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the Old Testament Jerusalem is represented as the place where God dwelt between the
cherubim and where He symbolically established contact with His people. The New Testament
evidently regards the Church as the spiritual counterpart of the Old Testament Jerusalem, and
therefore applies to it the same name. According to this representation the Church is the
dwelling place of God, in which the people of God are brought into communion with Him; and
this dwelling place, while still in part on earth, belongs to the heavenly sphere.
d. Pillar and ground of the truth.
There is just one place in which that name is applied to the
Church, namely, I Tim. 3:15. It clearly refers to the Church in general, and therefore also applies
to every part of it. The figure is expressive of the fact that the Church is the guardian of the
truth, the citadel of the truth, and the defender of the truth over against all the enemies of the
Kingdom of God.
B. THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH IN HISTORY.
1. THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH BEFORE THE REFORMATION.
a. In the patristic period.
By the Apostolic Fathers and by the Apologetes the Church is
generally represented as the communio sanctorum, the people of God which He has chosen for
a possession. The necessity for making distinctions was not at once apparent. But as early as
the latter part of the second century there was a perceptible change. The rise of heresies made
it imperative to name some characteristics by which the true catholic Church could be known.
This tended to fix the attention on the outward manifestation of the Church. The Church began
to be conceived as an external institution, ruled by a bishop as a direct successor of the
apostles, and in possession of the true tradition. The catholicity of the Church was rather
strongly emphasized. Local churches were not regarded as so many separate units, but simply
as parts of the one universal Church. The increasing worldliness and corruption of the Church
gradually led to reaction and gave rise to the tendency of various sects, such as Montanism in
the middle of the second, Novatianism in the middle of the third, and Donatism at the
beginning of the fourth century, to make the holiness of its members the mark of the true
Church. The early Church Fathers, in combating these sectaries, emphasized ever increasingly
the episcopal institution of the Church. Cyprian has the distinction of being the first to develop
fully the doctrine of the episcopal Church. He regarded the bishops as the real successors of the
apostles and ascribed to them a priestly character in virtue of their sacrificial work. They
together formed a college, called the episcopate, which as such constituted the unity of the
Church. The unity of the Church was thus based on the unity of the bishops. They who do not
subject themselves to the bishop forfeit the fellowship of the Church and also their salvation,
since there is no salvation outside of the Church. Augustine was not altogether consistent in his
conception of the Church. It was his struggle with the Donatists that compelled him to reflect