ow communities are to exist on
earth, propagate themselves, and train men without regulations; and how
regulations are to exist without resulting in the formation of a code of
laws. In truth, such regulations have at no time been wanting in
Christian communities, and have always possessed the character of a
legal code. Sohm's distinction, that in the oldest period there was no
"law," but only a "regulation," is artificial, though possessed of a
certain degree of truth; for the regulation has one aspect in a circle
of like-minded enthusiasts, and a different one in a community where all
stages of moral and religious culture are represented, and which has
therefore to train its members. Or should it not do so? And, on the
other hand, had the oldest Churches not the Old Testament and the
[Greek: diataxeis] of the Apostles? Were these no code of laws? Sohm's
proposition: "The essence of Church law is incompatible with the essence
of the Church," does not rise to evangelical clearness and freedom, but
has been formed under the shadow and ban of Catholicism. I am inclined
to call it an Anabaptist thesis. The Anabaptists were also in the shadow
and ban of Catholicism; hence their only course was either the attempt
to wreck the Church and Church history and found a new empire, or a
return to Catholicism. Hermann Bockelson or the Pope! But the Gospel is
above the question of Jew or Greek, and therefore also above the
question of a legal code. It is reconcilable with everything that is not
sin, even with the philosophy of the Greeks. Why should it not be also
compatible with the monarchical bishop, with the legal code of the
Romans, and even with the Pope, provided these are not made part of the
Gospel.]

[Footnote 3: In the formation of the Marcionite Church we have, on the
other hand, the attempt to create a rigid oecumenical community, held
together solely by religion. The Marcionite Church therefore had a
founder, the Catholic has none.]

[Footnote 4: The historian who wishes to determine the advance made by
Graeco-Roman humanity in the third and fourth centuries, under the
influence of Catholicism and its theology, must above all keep in view
the fact that gross polytheism and immoral mythology were swept away,
spiritual monotheism brought near to all, and the ideal of a divine life
and the hope of an eternal one made certain. Philosophy also aimed at
that, but it was not able to establish a community of men on these
found