to this, that another hierarchy, which on some point disagrees with it, says precisely the opposite and asserts that it is right and to the words, “It is permitted to us and to the Holy Ghost,” replies that the Holy Ghost lives in it,—something like what happens when two men swear, denying each other.
All the theologians, no matter how much they may try to conceal it, speak and do nothing else. The church the union of all believers, the body of Christ is only an adornment of speech, in order to add importance to a human institution, the hierarchy and its assumed succession, upon which everything is built up. Remarkable and instructive in this respect are the attempts of the modern theologians, of Vinet and his followers, of Khomyakov and his scions, to find new supports for the teaching about the church, and to build up the definition of the church not on the hierarchy, but on the whole assembly of the believers, on the flock. These new theologians, without noticing it themselves, in their attempts to make stable the tree which is planted without roots, make it fall entirely. These theologians deny the hierarchy and prove the falseness of that foundation, and they think that they are giving it a different foundation. But, unfortunately, this other foundation is nothing but that sophism of theology, under which it tries to conceal the crudity of its doctrine about the church being the hierarchy. That sophism the new theologians take for a foundation and they completely overthrow the doctrine of the church, while they themselves are left with a most palpable sophism, but without a foundation.
Their error is like this: The church has received among believers two main meanings,—one, that the church is a human, temporal institution, and the other, that the church is the totality of men living and dead, who are united by one true faith. The first is a definite historical phenomenon: an assemblage of men subject to certain
