There are one or two more words still to be mentioned. _Necesse est_ is one of them. It may imply that it is the _duty_ of every Church to resort to Rome; but its more natural and usual meaning is, that, _as a matter of course_, Christians from all parts, and not strictly the Churches themselves, were led to resort thither by the superior eminence of that Church.
I have hitherto taken this passage as though it _must_ be applied definitely to the Church of Rome. But this is by no means necessary; for it may be a general observation applicable to all the most eminent Churches, as may be seen by the following translation and arrangement of it:--"For every Church, (that is, the faithful all around,) must necessarily resort to that Church in which the apostolical tradition has been preserved by those on all sides of it, on account of its more powerful pre-eminence;" that is, Christians must have recourse each to the most ancient and most eminent Church in his neighbourhood. And this agrees with a passage of Tertullian(148), in which he refers southern Greeks to Corinth, northern to Philippi and Thessalonica, Asiatics to Ephesus, Italians and Africans to Rome. The only objection which occurs to me lies in the word _hanc_, which, if the passage is to be taken in this application, must be translated _that_; but as it was in all probability the representative of { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH OXIA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, this word can scarcely present any difficulty.
I will close this whole discussion with two remarks; first, that unless we could recover the Greek text of this passage, it is plainly impossible to _ascertain_ its true sense; and secondly, that the strongest sense we can attach to it, consistently with history, is, that Christians of that period from all parts of Christendom must, if they wish to ascertain traditions, have recourse to the Church of Rome, because, as the first Church in Christendom, the common traditions were preserved there by the resort of Christians from all quarters. This twofold reason for resorting thither has long ceased to exist, and consequently this passage of Irenæus can afford no support to the claims of modern Rome, until it can be proved that those portions of the Christian world which are not in communion with her are no part of the Catholic Church.
