]
Divine grace already appears as a sacramental consecration of an
objective nature, the bestowal of which is confined to spiritual
personages chosen by God. This fact is no way affected by the perception
that an ever increasing reference is made to the Old Testament priests
as well as to the whole Jewish ceremonial and ecclesiastical
regulations.[264] It is true that there is no other respect in which Old
Testament commandments were incorporated with Christianity to such an
extent as they were in this.[265] But it can be proved that this formal
adoption everywhere took place at a subsequent date, that is, it had
practically no influence on