Church? Surely not. Therefore, the only real and authentic Church of Christ on earth consists of the Monophysite bodies. It follows obviously. So (with the necessary change) if one asked a Nestorian. He must admit that we are heretics; surely heretics are outside the Church? And yet would these people really have the courage of their convictions? It would be magnificently consistent. The whole and only true Church of God is that poor little sect in Mesopotamia, or the scattered relics of Monophysism about the Levant—and all other Christians heretics wandering in outer darkness! If one urged them, I doubt if they would boldly take their stand on this position. Probably they would hedge and get confused. Their sect in any case would be entirely right; as for the others, they are not altogether wrong, they are true Churches but somewhat corrupt, not exactly heretics, or at any rate not much heretics. We should reform away our errors, but meanwhile we are parts of the universal Church; only, it is sad that that Church is so grievously wounded in many of her branches. Such, I imagine, would be something like what they would say. It is, of course, all a hopeless tangle and a confusion beneath contempt;[1] it would show that they have never considered the matter seriously. I feel fairly sure they have not. But I think it is what they would say.[2]
We may, then, conceive a vague class of Eastern Churches as one group. They are joined, not by intercommunion, nor indeed by any really important theological principle, but by a common attitude in certain ways, by a certain common outlook, and by a common descent still shown in many points of ritual and organization. If we make a table of all Christian Churches and sects, its arrangement will, naturally, depend on the basis of our
- ↑ Does this need demonstration? We want an answer to two plain questions: 1. Are we heretics? (If not, then your special dogmas are not part of the faith; so why do you insist on them? Why have you broken communion with us for their sake?) 2. Can heretics be part of the true Church? (If so, then what do you mean by the Church? Where is its authority to teach, etc.?)
- ↑ I cannot state this absolutely, as I have no authentic documents. But such things have been said to me in conversation by clergy of these sects. I have heard them in England too.
