d the Pauline Epistles, and that we must give special
heed to the paragraphs and ideas in them, which distinguish them from
Paulinism. Besides, it is of the greatest importance that those two
Epistles originated in Rome and Asia Minor, as these are the places
where we must seek the embryonic stage of old-Catholic doctrine.
Numerous fine threads, in the form of fundamental ideas and particular
views, pass over from the Asia Minor theology of the post-Apostolic
period into the old-Catholic theology.]

[Footnote 163: The Epistle to the Hebrews (X. 25), the Epistle of
Barnabas (IV. 10), the Shepherd of Hermas (Sim. IX. 26, 3), but
especially the Epistles of Ignatius and still later documents, shew that
up to the middle of the second Century, and even later, there were
Christians who, for various reasons, stood outside the union of
communities, or wished to have only a loose and temporary relation to
them. The exhortation: [Greek: epi to auto sunerchomenoi sunzeteite peri
tou koine sumpherontos] (see my note on Didache, XVI. 2, and cf.) for
the expression the interesting State Inscription which was found at
Magnesia on the Meander. Bull, Corresp. Hellen 1883, p. 506: [Greek:
apagoreuo mete sunerchesthai tous artokokous kat' hetairian mete
parestekotas thrasunesthai, peitharchein de pantos tois huper tou koine
sumpherontos epitattomenois k.t.l.] or the exhortation: [Greek:
kollasthe tois hagiois, hoti hoi kollomenoi autois hagiasthesontai] (1
Clem. 46. 2, introduced as [Greek: graphe]) runs through most of the
writings of the post-Apostolic and pre-catholic period. New doctrines
were imported by wandering Christians who, in many cases, may not
themselves have belonged to a community, and did not respect the
arrangements of those they found in existence, but sought to form
conventicles. If we remember how the Greeks and Romans were wont to get
themselves initiated into a mystery cult, and took part for a long time
in the religious exercises, and then, when they thought they had got the
good of it, for the most part or wholly to give up attending, we shall
not wonder that the demand to become a permanent member of a Christian
community was opposed by many. The statements of Hermas are specially
instructive here.]

[Footnote 164: "Corpus sumus," says Tertullian at a time when this
description had already become an anachronism, "de conscientia
religionis et disciplinae unitate et spei foedere." (Apol. 39: cf. Ep.
Petri ad Jacob