The prophesy of Abbess Maria Steiner says: "I see the Lord as he
will be scourging the world and chastising it in a fearful manner
so that few man and women will remain. The monks will have to leave
their monasteries and the nuns will be driven out of their
convents, especially in Italy... The Holy Church will be
persecuted... Unless people obtain pardon through their prayers,
the time will come when they will see the sword and death, and Rome
will be without a shepherd. But the Lord showed me how beautiful
the world will be after this awful punishment (chastisement). The
people will be like the Christians of the primitive Church. The
Council meets again after the victory. But this time men will be
obliged to obey." The author writes: The subject I am proposing to
treat, and which, if God permit, I intend at some future day to
pursue down to the epoch of St. Augustine:: md St. Leo, is the
history of the formation of Catholicism, that is to say, of the
Church in so far as it is a visible, universal society, built upon
the fra, mework of a rule of faith and a hierarchy. In the present
volume on "Primitive Catholicism," I study the origins of this
formation, taking the time of St. Cyprian as the term of these
origins. It might indeed be contended that their real term was
reached more than half a century before his time, but his writings
and the discussions in which he took a leading part, show so
clearly that the doctrines and institutions of Catholicism were
then generally accepted, and, on the other hand, the historical
continuity that had governed the development of these doctrines and
institutions up to his day, makes itself so sensibly felt in these
same writings, that they complete for us in an admirable manner the
knowledge we are able to acquire of the two hundred years of
previous Christianity. We must confess, however, that it is not
without some timidity we approach the study of these two centuries
of primitive history, seeing that the documentary evidence,
abundant as it is, gives us but a faint idea of the early Christian
life, so varied, so complex, so deep How much light we should be
deprived of, had not the Epistles of St. Ignatius and the Apologies
of St. Justin been preserved On the other hand, how much more light
we should have, were the" De Ecclesia" of Melito and the
"Memorabilia" of Hegesippus still extant The discovery of the
"Didache" has been a genuine revelation and has obliged scholars to
correct many an inference. So too has the discovery of the Odes of
Solomon. The preservation of the texts, as well as their loss, is
something accidental. For this reason history, when dealing with
centuries concerning which we have few and scanty documents, is a
science of only approximate correctness, always susceptible of
revision, except as regards certain manifest facts, and some
general features inferred from several series of concordant
observations. Such is the condition of primitive ecclesiology. Its
history is made up of a few features which, clearly marked from the
beginning, acquire with each successive generation a more vigorous
and expressive prominence.
General
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