LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 274

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274 SUPPLEMENT TO CTCR REPORT

ship are, however, among the outstanding manifestations
of church fellowship.

During the early centuries of her existence the Chris-
tian church sought for sound principles to guide her in
the practice of church fellowship. In the following we
seek to set forth the understanding and practice of
church fellowship which guided the church during three
periods of her history: A. during the first four centuries
of the Christian era; B. during the century following
the Reformation; C. during the time of the Lutheran
Church in America.

A. CHURCH FELLOWSHIP DURING THE FIRST
FOUR CENTURIES OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA

The first four centuries of the Christian era, extend-
ing to the time of St. Augustine, are of particular im-
portance for an understanding of the subject of church
fellowship. During these centuries which were marked
by the rise of numerous heresies and schisms, the church
was obliged to think earnestly about her true nature in
the light of Scripture. As she did so, she developed
principles to guide her in the practice of church fellow-
ship, and fashioned the instruments which would enable
her to carry the accepted principles into practice.

1. Church Fellowship During the Lifetime
of the Apostles

So long as the apostles lived and personally super-
vised the churches, which were still few in number, the
matter was relatively simple. Under the guidance of the
apostles wicked persons were put out of the congrega-
tion (Acts 5:4-10; 1 Cor. 5:13); heretics were unmasked
(Gal. 1:6-9; 1 Tim. 1:19, 20); and the activities of po-
tential schismatics were restrained (1Cor.1:10ff.).
However, as the church grew, the best efforts of the
apostles no longer sufficed to exclude all gross sinners
and heretics from the churches, as St. John’s letters to
the seven churches of Asia Minor show (Rev. 2 and 3).

2. Church Fellowship After the Death of the Apostles

If the last decades of the apostolic age already indi-
cate that the practice of church fellowship was beset by
great difficulties from wicked men and from heretical
teachers within Christian congregations, these difficul-
ties increased greatly after the death of the apostles.
The return of the Lord to judgment, which He Himself
had foretold (Matt. 24:3 ff.), and which the church ap-
pears to have expected as imminent (Phil. 4:5; 2 Thess.
2:1-3), was delayed. This was used by some as an
excuse for a slackening of Christian living (2 Peter
3:3, 4). Moreover, the church, even under persecution,
experienced a phenomenal growth, penetrating ever
more deeply into the farthest reaches of the Roman
Empire and beyond. The church found it increasingly
difficult to keep herself free of manifestly impenitent
sinners. Also the problem of the so-called “lapsi,” peo-
ple who had denied their Lord during persecution but
later repented and desired to be readmitted to the
church, troubled the church throughout the period of
the persecutions and beyond.

While the church wrestled with these problems, she
was constantly engaged in the struggle against heresy
and schism. Of one thing the church was certain: no
heretic and no schismatic could be a member of the
church.! However, the definition of heresy and heretic,
and of schism and schismatic was not simple. So long
as the heretics were men like the Gnostics, who held
fanciful and often revolting concepts of God, or Doce-
tists, who taught that the Son of God had not really
come in the flesh (1 John 4:2, 3), they could easily be
identified and branded heretics. When, however, more

subtle errors arose, or when heretics used language

which appeared to differ but little from that employed
by orthodox teachers of the church, it became possible
for an Arius to mislead even bishops and emperor, and
it was only with the greatest difficulty that this man was
finally identified as a heretic and excommunicated.

It is not possible to gain an unequivocal definition of
heresy and heretic from the church fathers. The father
who spoke most specifically on this question is Saint
Augustine.

3. St. Augustine’s Definition of Heresy and Schism
St. Augustine admitted that the definition of heresy
and heretic was anything but simple. When a deacon by
the name of Quodvultdeus asked him “to write a com-
pendium of all heresies which have spawned against the
teaching of the Lord our Saviour since the time of His
coming,” Augustine responded that two learned bishops
had compiled such lists, but that one had listed 128
heresies, the other 80. He concludes:
This would surely not have happened if what appeared
heresy to one of them had also appeared heresy to the
other. ... Undoubtedly, when there was a question of
deciding what constitutes a heresy they did not see it
in the same way. As a matter of fact, this is an ex-
tremely difficult definition to formulate, and when we
try to enumerate all of them we have to be on our guard,

not to pass over some which are really heresies or to
include some which are not.?

Though St. Augustine admits that the definition of
heresy and heretic is difficult, he clearly operates with
a definition, and it is possible to show from his writings
what that definition was.

Augustine recognized in heresy an objective element
which is common to all heresy, and he also recognized
in heretics a number of subjective elements.

a. The Objective Element of Heresy

The objective element which all heresies and heretics
have in common is error in doctrine; that is, a departure
from some phase of the rule of faith as it gradually took
form amid the labors and struggles of the church, first
in the so-called Baptismal Confession, and in time in the
Apostles’ Creed. In his interpretation of the tares
among the wheat, Augustine says:

. . it may also be said, that the children of the evil one
(mali) are heretics, who, though begotten out of the
same seed of the Gospel and name of Christ, have been
turned to wicked opinions and false dogmas.4
In this understanding of the objective element of

heresy Augustine is at one with the understanding of the

church both before and after him.