are the Church Triumphant, those in Purgatory are the Church Suffering, those on earth are the Church Militant or Fighting. The Church Militant consists of two classes, the teachers and the taught. For Christ did not say to all His followers but only to the Twelve and their successors: "He that heareth you heareth Me." The Apostles, then, and their successors, the Bishops, are the Church Teaching, the laity are the Church Taught.
The first Christians knew their place as learners. They did not argue with the Apostles, or pick and choose among the doctrines taught them. So earnestly did their teachers impress upon them the necessity of holding fast what they had been taught, that St. Paul said to his converts: "If an angel from Heaven preach a gospel to you besides that we have preached let him be anathema;"[1] that is, accursed.
Why such tremendous words? Because St. Paul knew that what he and his fellow-Apostles taught was not their own doctrine, but the teaching of their Divine Master, which was to be passed on unchanged till He should come again.
Our Lord prayed that His followers might be one, all believing the same truths, all uniting in the same worship, all using the same means of salvation which He had provided for them, all obeying the ruler He had set over them. To keep them one, He put them all into Peter's charge, as we shall see later, and by His prayer for Peter and promises to Peter He secured him and his successors against the possibility of leading the Church astray.
We must learn something about these Twelve whom
- ↑ Galat. i.
