Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/115

Rh dience of the Roman bishop, just as the Antiochian church was called the company of Christ's faithful, under the bishop of Antioch. The same also was true of the faithful in Alexandria and Constantinople. And in this way Peter, Christ's apostle and Roman bishop, speaks of the church when, addressing the faithful in Christ in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, he says: "The church which is gathered together in Babylon saluteth you," I Peter 5:13. Is not the church here taken to mean the faithful of Christ who were at Rome with St. Peter? After the same manner also, the apostle designated particular churches when he wrote from Corinth to the Romans, "all the churches of Christ salute you," and a little further on: "I, Tertius, salute you, who wrote the epistle in the Lord. Gaius my host and the whole church saluteth you." Romans 16:16, 23. Here the whole church is taken for all Christ's faithful, who with Paul were waging warfare in Corinth. Likewise we have the words: "To the church of God which is in Corinth, sanctified in Christ Jesus," I Cor. 1:2, and "Paul and Sylvanus and Timotheus to the church of the Thessalonians," I Thess. 1:2. We have the same often in other places, so that those are properly called particular churches which separately are parts of the universal church, which is the church of Jesus Christ.

But the Christian church had its beginning in Judea and was first called the church of Jerusalem, as it is said: "In that day there arose a great persecution in the church which was in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles," Acts 8:1. The second church was the Antiochian, in which Peter, the apostle, resided, and there, for the first time, the name Christian was employed. Hence, the faithful were first called disciples and brethren, and later Christians, for we read: "The apostles and brethren which were in Judea,"