and the epistles, because the apostles were the first people who put forth the principle of the church, the truth of which has to be proved, and so their doctrine can as little as the later doctrine assert that it is based on Christ’s teaching. No matter how near in time they may be to Christ, they are, according to the church doctrine, men, while he is God. Everything which he said is true; everything which they said is subject to proof and rejection. The churches felt this, and so hastened to put on the apostolic teaching the seal of the infallibility of the Holy Ghost. But if we brush aside this snare and take up Christ’s teaching itself, we cannot help but be struck by that bold impudence with which the teachers of the church wish to base their doctrine on the teaching of Jesus Christ, who denied all that which they want to affirm.
The word ἐκκλησία, which has no other meaning than that of assembly, is used but twice in the Gospels, and that, too, only in Matthew: On thee, on my faithful disciple, as on a rock, I shall establish my union of men, and the other time in this sense, that if thy brother will not hear thee, tell it in an assembly of men, because what ye shall loose here (meaning “your anger, your annoyance”) will be loosed in heaven, that is, in God. Now, what have the priests made of it?
Having appeared upon earth, in order to accomplish the great work of our redemption, the Saviour at first claimed only for himself the right to instruct people in the true faith, which he had received from the Father. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke iv. 18, 19); and passing through the cities and villages, preaching the Gospel, he added, To this end
