The commemoration in which they earned out their Lord's command was contained in words, and rites, and vestments illustrating those words, and making up together an act, a permanent act, going through all the life of the Church from end to end. This act in the present day, as in every past age, is not derived from any written authority, though the Gospels and Epistles of the Apostles, and, as we have seen, the Apocalypse, bear witness to it, but from the authority of the Church, immanent in her from the beginning by perpetual descent from the Apostles.
Another instance of the like kind is scarcely inferior in its force. The Apostles, in passing from city to city in the course of their preaching, selected those in whom they would deposit a portion of their power. But this they did by the imposition of their hands, accompanied by a certain rite, which, like the Eucharistic rite in the beginning, was not written, but conveyed by word of mouth. But the life of the Church depended upon this transmission of spiritual power. The conveying of this power was an act of authority similar in character to the institution of worship, with which indeed it was closely allied. Part of the power which they conveyed by their act was the right to celebrate this very worship. The pastoral Epistles of St. Paul speak of the grace and gift bestowed upon Timotheus by the imposition of hands, as well as of the power given both to Timotheus and to Titus to impart these gifts to others, accompanied with advice as to the quality of persons whom they should select. But the Scriptures of the New Testament do not contain the rite itself, than which nothing could be more necessary to the continued existence of the Church.
No acts could possibly exhibit the teaching office of the Church in greater perfection and fulness than the exercise of the rite which admitted men into her fold; of the rite, again, which communicated to them daily the divine life of the Saviour indwelling in her; and thirdly, of the rite which propagated the whole of that hierarchy by the descent of which from our Lord Himself her existence was secured and perpetuated. The immense authority which documents such as these possess is mentioned in a letter of Pope St. Celestine in the year 431 to the Gallic bishops. "Let us have regard," he says, "to the sacred rites used in sacerdotal supplications, which, having been handed down from the Apostles, are celebrated uniformly in the whole world and in every Catholic Church, wherein the law of supplication establishes the law of belief. For when those who preside over the holy people in various places exercise the office of ambassadors committed to them, they plead the cause of the human race before the divine mercy, and offer their requests and their prayers while the whole Church joins with them in urgent entreaty."[139] It is sufficient to mention these several public and official acts without going on to dwell upon the system of penance in its doctrinal aspect, which has been described above in another aspect, that of government. Such a system, it is evident, existed from the beginning, and the act of St. Paul in reference to the incestuous person at Corinth bears witness to it. The society possessing and exercising these rites, and forming a people upon their discipline, had a complete rule of inward life. Such was the Christian society in the first forty years following the day of Pentecost. And this whole life rested upon the personal authority of its teachers, which they exercised in the name of Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit continually attending upon their ministry, and attesting His presence as well by the perpetual operation of His grace as by the extraordinary and visible action of spiritual gifts. That authority was complete before the sacred writings of the New Testament were made public, and without their attestation.