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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Church of England cleared from the
charge of Schism, by Thomas William Allies
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Church of England cleared from the charge of Schism
Upon Testimonies of Councils and Fathers of the first six centuries
Author: Thomas William Allies
Release Date: September 19, 2010 [EBook #33765]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHURCH OF ENGLAND CLEARED OF SCHISM ***
Produced by Steven Giacomelli, Keith Edkins and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
</pre>
<p class="cenhead">THE</p>
<h1>CHURCH OF ENGLAND</h1>
<p class="cenhead">CLEARED FROM</p>
<h2>THE CHARGE OF SCHISM,</h2>
<p class="cenhead">UPON</p>
<h3>TESTIMONIES OF COUNCILS</h3>
<p class="cenhead">AND</p>
<h3>FATHERS OF THE FIRST SIX CENTURIES.</h3>
<p class="cenhead">BY</p>
<h2>THOMAS WILLIAM ALLIES, M. A.</h2>
<p class="cenhead">RECTOR OF LAUNTON, OXON.</p>
<h3>LONDON:</h3>
<h3>JAMES BURNS, 17, PORTMAN STREET,</h3>
<p class="cenhead">PORTMAN SQUARE.</p>
<h3>1846.</h3>
<p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
<hr class="full" />
<h3>LONDON:<br />
R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.</h3>
<p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
<hr class="full" />
<h3>ADVERTISEMENT.</h3>
<p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
<hr class="short" />
<p>The writer of the following pages is more and more convinced that the
whole question between the Roman Church and ourselves, as well as the
Eastern Church, turns upon the Papal Supremacy, as at present claimed,
being of divine right or not. <i>If it be</i>, then have we nothing else
to do, on peril of salvation, but submit ourselves to the authority of
Rome: and better it were to do so before we meet the attack, which is
close at hand, of an enemy who bears equal hatred to ourselves and to
Rome; the predicted Lawless One, the Logos, reason, or private judgment
of apostate humanity rising up against the Divine Logos, incarnate in His
Church. <i>If it be not</i>, then may we take courage; for the position
of the Church of England being tenable, all the evils within her pale,
which we are now so deeply feeling, will, by God's blessing, be gradually
overcome. As to practical abuses in her, who will venture to say they are
so great as in the Roman Church of the tenth century, when the First See
was filled successively by the lovers of abandoned women, who made and
deposed Popes at their will? Our cause being good, all that we have to
deplore of actual evil should lead to more earnest intercession, more
continued striving after that love which breathes itself forth in unity,
but should not shake the confidence of any obedient heart in our mother's
title. When the Donatists made the crimes of individuals an excuse for
breaking unity, St. Augustin reminded them, that the crimes of the chaff
do not prejudice the wheat, but that both must grow together till the
Lord of the harvest send forth his angels to make the separation.</p>
<p>The writer will not conceal that he took up this inquiry for the
purpose of satisfying his own mind. Had he found the Councils and Fathers
of the first six centuries bearing witness <i>to</i> the Roman supremacy,
as at present claimed, instead of <i>against</i> it, he should have felt
bound to obey them. As a Priest of the Church Catholic in England, he
desires to hold, and to the best of his ability will teach, all doctrine
which the undivided Church always held. He finds by reference to those
authorities which could not be deceived, and cannot be adulterated, that
while they unanimously held the Roman primacy, and the patriarchal
system, of which the Roman pontiff stood at the head, they as unanimously
did not hold, nor even contemplate, that supremacy or monarchy which
alone Rome will now accept as the price of her communion. They not only
do not recognise it, but their words and their actions most manifestly
contradict it. This is, in one word, his justification of his mother from
the sin of Schism. If true, it is sufficient: if untrue, he knows of no
other.</p>
<p>But should any opponent think these pages worthy of a reply, the
writer warns him, at the outset, that he must in fairness discard that
old disingenuous trick of using testimonies of the Fathers to the primacy
of the Roman See in the episcopal and patriarchal system, in order to
prove the full papal supremacy, as now claimed, in a system which is
nearly come to pure monarchy. By this method, because the Fathers
recognise the Bishop of Rome as successor of St. Peter, they are counted
witnesses to that absolute power now claimed by the Roman pontiff, though
they recognise other Bishops, in just the same sense, to be successors of
the holy Apostles; or though they call every Bishop's see the see of
Peter, as the great type and example of the episcopate. What such an one
has to establish in order to justify the Roman Church, and to prove that
the English and the Eastern are in Schism, is, that Roman doctrine, as
stated by Bellarmine, which is really the key-stone of the whole system,
that "Bishops succeed not properly to the Apostles," "for they have no
part of the true apostolic authority," but that "all ordinary
jurisdiction of Bishops descends immediately from the Pope," and that
"the Pope has, full and entire, that power which Christ left on the earth
for the good of the Church."<a name="NtA1" href="#Nt1"><sup>[1]</sup></a>
Let this be proved on the testimony of the first six centuries, and if it
be true, nothing can be more easy than to prove it, as the contradictory
of it is attempted to be proved in the following pages, and all
controversy will be at an end. We claim that it should be proved, for
even De Maistre, who has put forward this theory with the least
compromise, declares, "There is nothing new in the Church, and never will
she believe save what she has always believed."<a name="NtA2"
href="#Nt2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
<p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
<hr class="full" />
<h2>THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND CLEARED FROM<br />
THE CHARGE OF SCHISM.</h2>
<p>The course of events, for some time past, has been such as to force
upon the most faithful sons of the Church of England the consideration of
questions which they would rather have left alone, as long ago settled;
for the nature of these questions is such, not to speak of their
intricacy and painfulness, as almost to compel the student to place
himself, as it were, <i>ab extra</i> to that community, which he would
rather regard with the unreasoning and unhesitating instinct of filial
affection. One of these questions, perhaps the first which directly meets
and encounters him, is the charge of Schism brought against the Church of
England on account of the events of the sixteenth century, and her actual
state of separation from the Latin communion, which has been their
result. Time was, and that not long since, when it might have been
thought a sort of treason for one who ministers at the altars of the
Church of England, and receives by her instrumentality the gift of Life,
so much as to entertain the thought, whether there was a flaw in the
commission of his spiritual mother, a flaw which, reducing her to the
condition of a sect, would invalidate his own sonship. And certainly the
treatment of such a question must be most painful to any one, who desires
to be obedient and dutiful, and therefore to be at peace. How can it be
otherwise, when, instead of eating his daily portion of food in his
Father's house, he is called upon to search and inquire whether indeed he
have found that house at all, and be not rather a fugitive or an outcast
from it. Such, however, is the hard necessity which is come upon us. Let
no one imagine that it is our <i>choice</i> to speak on such subjects. We
are in the case of a beleaguered soldier in an enemy's country; he may
not think of peace; he must maintain his post or die; his part is not
aggression, but defence: the matter at issue is the preservation of all
that he holds dear, or extermination. The question of <i>schism</i> is a
question of salvation.</p>
<p>But over and above the general course of events which forces us to
reconsider this question, circumstances have taken place in the past year
which we may boldly pronounce to be without a parallel in the history of
the Church in England since she became divided from Catholic communion.
Those who have followed with anxious sympathy that great restorative
movement which, for twelve years, has agitated her bosom,—those who
have felt with an ever increasing conviction, as time went on, and the
different parties consolidated and unfolded themselves, that it was at
the bottom a contest for the ancient faith delivered to the saints, for
dogmatic truth, for a visible Church, in whom, as in a great sacrament,
was lodged the presence of the Lord, communicating Himself by a thousand
acts of spiritual efficacy, against the monstrous and shapeless
latitudinarianism of the day; against the unnumbered and even unsuspected
heresies which have infected the whole atmosphere that we breathe;
against, in fine, the individual will of fallen man, under cover of which
the coming Antichrist is marshalling interests the most opposite, and
passions the most contradictory; and further, those not few nor
inconsiderable, we believe, who, by God's grace, owe to the teaching of
<i>one man</i> in particular a debt they never can repay,—the
recovery, perchance, of themselves from some form of error which he has
taught them to discern, or the building them up in a faith whose fair
proportions he first discovered to them,—these will feel with
deeper sorrow than we can express the urgency of the occasion to which we
allude. For how, indeed, could the question, whether the Church of
England is fallen into schism, or be, as from the laver of their
regeneration they have been taught to believe, a member of that one
sacred Body in which Christ incarnate dwells,—how could this
question be so forced upon their minds, as by the fact that her Champion,
whom they had hitherto felt to be invincible, who had seemed her
heaven-sent defender, with the talisman of victory in his hands, of whom
they were even tempted to think</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="i16">Si Pergama dextra</p>
<p>Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent,</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>that he, who fighting her battles, never met with his equal, unsubdued
by any foe from without, has surrendered to his own doubts and fears;
self-conquered, has laid down her arms, and has gone over to the camp
opposed. Henceforth she has ranged against her those powers of genius and
that sanctity of life, to which so many of her children looked as to a
certain omen of her Catholicity. They felt that she who bore such
children, must needs be the spouse of God. It is no wonder that many
others, of no mean name among us, and whom we could ill afford to spare,
have had their doubts and disquietudes determined by such a fact as this.
For the first time, I repeat, in the history of the Church of England
have earnest and zealous children of hers, who desired nothing but their
own salvation and the salvation of others, found no rest for the sole of
their feet within her communion. Men who set out with the most
single-minded purpose of defending her cause, nay, of winning back to her
bosom alienated multitudes, of building her up in a beauty and a glory
which she has not yet seen, and one, especially, who has been the soul of
that great movement to restore her,—these have now, after years of
hard fighting spent in her service, quitted her, and proclaim that all
who value their salvation must quit her likewise.</p>
<p>These are some of the special circumstances which force upon the most
reluctant the question of Schism. It was the privilege of other days to
feed in the quiet pastures of truth. We have to seek the path to Heaven
through the wilderness of controversy, where too often "the highways are
unoccupied, and the travellers walk through byways." But it is a question
which cannot be put off or thrust aside. No instructed Christian, who has
any true faith or love, can bear the thought that he is out of the one
fold of Christ. The question cannot be put off, for it will brood upon
him in his daily devotions and labours; a doubt as to the justice of his
cause will paralyse all his exertions. It cannot be thrust aside; for the
imputation of heresy on another has no tendency to answer the charge of
schism against oneself. It must be met openly, honestly, and without
shrinking. The charge of Schism touches immediately the Christian's
conscience, for this reason, that, if true, it takes away from his
prayers, his motives, his actions, his sufferings, that one quality which
is acceptable to Almighty God. Here it is most true, that "all, which is
not of faith, is sin:" he who does not believe, at least, that he is a
member of the one Church, whatever outward acts he may perform, cannot
please his Judge. In the words of one who himself gave his goods to feed
the poor, and shed his blood for the testimony of Jesus,<a name="NtA3"
href="#Nt3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> "if such men were even killed for
confession of the Christian name, not even by their blood is this stain
washed out. Inexpiable and heavy is the sin of discord, and is purged by
no suffering. He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church; he can
never attain to the kingdom, who leaves her with whom the kingdom shall
be." "A man of such sort may indeed be killed, crowned he cannot be."
Therefore the charge of Schism, when once brought before the reflecting
mind, cannot be turned aside,—it must be met and answered: if it is
not answered, at least to the conviction of the individual, it leaves
upon the whole of his obedience the stain of insincerity, which is fatal.
In this respect it is more pressing and imperious, more fatal, even than
that of heresy. I observe this, because, in the comments I have seen on
the painful departures of friends from among us, and in exhortations not
to follow them, it has not seemed to be always recognised. When men leave
us on the ground that we are in schism, surely all censure of them, and
all defence of ourselves, is beside the mark, which does not meet and
rebut this particular accusation. Under this no man can rest: it is
useless, it is sinful, to ask him to rest, unless you can remove the
imputation. To talk of "disappointment, or a morbid desire of
distinction, or impatience under deficiencies, want of discipline, or
sympathy in spiritual superiors," and such-like causes, as being those
which have impelled a man to the most painful sacrifices, and "in the
middle of his days to begin life again," is surely both untrue as regards
the individual, and futile as to preventing others doing like him, when
the ground of schism among others is alleged by himself, and is felt to
lie at the bottom. Could we prove that the Church of England is clear
both of enunciating heresy in her formularies, and of allowing it within
her pale, it would in no respect answer this charge of schism against
her, except so far as the <i>à priori</i> presumption, that she who is
clear of the one would be clear of the other also. But it would remain to
be met and answered specifically.</p>
<p>Moreover, I must confess that this is a point on which I, for one,
cannot write in the spirit of a controversialist. I must state, to the
best of my poor ability, and to the utmost reach of my limited
discernment, not only the truth, but the whole truth. I cannot keep back
points which tell against us. Gibbon charges Thomassin with telling one
half the truth, and Bingham the other half, in their books upon the
ancient discipline of the Church. Whether this be true or not, I cannot,
in my small degree, do likewise. I have found Bishop Beveridge, in his
defence of the 37th Article, quote, in several instances, part of a
paragraph from ancient Fathers, because it told for him, and omit the
other part, because it told against him. And, in considering the celibacy
of the clergy, it is usual to find Protestant writers enlarging on the
fact, that St. Peter was married; and that the Greek Church has always
allowed its parish priests to be married; while they keep out of view
that St. Peter's marriage preceded his call, and that the Eastern Church
never allowed those who were already in holy orders, to marry, but only
to keep those wives which they had taken as laymen. Or again, in
deference to the circumstances of the English Church, writers conceal the
fact, that the whole Church of the East and West, on the authority, as to
the first point, of the express Word of God itself, has never allowed a
person who married twice, or who married a widow, to be in holy orders at
all. I have observed Bingham, when he treats of celibacy, alluding
triumphantly to the biography of St. Cyprian, by Pontius, to prove that
an ancient saint, martyr, and bishop, of the third century, was a married
man; but taking care to leave out the express notice of Pontius, that,
from his conversion, he lived in continence. Those who wish to see on the
Roman side another sort of unfairness alluded to in the Advertisement may
look to the 6th Chapter of the 1st Book of De Maistre, on the Pope, where
they will find a host of quotations to prove the Supremacy, which only
prove at the outside the Primacy; and by far the greater number of them
might be paralleled by like expressions which are addressed to other
bishops, but of which fact no mention is made. They are assumed in a sort
of triumphant strain to prove the point in question, while, to the
student of antiquity, their weakness, or, sometimes, their irrelevancy,
only proves the reverse. This sort of disingenuousness is so common on
both sides, that it may be said to be the besetting sin of
controversialists. If, however, there be any question in which perfect
candour is requisite, it is surely this of schism. Would it not be a most
miserable success to be able to deceive oneself, or others, as to whether
one is or is not within the covenant of salvation? The special pleader in
such a case is surely the most unhappy of all men; for he deprives
himself of the greatest of blessings. He seems to win his cause, while he
most thoroughly loses it; for if a man be indeed out of the ark of
Christ's Church, what benefit can one possibly render him equal to that
of bringing him within it? I write, then, with the strongest sense of
responsibility on this subject, and shall not be deterred from making
admissions, if truth require them, which seem to tell on the other side,
and which have accordingly been shrunk from, or slurred over, by our
defenders in former times.</p>
<p>And this leads to another consideration. The charge of Schism against
the Church of England is, that by rejecting the Papal authority in the
sixteenth century, she lost the blessing of Catholic communion, and
ceased to belong to that One Body to which salvation is promised. Now, in
such a matter, the Church of England must be judged by principles which
have been, from the first, and are still, recognised by all Christendom.
Whatever obedience we may owe, in virtue of our personal subscription, to
articles or other formularies, drawn up in the sixteenth century, it is
obvious they can decide nothing here. What I mean will be best shown by
an example. Suppose a person were to take the 6th Article, and set upon
it a meaning, not at all uncommon in these days, viz. that the Church of
England therein declares, that Holy Scripture is the sole standard of
faith; and that every man must decide for himself, what is, or is not,
contained in Holy Scripture; and that he, searching Holy Scripture for
the purpose, can find nothing whatever said about the Papal
authority;—it is obvious, that such a mode of arguing would be
utterly inadequate either to terminate controversy, or, one would think,
to quiet any troubled conscience: for whether or no this be the meaning
of the 6th Article, the whole Greek and Latin Church would reject with
horror such propositions as the first two put together, as being
subversive of the very existence of a Church, and of all dogmatic
authority. It is a valid argument enough to an individual to say, You
have signed such and such documents, and are bound by them: but if he is
in doubt whether the documents themselves be tenable, they cannot be
taken to prove themselves. The decision of a province of the Church in
the sixteenth century cannot be quoted to prove that that decision is
right, for it is the very thing called in question. It is the Reformation
itself which is put on trial; it cannot appeal to itself as a witness; it
must be content to bring its cause before a judge, whose authority all
will admit,—and that judge, need we say, must be antiquity, and the
consent of the undivided Church. And the Church of England, it must be
admitted, has not shrunk from this appeal. Her often-quoted canon enjoins
her ministers, in that part of their duty wherein most is left to their
private judgment, "to teach nothing which they wish to be held and
believed religiously by the people, save what is agreeable to the
doctrine of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic Fathers and
ancient Bishops, have collected out of that very doctrine." Thus she
spoke in the year 1571. The Church had then passed through fifteen
centuries of a chequered, but superhuman, and most marvellous existence.
Her continuous life implies a continuity of principles, ruling her from
the beginning; and any controversy which affects her well-being, as does
that concerning the integrity or loss of a great member, must be judged
according to those principles. The present position of the Church of
England may be merely a provisional one, I firmly believe that such is
the fact; but if she is to claim the allegiance of her children as a part
of the Catholic Church, it must be proved that such her position is
tenable upon the principles which directed that Church when undivided. In
short, I propose honestly, though briefly, to meet this imputation of
schism by an appeal to the authority of the first six centuries: an
authority, which no Roman Catholic can slight or refuse.</p>
<p>Let us go back to the first period at which the universal Church,
emerging from the fires of persecution, is found acting as one body.
United, indeed, it had ever been from the day of Pentecost, in charity,
in doctrine, in sacraments, in communion. The Christian people, scattered
throughout the wide precincts of the Roman empire, and speaking its
various tongues, was one in heart and spirit—"A peculiar people,"
like none other: the Bread which they ate, and the Cup which they drank,
made them One living Body. But so long as the Church was engaged in a
fierce and unrelenting conflict with the Paganism and despotism of the
empire, she could hardly exhibit to the world her complete outward
organization. So, although in the intervals of persecution, important
provincial councils had been held, and though it was felt to be necessary
for discipline that local synods should take place twice every year, yet
not until the year 325, at the Council of Nicea, does the whole Church
meet in representation; the immediate cause of that assemblage being a
heresy so malignant as to threaten her existence, and which could be
repressed by no less energetic means. That is a strongly marked and
important point in her existence, throwing light upon the centuries
preceding, and establishing irremovable landmarks for those ensuing, at
which we have full means for judging what her constitution and government
were. As the decrees of the 318 Fathers established for ever the true
doctrine concerning the Eternal Son, so do they offer an imperishable and
unambiguous witness concerning the discipline and hierarchy of the
Church. What was schism then, is schism now; what was lawful and
compatible with Christian Sonship and privileges then, is so now. What
then is the view they present us with? We find the Bishops throughout the
whole world recognised, without so much as a doubt, to be the successors
of the Apostles, invested with the plenitude of that royal Priesthood
which the Son of God had set up on the earth in His own Person, and from
that Person had communicated to His chosen disciples, and so possessed of
whatever authority was necessary to govern the Church. Thus spoke a fresh
and unbroken tradition, so universal and so unquestionable that no other
voice was heard beside. Thus the Episcopal power may be safely recognised
as of divine appointment: in truth it is scarcely possible to have
stronger evidence than we have of this. One of the most learned of those
who are opposed to us on the charge of schism, thus sums up the decisions
"of all the Fathers and all the Councils of the first ages." "The Bishop
represents Christ, and stands in his place on earth. As therefore the
Priesthood of Christ embraces all sacerdotal authority and complete power
to feed the flock, so that while we may indeed distinguish and define the
various powers included in that fullness and perfection, yet it is a
great crime to dissever and rend them in any way from each other, just as
we distinguish without dividing the attributes and perfections of the
Godhead itself; so the Episcopate in its own nature contains the fullness
of the Priesthood, and the perfection of the Pastoral office. For Christ
received the perfection of the Priesthood from His Father, when He was
sent by Him. Moreover the perfection of the Priesthood, or both the
Episcopal powers, (<i>i.e.</i> the Sacerdotal and the Pastoral,) He gave
at once to His Apostles when he sent them as He himself was sent by the
Father. Lastly, that same perfection they transmitted to Bishops, sending
them as they themselves were sent by Christ." "Whence Bishops are Fathers
by the most noble participation of divine Fathership which is on earth;
so that here that expression of Paul is true—'From whom every
Fathership in heaven and earth is named.' For no greater Fathership is
there on the earth than the Apostolical and the Episcopal."
<i>Thomassin</i>, Part I. Liv. i. ch. 2.</p>
<p>And, viewed in itself, this power was sovereign and independent in
every individual Bishop, who was the spouse of the Church, the successor
of the Apostles, and of Peter, the centre of unity; able, moreover, to
communicate this authority to others, and to become the source of a long
line of spiritual descendants. But was this power in practice exercised
in so unmodified a form? Would there not have been not only imminent
danger, but almost certainty, that a power unlimited in its nature,
committed to so large a body of men, who might become indefinitely more
numerous, yet were each independent centres of authority, instead of
tending to unity would produce diversity? Accordingly we find, together
with the apostolical authority, admitted to be lodged in the Episcopal
body in general, a preponderating influence exercised by certain sees,
viz. by Rome in the West, and by Alexandria and Antioch in the East.
Under these leading Bishops are a great number of metropolitans; and
others, again, like the Bishops of Cyprus, have their own metropolitan,
but are not subordinate to either of the three great sees. Next to these,
rank the Bishops of Ephesus, Cesarea, and Heraclea, who preside
respectively over the provinces of Asia, Cappadocia, and Thrace, and were
afterwards called Exarchs. And the source of this preponderating
influence is to be traced to the fact that the Apostles laid hold of the
principal cities, and founded Churches in them, which became centres of
light to their several provinces, and naturally exercised a parental
authority over their children. The three great Bishops, though not yet
called Patriarchs, or even Archbishops, seem to have exercised all the
power of Patriarchs. No general Council would be binding without their
presence in person, or by deputy, or their subsequent ratification.
Moreover, among these, the Bishop of Rome, as successor of St. Peter, has
a decided preeminence. What the extent of that preeminence was, had not
yet been defined; but it is very apparent, and acknowledged in the East
as well as in the West. It does not seem, indeed, that his authority
differed in <i>kind</i>, but only in <i>degree</i>, from that of his
brethren, especially those of Alexandria and Antioch. The Apostolical
Canons, more ancient than the Council of Nice, and representing the whole
East, say:—"The Bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is
first among them, and account him as their head, and do nothing of
consequence without his consent; but each may do those things only which
concern his own parish, (<i>i.e.</i> diocese,) and the country places
which belong to it. But neither let him (who is the first) do anything
without the consent of all, for so there will be unanimity, and God will
be glorified through the Lord Jesus Christ." Canon 34. The Council of
Nicea mentions the sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome in precisely
similar terms:—"Let the ancient customs be maintained, which are in
Egypt and Libya, and Pentapolis; according to which the Bishop of
Alexandria has authority over all those places. For this is also
customary to the Bishop of Rome. In like manner in Antioch, and in the
other provinces, the privileges are to be preserved to the Churches."
Canon 6. That is, as it would seem, let the Bishop of Alexandria have the
power to consecrate Bishops in the three provinces of his Patriarchate,
for the Bishop of Rome does the same in his, <i>i.e.</i> in the
suburbicarian provinces, or in Italy, south of the province of Milan, and
in Sicily. This precedence or prerogative of Rome, to whatever extent it
reached, was certainly, notwithstanding the famous 28th Canon of
Chalcedon, not either claimed or granted merely because Rome was the
imperial city. It was explicitly claimed by the Bishop of Rome himself,
and as freely conceded by others to him, as in a special sense successor
of St. Peter. From the earliest times that the Church comes before us as
an organized body, the germ at least of this preeminence is observable.
From the very first, the Roman Pontiff seems possessed himself, as from a
living tradition which had thoroughly penetrated the local Roman Church,
with a consciousness of some peculiar influence he was to exercise on the
whole Church. This consciousness does not show itself here and there in
the line of Roman Pontiffs, but one and all, whatever their individual
characters might be, seem to have imbibed it from the atmosphere which
they breathed. St. Victor, and St. Stephen, St. Innocent, St. Leo the
Great, and St. Gregory, are quite of one mind here. That they were the
successors of St. Peter, who himself sat and ruled and spoke in their
person, was as strongly felt, and as consistently declared, by those
Pontiffs who preceded the time of Constantine, and who had continually to
pay with their blood the price of that high preeminence, as by those who
followed the conversion of the empire, when the honour of their post was
not accompanied by so much danger. We are speaking now, be it remembered,
of the feeling <i>which possessed them</i>. The feeling of their brother
Bishops concerning them may have been less definite, as was natural: but,
at least, even those who most opposed any arbitrary stretch of authority
on their part, as St. Cyprian, fully admitted that they sat in the See of
Peter, and ordinarily treated them with the greatest deference. This is
written so very legibly upon the records of antiquity, that I am
persuaded any one, who is even very slightly acquainted with them, cannot
with sincerity dispute it. I cannot think Mr. Newman has the least
overstated the fact when he says, "Faint they (the ante-Nicene
Testimonies to the authority of the Holy See) may be one by one, but at
least they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries, and
thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof. Thus,
St. Clement, in the name of the Church of Rome, writes a letter to the
Corinthians, when they were without a Bishop. St. Ignatius, of Antioch,
addresses the Roman Church, and it only out of the Churches to which he
writes, as 'the Church which has the first seat in the place of the
country of the Romans.' St. Polycarp, of Smyrna, betakes himself to the
Bishop of Rome on the question of Easter;" (but the Pope, St. Anicetus,
and he, not being able to agree as to the rule of keeping Easter, agreed
to retain their several customs; a fact which is as much opposed to the
present notion of the Roman Supremacy, as any fact can well be.) "The
heretic, Marcion, excommunicated in Pontus, betakes himself to Rome.
Soter, Bishop of Rome, sends alms, according to the custom of his Church,
to the Churches throughout the empire, and, in the words of Eusebius,
'affectionately exhorted those who came to Rome, as a father his
children.' The Montanists, from Phrygia, come to Rome to gain the
countenance of its Bishop. Praxeas, from Africa, attempts the like, and
for a while is successful. St. Victor, Bishop of Rome, threatens to
excommunicate the Asian Churches. St. Irenæus speaks of Rome, as 'the
greatest Church, the most ancient, the most conspicuous, and founded and
established by Peter and Paul,' appeals to its tradition, not in
contrast, indeed, but in preference to that of other Churches, and
declares that 'in this Church every Church—that is, the faithful
from every side, must meet,' or 'agree together, <i>propter potiorem
principalitatem</i>.' 'O Church, happy in its position,' says Tertullian,
'into which the Apostles poured out, together with their blood, their
whole doctrine.' The Presbyters of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria,
complain of his doctrine to St. Dionysius, of Rome; the latter
expostulates with him, and he explains. The Emperor Aurelian leaves 'to
the Bishops of Italy and of Rome' the decision, whether or not Paul, of
Samosata, shall be dispossessed of the see-house at Antioch. St. Cyprian
speaks of Rome as 'the See of Peter, and the principal Church, whence the
unity of the Priesthood took its rise, ... whose faith has been commended
by the Apostles, to whom faithlessness can have no access.' St. Stephen
refuses to receive St. Cyprian's deputation, and separates himself from
various Churches of the East. Fortunatus and Felix, deposed by St.
Cyprian, have recourse to Rome. Basilides, deposed in Spain, betakes
himself to Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen."<a name="NtA4"
href="#Nt4"><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
<p>It must be observed that the <i>extent</i> of this authority, in the
Chief See, has not been defined; but, whatever it was, it did not
interfere with the divine right of the Bishops to govern each in his own
diocese. They derived their authority by transmission from the Apostles,
as the Bishop of Rome from St. Peter; the one was as much recognised as
the other. They were not his <i>delegates</i>, but his <i>brethren</i>.
Frater and Co-episcopus <i>they style him</i>, as he styles them, for
hundreds of years after the Council of Nicea; owing him, indeed, and
willingly rendering him the greatest deference, but never so much as
imagining that their authority was derived from him. This fact, too, lies
upon the face of all antiquity, and is almost too notorious to need
proof. If, however, any be wanted, it is found in the names which Bishops
bore both then, and for a long time afterwards, and in their mode of
election and their jurisdiction. For their names: "It must first be
confessed," says a very learned Roman Catholic, who, in his humility,
shrunk from the Cardinalate offered to him for his services to the papal
see, "that the name of Pope, of Apostle, of Apostolic Prelate, of
Apostolic See, was still common to all Bishops, even during the three
centuries which elapsed from the reign of Clovis to the empire of
Charlemagne;" and he adds presently: "These august names are not like
those vain and superficial titles with which the pride of men feeds
itself; they are the solid marks of a power entirely from Heaven, and of
a holiness altogether Divine."<a name="NtA5"
href="#Nt5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> Indeed, the view which every where
prevailed was that so admirably expressed by St. Cyprian: "Episcopatus
unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur."<a name="NtA6"
href="#Nt6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> "The Episcopate is one; it is a whole in
which each enjoys full possession." St. Isidore, of Seville, says: "Since
also the other Apostles received a like fellowship of honour and power
with Peter, who also were scattered throughout the whole world, and
preached the Gospel; whom, at their departure, the Bishops succeeded, who
are established throughout the whole world in the seats of the
Apostles."<a name="NtA7" href="#Nt7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> But Pope
Symmachus (<span class="scac">A.D.</span> 498-514) has expressed the
equality and unity of the Episcopate and Apostolate between the Pope and
all Bishops, by the highest and most sacred similitude which it is
possible to conceive. "For inasmuch as after the likeness of the Trinity,
whose power is one and indivisible, the priesthood is one in the hands of
various prelates, how suits it that the statutes of the more ancient be
broken by their successors?"<a name="NtA8" href="#Nt8"><sup>[8]</sup></a>
We are told by the same author: "Pope Hormisdas (<span
class="scac">A.D.</span> 514-523) prescribed, and all the Bishops of the
east subscribed, after the Patriarch John of Constantinople, a formulary
of faith and of Catholic Communion, where, among other remarkable points,
this is worthy of particular attention:—that as all Churches make
but one Church, so all the thrones of the Apostolate, and all the Sees of
the Episcopate, spread through all the earth, are but one apostolic see,
inseparable from the see of Peter." This is the view of St. Augustin,
expressed again and again in his writings, especially when he is
explaining those remarkable words of our Lord to St. Peter, on which
Roman Catholics ground the <i>scriptural</i> proof of his Primacy. "For
it is evident that Peter, in many places of the Scriptures, represents
the Church, (<i>personam gestet Ecclesiæ</i>) chiefly in that place where
it is said, 'I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.
Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven: and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.' What!
did Peter receive those keys, and Paul not receive them? Did Peter
receive them, and John and James not receive them, and the rest of the
Apostles? Or are not those keys in the Church, where sins are daily
remitted? But since in meaning hinted, but not expressed, (<i>in
significatione</i>), Peter was representing the Church, what was given to
him singly, was given to the Church. So, then, Peter bore the figure of
the Church: the Church is the body of Christ."<a name="NtA9"
href="#Nt9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> So St. Chrysostom: "But when I speak of
Paul, I mean not only him, but also Peter, and James, and John, and all
their choir. For as in a lyre there are different strings, but one
harmony, so, too, in the choir of the Apostles, there were different
persons, but one teaching; since one, too, was the Musician, even the
Holy Spirit, who moved their souls. And Paul signifying this, said:
'Whether, therefore, it were they or I, so we preach.'"<a name="NtA10"
href="#Nt10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> How little, on the one hand, the
pre-eminence of St. Peter's see derogated from the apostolicity of other
Bishops, or, on the other hand, their distinct descent and jurisdiction
hindered them from paying due deference to the Chief See, is apparent
likewise in these words of St. Jerome: "But, you say, the Church is
founded upon Peter; although, in another place, this self-same thing
takes place upon all the Apostles, and all receive the keys of the
kingdom of Heaven, <i>and the strength of the Church is consolidated
equally upon them</i>: nevertheless, for this reason, out of the twelve
one is selected, that, by the appointment of a head, the occasion of
Schism may be taken away."<a name="NtA11"
href="#Nt11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> Thomassin doubts whether at the Council
of Nicea, or even at that of Antioch, sixteen years afterwards, the name
even of Archbishop was yet in use; the highest title used in those two
Councils being that of Metropolitan. St. Epiphanius quotes a letter of
Arius to Alexander, of Alexandria, in which he only gives him the quality
of Pope and Bishop, but nowhere that of Archbishop.</p>
<p>So much for the equality of the names of Bishops in the fourth
century, which recognises the essential equality and unity of their
office. The laws in force respecting their consecration and jurisdiction
are as decisive. Every Bishop, after being elected by the Clergy and
people, and the assembled provincial Bishops, was consecrated by the
Metropolitan of his province, except, indeed, in the Patriarchate of
Alexandria, where the Primate, as we have seen, and not the Metropolitans
under him, consecrated all Bishops. Where a Metropolitan had no immediate
superior, in case of a vacancy, the Bishops of his own province
consecrated him, as in the case of Carthage. Whatever might be the
particular privileges of Patriarchs and Metropolitans, as a general rule,
no one Bishop had direct jurisdiction in the diocese of another. The
Bishops of the great sees, specially Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch,
announced their accession to each other, together with a profession of
the orthodox faith. But as for any jurisdiction emanating from Rome to
the great Bishops of the east, such a thing was never even imagined. Let
us even rest the whole question on this important point, for it is
absolutely necessary to the Papal theory; and I do not think any vestige
of such a doctrine can be found in the first six centuries. At least, let
it be shown; for, to assert it in the face of Canons which imply a system
the very reverse of it, is merely begging the whole question. That in
cases of difficulty, or disputed succession, or heresy, or schism, the
voice of the Bishop of Rome would have great weight, is, indeed,
indisputable. When the ship of the Church was in distress, whom should we
expect to see at the rudder but St. Peter? Thus St. Jerome, himself
baptized at Rome, naturally looks to Rome in this difficulty. Mr. Newman
says:<a name="NtA12" href="#Nt12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> "The divisions at
Antioch had thrown the Catholic Church into a remarkable position; there
were two Bishops in the see, one in connexion with the East, and the
other with Egypt and the West,—with which, then, was Catholic
Communion? St. Jerome has no doubt upon the subject. Writing to St.
Damasus, he says: 'Since the East tears into pieces the Lord's coat,
<i>and foxes lay waste the vineyard of Christ, so that among broken
cisterns, which hold no water, it is difficult to understand where the
sealed fountain and the garden inclosed is</i>, therefore by me is the
chair of St. Peter to be consulted, and that faith which is praised by
the Apostle's mouth, <i>thence now seeking food for my soul where of old
I received the robe of Christ. Whilst the bad children have wasted their
goods, the inheritance of the Fathers is preserved uncorrupt among you
alone. There the earth from its fertile bosom returns the pure seed of
the Lord a hundred fold: here the grain buried in the furrows degenerates
into darnell and tares. At present the Sun of Righteousness rises in the
West; but in the East that fallen Lucifer hath placed his throne. You are
the light of the world: you the salt of the earth: you the vessels of
gold and silver: but here the vessels of earth or wood await the iron rod
and the eternal flame.' Therefore</i>, though your greatness terrifies
me, yet your kindness invites me. From the Priest the sacrifice claims
salvation; from the Shepherd the sheep claims protection. Let us speak
without offence: I court not the Roman height: I speak with the successor
of the Fisherman, and the disciple of the Cross. I, who follow none as my
chief but Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness; that
is, with the See of Peter. On that rock the Church is built I know. Whoso
shall eat the Lamb outside that house is profane.... <a
name="quot26"></a>I know not Vitalis (the Apollinarian); Meletius I
reject; I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoso gathereth not with thee,
scattereth; that is, he who is not of Christ is of Antichrist."<a
name="NtA13" href="#Nt13"><sup>[13]</sup></a></p>
<p>Considering all the circumstances of the case, no one can wonder at
St. Jerome's application. When it is remembered that the Roman See, up to
that time, had been free from all suspicion of heresy, and that the Arian
controversy was the one in question, and that he himself, of full
manhood, had been baptized, and had lived at Rome, the force of his
language is hardly surprising. His words certainly prove, what, I
suppose, no student of antiquity can doubt, the Primacy of the Roman See:
but could there be a greater unfairness than to apply their bare letter
to a state of things totally changed? or to consider expressions proving
the <i>primacy</i> of Rome, as claimed in the fourth century, to prove
equally a <i>supremacy</i> as claimed in the nineteenth, which is as
different from the former as one thing can well be from another. This
very St. Meletius, a man of pre-eminent sanctity of life, the ordainer of
St. Chrysostom, dies, it would appear, out of communion with Rome, and
has ever been accounted a saint in the Western as well as in the Eastern
Church.</p>
<p>But to recur to the point of jurisdiction at the time of the Nicene
Council. It is beyond question, both from the acts of that Council, and
from the Apostolic Canons, which represent the Eastern Church in the
second and third centuries, that, whatever the pre-eminence of Rome might
consist in, there was no claim whatever to confer jurisdiction on Bishops
out of the Roman Patriarchate, then comprising Italy, south of Milan, and
Sicily. Even differences, any where arising, were to be settled in
Provincial Councils. "It is necessary to know, that, up to the Council of
Nicea, all ecclesiastical affairs had been terminated in the Councils of
each Province; and there had been but very few occasions in which it had
been necessary to convoke an assembly of several Provinces. The Council
of Nicea, even, only speaks of Provincial Councils, and orders that all
things should be settled therein."<a name="NtA14"
href="#Nt14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> The testimony and conduct of St. Cyprian
will illustrate the Roman Primacy, to which Mr. Newman claims him as a
witness. And such he is beyond doubt. In his fifty-fifth letter, which
begins, "Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting;" he complains
bitterly to that Pope that Felicissimus and his party "dare to set sail,
and to carry a letter from schismatical and profane persons to the see of
Peter, and to the principal Church, whence the unity of the priesthood
took its rise; nor consider that they are the Romans whose faith had been
praised by the preaching of the Apostle, to whom faithlessness can have
no access." This Mr. Newman considers a pretty strong testimony in his
"cumulative argument" for the authority of Rome. It would be as well,
however, to go on a little further, and see what was the cause of St.
Cyprian's vehement indignation. It was, that Felicissimus ventured <i>to
appeal to Pope Cornelius</i>, when his cause had already been heard and
settled by St. Cyprian, at Carthage. "But what was the cause of their
coming and announcing that a Pseudo-Bishop had been made against the
Bishops? For, either they are satisfied with what they have done, and
persevere in their crime, or, if they are dissatisfied, and give way,
they know whither they may return. For, since it has been determined by
all of us, and is both equitable and just, that the cause of every one be
heard there where the crime has been committed, and <i>to every shepherd
a portion of the flock is allotted, which each one rules and governs, as
he is to give an account of his doings to the Lord</i>, it is certainly
behoving that those over whom we preside should not run about, nor break
the close harmony of Bishops with their deceitful and fallacious
rashness, but should plead their cause where they may find both accusers
and witnesses of their crime; <i>unless to a few desperate and abandoned
men the authority of the Bishops seated in Africa seem less</i>, who have
already judged concerning them, and have lately condemned, by the weight
of their sentence, their conscience, bound by many snares of crimes.
Their cause has been already heard, their sentence already pronounced;
nor is it becoming to the judgment of priests to be reprehended by the
levity of a fickle and inconstant mind, when the Lord teaches and says,
'Let your conversation be yea, yea; nay, nay.'" Let any candid person
say, whether he who so wrote to one whom he acknowledged as the successor
of St. Peter, could have imagined that there was a Divine right in that
successor to re-hear not only this, but all other causes; to reverse all
previous judgments of his Brethren by his single authority; nay, more, to
confer on all those Brethren their jurisdiction "by the grace of the
Apostolic See."<a name="NtA15" href="#Nt15"><sup>[15]</sup></a></p>
<p>Another letter of St. Cyprian to another Pope, St. Stephen, will set
forth both his view of the Primacy, and of the Episcopal relation to it.
He wishes St. Stephen to write a letter to the people of Arles, by which
their actual Bishop Marcian, who had joined himself to the schismatic
Novatian, might be excommunicated, and another substituted for him. This
alone shows how great the authority of the Bishop of Rome in such an
emergency was. But the tone of his language is worth considering. It is
just such incidents as these which are made use of by Roman Catholic
controversialists in late times to justify the full extent of Papal power
now claimed.<a name="NtA16" href="#Nt16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> "Cyprian to
his brother Stephen, greeting. Faustinus, our colleague at Lyons, dearest
brother, hath more than once written to me, signifying what I know has
certainly been reported to you also, both by him, and by the rest of our
brother-Bishops, in that province, that Marcian of Arles, has joined
himself to Novatian, and has departed from the unity of the Catholic
Church, and from the agreement of our body and priesthood.... This matter
it is our duty to provide against and remedy, most dear brother, we, who
considering the Divine clemency, and holding the balance of the Church's
government, so exhibit to sinners our vigorous censure as not to deny the
medicine of Divine goodness and mercy to the restoration of the fallen
and the healing of the wounded. Wherefore it behoves you to write a very
explicit letter to our fellow Bishops in the Gauls, that they may not any
longer suffer our order (<i>collegio nostro</i>) to be insulted by
Marcian, obstinate, haughty, the enemy both of piety to God, and of his
brethren's salvation.... For, therefore, most dear brother, is the
numerous body of priests joined together in mutual concord, and the bond
of unity, that <i>if any one of our order</i> attempt to make a heresy,
and to sever and lay waste the flock of Christ, the rest may fly to the
rescue, and, like useful and merciful shepherds, collect the Lord's sheep
into a flock.... For, although we are many shepherds, yet we feed one
flock; and we ought to collect and cherish all those sheep which Christ
sought with His own blood and passion.... For we must preserve the
glorious honour <i>of our predecessors</i>, the blessed Martyrs,
Cornelius and Lucius," (the last Popes,) "whose memory we indeed honour,
but which you much more, most dear brother, who are become their
successor, ought to distinguish and preserve by your weight and
authority. For they being full of the spirit of God, and made glorious
martyrs, determined that reconciliation was to be granted to the lapsed,
and set down in their letters, that, after a course of penitence, the
advantage of communion and peace was not to be refused them. <i>Which
thing we all have everywhere entirely determined.</i> For there could not
be in us a difference of judgment in whom there is One Spirit." Now,
might it not be stated, that St. Cyprian wrote to Pope Stephen, to
request him to depose Marcian, Bishop of Arles? But how much is the
inference from this fact modified by the language of Cyprian himself? It
is just such a letter as an Eastern Primate would have written to the
Patriarch of Alexandria, or of Antioch, to request his interference at a
dangerous juncture. It bears witness, not to the present Papal, but to
the Patriarchal, system. It tallies exactly with the spirit of him who
wrote elsewhere, to the lapsed, "Our Lord, whose precepts and warnings we
are bound to observe, regulating the honour of the Bishop, and the
constitution of his Church, speaks in the Gospel, and says to Peter, 'I
say unto thee that thou art Peter,' &c. Thence, according to the
change of times and successions, the ordination of Bishops and the
constitution of the Church has descended, <i>so that the Church is
established upon the Bishops, and every act of the Church is directed by
the same, its governors</i>. This being established by Divine law,"<a
name="NtA17" href="#Nt17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> &c. It is evident that,
if the see of Peter, so often referred to by St. Cyprian, means the local
see of Rome, it also means the see of every Bishop who holds that office,
whereof Peter is the great type, example, and source.</p>
<p>But it was reserved for a more celebrated controversy, fully to bring
out St. Cyprian's view of the relation of the Bishop of Rome to the rest
of the Episcopal body: I mean, of course, the controversy whether
heretics should be admitted into the Church by rebaptization or by the
imposition of hands. I most fully believe, be it observed, that Cyprian
acknowledged the Roman Primacy, that he admitted certain high
prerogatives to be lodged in the Roman Pontiff, as St. Peter's successor,
which did not belong to any other Bishop. It is this very thing which
makes his conduct the more remarkable. He took a very strong view on one
side of the controversy in question: and St. Stephen took an equally
strong one on the other. St. Stephen, we all know, turned out to be
right. That fervent Pontiff, it may be remarked, when St. Cyprian would
not give up his view, seemed inclined to treat him much as St. Gregory
the Seventh did a refractory Emperor, or St. Innocent the Third, the
dastard tyrant John. This may be very satisfactory to the modern
defenders of Papal omnipotence, but St. Cyprian's conduct is not so at
all. St. Cyprian called a Council of Bishops of the provinces of Carthage
and Numidia; they attended to the number of seventy-one, and decided that
heretics should be rebaptized. St. Cyprian informs the Pope of the
decision of himself and his colleagues. After saying that they had found
it necessary to hold a council, he proceeds—<a name="NtA18"
href="#Nt18"><sup>[18]</sup></a>"But I thought I ought to write to you
and confer with your gravity and wisdom concerning that especially which
most belongs to the authority of the priesthood, and to the unity alike
and dignity of the Catholic Church derived from the ordering of a Divine
disposition.... This, most dear Brother, we have brought to your
knowledge on account both of the honour we share with you, and of our
single-hearted affection, believing that what is both religious and true
is acceptable to you also according to your true religion and faith. But
we know that some are unwilling to give up an opinion they have once
imbibed, nor easily change their mind; but, without interruption to the
bonds of peace and concord with their colleagues, retain certain
peculiarities which have once grown into usage among themselves." (Such
is the manner in which St. Cyprian mentions a judgment deliberately
expressed by a Pope on a matter of high discipline, which involved a
point of faith.) "In which matter we too do violence and give the law to
no one, inasmuch as <i>every Bishop has the free choice of his own will
in the administration of the Church, as he will give an account of his
acts to the Lord</i>." St. Stephen received this decision of the African
Council so ill, that he would not even see the Bishops who brought it,
nor allow the faithful to offer them common hospitality. So important in
his eyes was the matter in dispute. St. Cyprian reports his answer in a
letter to his Brother-Bishop Pompeius, in which he says, <a name="NtA19"
href="#Nt19"><sup>[19]</sup></a>"Although we have fully embraced all that
is to be said concerning the baptizing of heretics, in the letters of
which we have sent to you copies, most dear Brother, yet, because you
desired to be informed what answer our Brother Stephen sent me to our
letters, I send you a copy of his rescript, after reading which you will
more and more mark his error, who attempts to assert the cause of
heretics against Christians and against the Church of God. For amongst
other either proud or impertinent or inconsistent remarks, which he has
written rashly and improvidently, &c.... But what blindness of mind
is it, what perverseness to refuse to recognise the unity of the faith
coming from God the Father and the tradition of Jesus Christ our Lord and
God.... But since no heresy at all, nor indeed any schism, can possess
outside (the Body) the sanctification of saving baptism, why has the
harsh obstinacy of our Brother Stephen burst forth to such a degree?"
&c.... "Does he give honour to God, who, the friend of heretics and
the enemy of Christians, deems the priests of God, maintaining the truth
of Christ and the unity of the Church, worthy of excommunication?" St.
Stephen had inflicted this on the African prelates, until they should
give up their judgment on the point in question.... "Nor ought the
custom, which has crept in <i>among certain persons</i>, to hinder truth
from prevailing and conquering. For custom without truth is but old
error."... "But it is hurried away by presumption and contumacy that a
person rather defends his own perverseness and falsity than accedes to
the right and truth of another. Which thing the blessed apostle Paul
foreseeing, writes to Timothy and warns, that a Bishop must not be
quarrelsome, nor contentious, but gentle and teachable. Now he is
teachable, who is mild and gentle to learn patiently. For a Bishop ought
not only to teach, but also to learn, because he teaches better who daily
improves and profits by learning better." Even as we copy this language
used concerning a Pope by a great Bishop and Martyr of the third century,
who elsewhere writes, <a name="NtA20"
href="#Nt20"><sup>[20]</sup></a>"That our Lord built His Church upon
Peter alone, and though He gave to all the apostles an equal power, yet
in order to manifest unity He has by His own authority so placed the
source of the same unity as to begin from one;" we feel the contrast to
be almost overpowering with the tone in which the first Patriarch of the
Latin Church, however good his cause might be, would now venture to
address the Supreme Pontiff. Towards the conclusion of this letter he
says, instead of admitting that the Pope's judgment terminated the
matter—"This now the priests of God ought to do, preserving the
Divine precepts, so that if in anything truth has been shaken and
tottered, we may return to the fountain-head of the Lord, and to the
evangelical and apostolical tradition, and that the rule of our acting
may spring thence, whence its order and origin arose."</p>
<p>After receiving the Pope's rescript, and his excommunication, St.
Cyprian convoked another Council of the three provinces of Africa,
Numidia, and Mauritania, which was held at Carthage on the 1st of Sept.
256. It was attended by eighty-five Bishops, among whom were fifteen
Confessors, beside Priests and Deacons, and a great part of the people.
St. Cyprian opened it, observing: "It remains for us each to deliver our
sentiments on this matter, judging no one, nor removing any one, if he be
of a different opinion, from the right of Communion. <i>For no one of us
sets himself up to be a Bishop of Bishops, or by fear of his tyranny
compels his colleagues to the necessity of obedience, since every Bishop
according to his recognised liberty and power possesses a free choice,
and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.
But let us all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who singly
and alone has the power both of setting us up in the government of His
Church, and of judging our proceedings.</i>"<a name="NtA21"
href="#Nt21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> The Bishops delivered their judgments
<i>seriatim</i>, finishing with St. Cyprian, and unanimously ratified
what they had agreed upon before, that heretics should be admitted into
the Church by baptism, and not merely by the imposition of hands: and
thus an African Council of the third century treated a judgment of the
Pope, and his sentence of excommunication until they altered their
practice.</p>
<p>But these last words of St. Cyprian are so remarkable in themselves,
and have such a bearing on the present Papal claims, that they deserve
further notice. Now, lest we should imagine that St. Cyprian was hurried
away by the ardour of his defence of a favourite doctrine, and his sense
of the Pope's severity, into unjustifiable expressions concerning the
rights of Bishops, it so happens that we possess the comment of the
greatest of the Fathers on these very words. St. Augustin, writing 140
years after, and fully agreeing with the judgment of Pope Stephen, as had
the whole Church finally, quotes the whole passage. "'It remains for us
each to deliver our sentiments on this matter, judging no one, nor
removing any one, if he be of a different opinion, from the right of
communion.'<a name="NtA22" href="#Nt22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> There he not
only permits me without loss of communion further to seek the truth, but
even to be of a different judgment. 'For no one of us,' saith he, 'sets
himself up to be a Bishop of Bishops, or by fear of his tyranny compels
his colleagues to the necessity of obedience.' What can be more gentle?
What more humble? Certainly no authority deters us from seeking what is
the truth: 'since,' he says, 'every Bishop according to his recognised
liberty and power possesses a free choice, and can no more be judged by
another than he himself can judge another:' certainly, I imagine, in
those questions which have not yet been thoroughly and completely
settled. For he knew how great and mysterious a sacrament the whole
Church was then with various reasonings considering, and he left open a
freedom of inquiry, that the truth might by search be laid open.... I
cannot by any means be induced to believe that Cyprian, a Catholic
Bishop, a Catholic Martyr, and the greater he was the more in every
respect humbling himself, that he might find grace before God, did,
especially in a holy Council of his colleagues, utter with his mouth
other than what he carried in his heart, particularly as he
adds—'But let us all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who singly and alone has the power both of setting us up in the
government of His Church, and of judging our proceedings.' Under appeal
then to so great a judgment, expecting to hear the truth from his
colleagues, should he offer them the first example of falsehood? God
avert such a madness from any Christian, how much more from Cyprian. We
possess then a free power of inquiry, admitted us by Cyprian's own most
gentle and true language."</p>
<p>Who can conclude otherwise than that St. Augustin in the year 400, as
St. Cyprian in the year 256, was utterly ignorant of any such power as is
now claimed for the See of Rome, under cover of that original Primacy to
which both these great saints have borne indubitable witness? For the
words of St. Cyprian, attested and approved by St. Augustin, contain the
most explicit denial of that power lodged in the see of Rome as distinct
from an Œcumenical Council, by which alone, if at all, the Church
of England has been declared schismatical and excommunicate.</p>
<p>These are Bishops of the West speaking, but the East also must give
its voice. St. Dionysius of Alexandria, and many other Eastern Prelates,
among the rest Firmilian, Metropolitan of Cesarea, in Cappadocia,
supported St. Cyprian on the question of rebaptization. The latter had
been informed of St. Stephen's strong judgment and decided proceedings in
the matter, who had threatened to separate the Bishops of the East also
from his communion, if they did not comply with his rule. Firmilian wrote
a long letter to Cyprian, which contains very remarkable expressions. He
alludes in it more than once to the Primacy of St. Peter, and to that of
Stephen as descending from him. <a name="NtA23"
href="#Nt23"><sup>[23]</sup></a>"But what is the error, and how great the
blindness of him (<i>i.e.</i> the Pope) who says, remission of sins can
be given in the meetings of heretics, nor remains in the foundation of
the one Church which was once fixed by Christ upon the rock, may be hence
understood, because to Peter alone Christ said, Whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose
on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and again, in the Gospel, when on the
Apostles alone Christ breathed and said, Receive the Holy Ghost: whose
sins ye remit they are remitted, and whose ye retain, they are retained.
<i>Therefore the power of remitting sins was given to the Apostles and
the Churches which they, being sent by Christ, set up, and to the Bishops
who have succeeded them by ordination in their stead</i>.... And here I
am justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly of Stephen,
because, glorying as he does in the rank of his Episcopate, and
maintaining that he holds the succession of Peter, upon whom the
foundations of the Church were laid, he introduces many other rocks, and
sets up new buildings of many Churches, while he affirms, on his own
authority, that Baptism is in them.... Nor does he perceive that the
truth of the Christian rock is clouded over by him, and in a manner
abolished, who thus betrays and deserts unity.... You Africans can say
against Stephen, that, when the truth became known to you, you
relinquished an erroneous custom. But we join custom also to truth, and
to the custom of the Romans oppose a custom indeed, but that of truth,
holding from the beginning this which has been delivered down from
Christ, and from the Apostles." He had said before, "One may know that
those who are at Rome do not in all things observe what has been
delivered down from the beginning, and vainly allege the authority of the
Apostles, even by this, that in celebrating Easter, and in many other
sacred rites, one may see there is among them certain variations; nor are
all things there kept as they are kept at Jerusalem; just as in very many
other provinces also, according to the diversity of places and names,
there are variations; nor yet on this account have the peace and unity of
the Catholic Church ever been departed from. Which now Stephen has dared
to do, breaking peace towards you, which his predecessors always kept
with you, in reciprocal love and honour; casting, too, shameful reproach
(infamans) on the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, as if they had handed
this down, &c." The letter concludes with an apostrophe to Stephen,
which only a regard to truth induces us to quote, so painful is its
vehemence, though it proves <i>ex abundanti</i> the point we are upon:
"And Stephen is not ashamed to assert this, that remission of sins can be
given through those who are themselves in all their sins.... But thou art
worse than all heretics; for whilst many, acknowledging their error, come
to thee thence to receive the true light of the Church, thou assistest
the errors of those so coming.... Nor understandest that their souls will
be demanded at thy hand, when the day of judgment is come, who to the
thirsting hast denied the Church's draught, and hast been the cause of
death to those who would live. And moreover thou art indignant! See with
what ignorance thou venturest to censure those who strive for the truth
against falsehood. For who had most right to be angry at another; he who
supports the enemies of God, or he who argues for the truth of the Church
against him who supports God's enemies? except that it is evident that
the ignorant are also passionate and wrathful, whilst, through lack of
wisdom and discourse, they readily betake themselves to passion, so that
it is of none other than thee that Holy Scripture says, 'The passionate
man prepares quarrels, and the wrathful man heaps up sins;' for what
quarrels and dissensions hast thou caused through the Churches of the
whole world! But how great a sin hast thou heaped upon thyself, <i>when
thou didst cut thyself off from so many flocks; for thou hast destroyed
thyself. Do not be deceived. Since he is the true schismatic who has made
himself an apostate from the communion of the Church's oneness; for
whilst thou dost fancy that all can be excommunicated by thee, thou hast
excommunicated thyself alone from all</i>.... This salutary advice of the
Apostle how diligently hath Stephen fulfilled! preserving humility of
feeling and lenity, <i>in his first rank</i>, (primo in loco.) For what
could be more humble or gentle, than to have disagreed with so many
Bishops throughout the whole world, breaking peace with one and the other
on various grounds of discord, now with the Eastern, as we are sure you
are aware, now with you in the South; episcopal deputies from whom he
received with such patience and mildness, that he did not even admit them
to an interview; moreover, so mindful of the claims of charity and
affection, that he charged the whole brotherhood, that no one should
receive them into his house?" &c.</p>
<p>Concerning this remarkable history, Fleury says:<a name="NtA24"
href="#Nt24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> "It is not known what was then the issue
of this dispute. It is certain that it still continued under Pope Saint
Sixtus, successor of St. Stephen: this is seen by the letters that St.
Dionysius of Alexandria wrote him; and it does not appear that St.
Cyprian or Firmilian changed their mind." (So that St. Cyprian died under
excommunication from Pope Stephen.) "Still St. Cyprian is counted among
the most illustrious martyrs, even in the Roman Church, which names him
in the Canon of the Mass, in preference to Pope St. Stephen; and the
Greeks, in their Menologium, honour the memory of Firmilian. With reason,
since we shall see him preside over the first Council of Antioch, against
Paul of Samosata; and the Fathers of the second Council, writing to the
Pope, name Firmilian, of happy memory, as they do Dionysius of
Alexandria. Why the error of St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian hurt not their
sanctity is, that they always preserved on their part the unity of the
Church, and charity, and that they maintained in good faith a bad cause,
which they believed good, <i>and upon which there had not yet been a
decision received by unanimous consent of the whole Church</i>. Thus St.
Augustin speaks of it, <i>not counting as a final decision the decree of
Pope St. Stephen, though true in its matter, and clothed with all the
force that he could give it. No one of the ancients has accused these
holy Bishops of obstinacy for not having obeyed this decree</i>. The
decision of Pope St. Stephen respecting the baptism of heretics has
prevailed, because it was the most ancient and the most universal, and
consequently the best.... At length this question was entirely set at
rest by the authority of the universal Council, that is to say, at the
latest, at the Council of Nicea." Most fair and just: St. Cyprian and St.
Firmilian may have innocently erred in such a matter; but what of the way
in which they treated the Pope? Could they be ignorant of the
constitution of that Church of which they were Primates, Saints, and one
a Martyr? If his decision was final, must they not have known it? If his
primacy involved their obedience, must they not have rendered it? But if
they were his deputies, as the present Roman claim would have it, who can
express their rashness? Had they been right, and the Pope wrong,
according to the present tenets of the Latin Church, obedience had been
better than sacrifice. In truth, they would have anticipated the noble
submission of the Archbishop of Cambrai, and yielded at once to the chair
of St. Peter, whatever had been their conviction as to the truth of their
views; but the Archbishop of Carthage, the sternest defender of
ecclesiastical unity and discipline which even the Church of the Fathers
produced, knew not that he had any such duty towards the See of St.
Peter.</p>
<p>Nay, and St. Augustin knew it not either. It was no more the belief in
his day than in St. Cyprian's. The Donatists alleged against him in the
question of Baptism the authority of Cyprian in this great Council of
Carthage. This leads him to make a very important statement—"You
are wont to object against us Cyprian's letters, Cyprian's judgment,
Cyprian's Council: why do you assume the authority of Cyprian for your
schism, and reject his example for the peace of the Church? But who is
ignorant that canonical holy Scripture, as well of the Old as of the New
Testament, is contained in its own certain limits, and is so preferred to
all subsequent letters of Bishops, that no doubt or discussion at all can
be held concerning it, as to whether that be true or right, which is
acknowledged to be found written in it: but that the letters of Bishops
which either have been or are written after the confirmation of the
canon, may be reprehended both by the reasoning, peradventure more full
of wisdom, of some one in that matter more skilled, and by the weightier
authority and more learned judgment of other Bishops, and by Councils, if
haply there has been in them any deviation from the truth; and that
Councils themselves, holden in particular regions or provinces, yield,
beyond all question, to the authority of plenary Councils, which are made
out of the whole Christian world: and that former plenary Councils
themselves are often corrected by subsequent ones, when by some practical
experience what has been hidden is laid open, and what lay concealed is
recognised, without any puffing up of sacrilegious pride, without any
haughty exhibition of arrogance, without any strife of livid envy, with
holy humility, with Catholic peace, with Christian charity."<a
name="NtA25" href="#Nt25"><sup>[25]</sup></a> Here, where, in a <i>dignus
vindice nodus</i>, we should have expected some mention of the Chief See,
and St. Peter's rights, all is referred to the voice of Bishops in
Council,—that See, in which, according to Bellarmine, the plenitude
of all the power resides which Christ left in His Church, is not even
spoken of. He proceeds—"Wherefore holy Cyprian, the more exalted,
the more humble," (in a matter for which he was excommunicated by the
Pope, and in which, if the present Papal theory be true, his conduct was
to the last degree insolent, and unjustifiable,) "who so loved the
example of Peter as to say,—'Showing, indeed, an instance to us of
concord and patience, that we should not pertinaciously love our own
opinion, but should rather count for our own any useful and sound
suggestions, which at times are made by our brethren and colleagues, if
they be true and lawful:' he sufficiently shows that he would most
readily have corrected his judgment, had any one pointed out to him that
the Baptism of Christ might be given by those who had gone out (from the
Church) in the same manner that it could not be lost when they went out:
on which point we have already said much. Nor should we ourselves venture
to make any such assertion, were we not supported by the unanimous
authority of the whole Church: to which he too, without doubt, would
yield, if the truth of this question had at that period been thoroughly
sifted, and declared, and established by a plenary Council. For if he
praises and extols Peter for having with patience and harmony suffered
correction from a single younger colleague, how much more readily would
he himself, with the Council of his province, have yielded to the
authority of the whole world, when the truth was laid open? because,
indeed, so holy and so peaceful a soul might most readily agree to one
person (<i>i.e.</i> the Pope), speaking and proving the truth; and this,
perhaps, was really the fact, but we know not. For not all which at that
time was transacted between Bishops could be committed to posterity and
writing, nor do we know all which was so committed. For how could that
matter, involved in so many clouds of altercations, be brought to the
clear consideration and ratification of a plenary Council, unless first
for a long time throughout all the regions of the world it had been
thoroughly tried, and made manifest by many discussions and conferences
of Bishops on the one side and on the other? But wholesome peace produces
this, that when obscure questions have been long under inquiry, and,
through the difficulty of ascertaining them, beget various judgments in
brotherly discussion, until the pure truth be arrived at, the bond of
unity holds, lest in the part cut off the incurable wound of error should
remain." He considers Pope Stephen here, even when he was right, as one
of many <i>brethren</i>, who had a right to be deferentially heard, but
no more. As in another place, arguing with these same Donatists, he
distinctly considers the case of the judgment of the Roman Pontiff being
erroneous. "The Donatists,"<a name="NtA26"
href="#Nt26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> says he, "chose with a double purpose,
to plead their cause with Cœcilian before the Churches across the
sea; being doubly prepared, that if they could by any skilfulness of
false accusation have overcome him, they might to the full satiate their
desire: but if they failed in this, might continue in the same
perversity, but still as if they would have to allege, that they had
suffered in having bad judges: this is what all wrong suitors cry, though
they have been overcome by the plainest truths: as if it might not be
answered them and most justly retorted,—Let us suppose that these
Bishops who judged at Rome," (Pope Melchiades and his Council,) "were not
fair judges; there still remained a plenary Council of the universal
Church, where the cause might have been tried even with those very
judges, so that had they been convicted of false judgment their decision
might be reversed."</p>
<p>Nay, it appears, the cause of the Donatists, after being decided by
Pope Melchiades, was reheard, and that, not by a plenary Council, but by
other Bishops of the West, deputed by Constantine. "Know,"<a name="NtA27"
href="#Nt27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> says St. Augustin, "that your first
ancestors carried the cause of Cœcilianus before the Emperor
Constantine. Demand this of us, let us prove it to you, and if we prove
it not, do with us what you can. But because Constantine dared not to
judge in the cause of a Bishop, he delegated the discussion and
terminating of it to Bishops. This took place in the city of Rome under
the presidency of Melchiades, Bishop of that Church, with many of his
colleagues. They having pronounced Cœcilianus innocent, and
condemned Donatus, who had made the schism at Carthage, your party again
went to the Emperor, and murmured against the judgment of the Bishops in
which they had been beaten. For how can the guilty party praise the judge
by whose sentence he has been beaten? Yet a second time the most
indulgent Emperor assigned other Bishops as judges, at Arles, in Gaul,
and from them your party appealed to the Emperor himself, until he too
heard the cause, and pronounced Cœcilianus innocent, and them false
accusers." Did he who wrote these words mean to censure Constantine for
granting a second hearing after the judgment of Pope Melchiades?</p>
<p>"Basilides," says Mr. Newman, "deposed in Spain, betakes himself to
Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen." This, however, is only half the
case. It comes to the knowledge of St. Cyprian that he has done so. Let
us take Fleury's account.<a name="NtA28" href="#Nt28"><sup>[28]</sup></a>
"As Basilides and Martial still endeavoured to force themselves back upon
their sees, Felix and Sabinus, their legitimate successors, went to
Carthage with letters from the Churches of Leon, Asturia, and Merida, and
from another Felix, Bishop of Sarragossa, known in Africa as attached to
the faith, and a defender of the truth. These letters were read in a
Council of thirty-six Bishops, at the head of whom was St. Cyprian, who
answered in the name of all by a letter addressed to the Priest Felix,
and to the faithful people of Leon and Asturia, and to the Deacon
Lœlius, with the people of Merida." In this letter he says,
"Wherefore,<a name="NtA29" href="#Nt29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> according to
Divine tradition, and Apostolic observance, that is to be kept and
observed, which is observed by us also, and generally throughout all the
provinces, that in order rightly to celebrate ordinations, the nearest
Bishops of the same province should meet together with that people for
whom the head is ordained, and the Bishop should be chosen in the
presence of the people, which is most fully acquainted with the life of
every one, and has observed the conduct of each individual from his
conversation. And this we see was observed by you in the ordination of
our colleague Sabinus, so that, according to the suffrage of the whole
brotherhood, and the judgment of the Bishops, who were either present, or
had sent you letters about him, the Episcopate was conferred upon him,
and hands laid upon him in the place of Basilides. Nor can it invalidate
a rightful ordination, that Basilides, after the detection of his crimes
and the laying bare his conscience even by his own confession, going to
Rome deceived our colleague Stephen, who was far removed and ignorant of
the thing as it was really done, that he might make interest for an
unjust restoration to that Episcopate from which he had been rightfully
deposed. It comes to this, that the crimes of Basilides have been rather
doubled than wiped away, since to his former sins, the crime of deceit
and circumvention has been added. <i>Nor should he be so much blamed, who
through negligence was overreached</i>, as the other execrated, who
fraudulently deceived. But if Basilides could overreach men, God he
cannot," &c. If the appeal of Basilides to Stephen proves the Roman
Primacy, what does the subsequent appeal of the people of Leon, Asturia,
and Merida, to Carthage, prove? And if the restoration of Basilides by
Stephen, proves that he possessed that power, what does the subsequent
pronouncing of that restoration void by Cyprian and his brother Bishops,
without even first acquainting Stephen, prove?</p>
<p>In truth, all the acts of St. Cyprian's Episcopate, of which we have
given several in illustration, are an indisputable assurance to the
candid mind that he treated the Roman Pontiff simply as his
brother,—his elder brother, indeed,—holding the first see in
Christendom, but, individually, as liable to err as himself. And it is
equally clear that St. Augustin, a hundred and forty years later, did not
censure him for this. What we have seen, is this. In the matter of
Fortunatus and Felicissimus, Cyprian rejects with vehement indignation
their appeal to Rome: in the case of Marcian of Arles, he writes as an
equal to Pope Stephen, almost enjoining him what to do: in the question
of rebaptizing heretics, he disregards St. Stephen's judgment, and the
anathema which accompanies it; and how strong St. Firmilian's language is
we need not repeat, who declares that St. Stephen's excommunication only
cut off himself: in the case of Basilides, he deposes afresh one whom
Stephen had restored.</p>
<p>Such are the illustrations afforded by the preceding century to what
we have stated was the unquestioned constitution of the Catholic Church
at the time of the Council of Nicea; viz. that while the three great Sees
of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch exercised a powerful but entirely
paternal influence on their colleagues, that of Rome having the undoubted
primacy, not derived from the gift of Councils, or the rank of the
imperial city, but from immemorial tradition as the See of St. Peter;
yet, at the same time, the fullness of the priesthood, and with it all
power to govern the Church, were acknowledged to reside in the whole
Episcopal Body. "The Bishop," says Thomassin, quoting with approbation a
Greek writer, as representing the doctrine of the early Fathers, and of
the universal Church since, "is the complete image in the Church on earth
of Him who in the holy Trinity alone bears the name of Father, as being
the first principle without principle, and the fruitful source of the
other Persons, and of all the divine perfections.... The Bishop
communicates the Priesthood, as He who is without principle in the
Godhead, and is therefore called Father."<a name="NtA30"
href="#Nt30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> The Apostolic Canons, and those of the
Council of Nicea, are the legislative acts bearing witness to this order
of things: the conduct and words of St. Cyprian, St. Firmilian, and St.
Augustin, which we have instanced, and an innumerable multitude of other
cases, exhibit it in full life and vigour; while, on the other side,
there is absolutely nothing to allege.</p>
<p>The history of the Church during the three hundred years following the
Nicene Council is but a development of this constitution. The problem
was, how to combine in the harmonious action of One organized Body those
Apostolical powers which resided in the Bishops generally. The
Patriarchal system was the result. As the Church increased in extent, her
rulers would increase in number. This multiplication, which would tend so
much to augment the centrifugal force, was met by increased energy in the
centripetal: the power of the Patriarchs, and specially of the Bishop of
Rome, grew. It is impossible, in my present limits, to follow this out,
but I propose to give a few specimens, as before, in illustration.</p>
<p>In so vast a system of interlaced and concurrent powers as the Church
of Christ presented, differences would continually arise; and in so
profound a subject-matter as the Christian revelation, heresies would be
continually starting up: to arrange the former, and to expel or subjugate
the latter, the Bishops, says Thomassin, having already more than once
appealed to the Christian Emperors for the calling of great Councils, saw
the danger of suffering the Imperial authority to intervene in
ecclesiastical causes, and sought to establish a new jurisprudence on
this head.<a name="NtA31" href="#Nt31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> "The Council
of Antioch (<span class="scac">A.D.</span> 341), and that of Sardica
(<span class="scac">A.D.</span> 347), which were held almost at the same
time,—the one in the East, the other in the West,—set about
this in a very different manner, aiming, however, at the same end. The
Council of Antioch ordered that Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, who should
have been condemned by a provincial Council, might recur to a larger
Council of Bishops; but that if they carried their complaints before the
Emperor they could never be reestablished in their dignity." "One must in
good faith admit, that this regulation had much conformity with what had
been practised in the first ages of obscurity and persecution, for it was
in the same way that extraordinary Councils had been held, such as were
those of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, Bishop of that great city. It
was the Metropolitans and Bishops of the neighbourhood who assembled with
those of the Province where the flame of a great dissension had been
kindled. The Council of Sardica, urged by the same desire to break
through the custom which was introducing itself, of having recourse to
the Emperor for judgment of spiritual causes of the Church, bethought
itself of another means, which was not less conformable to the practice
of the preceding centuries, and which had, beside that, much foundation
in the Holy Scriptures. For Jesus Christ, having given the Primacy, and
the rank of Head, to St. Peter, above the other Apostles, and having
given successors as well to the Apostles, to wit, all the Bishops, as to
St. Peter, to wit, the Roman Pontiffs; moreover, having willed that His
Church should remain for ever one by the union of all Bishops with their
Head, it is manifest, that if the Bishops of a province could not agree
in their Provincial Council, and if the Bishops of several provinces had
disputes between each other, the most natural way to finish these
differences was to introduce the authority of the Head, and of him whom
Jesus Christ has established as the centre of unity of His universal
Church."</p>
<p>Accordingly, at the Council of Sardica, attended by St. Athanasius,
then in exile, and about a hundred Western Bishops, after the secession
of the Eastern or Arian portion, Hosius proposed, "If two Bishops of the
same province have a disagreement, neither of the two shall take for
arbitrator a Bishop of another province: if a Bishop, having been
condemned, feels so assured of his right, that he is willing to be judged
anew in a Council, <i>let us honour, if you think it good, the memory of
the Apostle St. Peter</i>: let those who have examined the cause, write
to Julius, Bishop of Rome; if he thinks proper to order a fresh trial,
let him name judges; if he does not think that there is reason to renew
the matter, let what he orders be kept to. The Council approved this
proposition. The Bishop Gaudentius added, that, during this appeal, no
Bishop should be ordained in place of him who had been deposed, until the
Bishop of Rome had judged his cause."<a name="NtA32"
href="#Nt32"><sup>[32]</sup></a></p>
<p>"To make the preceding Canon clearer, Hosius said, 'When a Bishop,
deposed by the Council of the province, shall have appealed and had
recourse to the Bishop of Rome, if he judge proper that the matter be
examined afresh, he shall write to the Bishops of the neighbouring
province to be the judges of it; and if the deposed Bishop persuade the
Bishop of Rome to send a priest from his own person, he shall be able to
do it, and to send commissioners to judge by his authority, together with
the Bishops; but if he believes that the Bishops are sufficient to settle
the matter, he will do what his wisdom suggests to him.' The judgment
which Pope Julius, together with the Council of Rome, had given in favour
of Athanasius and the other persecuted Bishops, seems to have given cause
to this Canon, and we have seen that this Pope complained that they had
judged St. Athanasius without writing to him about it."</p>
<p>Such is the modest commencement of that power of hearing episcopal
causes on appeal, which has been the instrument of obtaining the
wonderful authority concentrated by a long series of ages in the see of
Rome. However conformable to the practice of preceding centuries, as
Thomassin says, this may have been, this power is here certainly
<i>granted</i> by the Council, <i>not considered as inherent in the see
of Rome</i>. And this one fact is fatal to the present claim of the
supremacy. To use De Maistre's favourite analogy, it is as though the
States General or Parliament conferred his royal powers on the Sovereign
who convoked them, and whose assent alone made their enactments law.
Accordingly, like the whole course of proceedings in these early
Councils, it is incompatible with the notion of the Pope being the
monarch in the Church. We may safely say, history offers not a more
wonderful contrast in a power bearing the same name, than that here
conferred on Pope Julius in 347, and that exercised by Pope Pius the
Seventh in 1802. On the bursting out of the French revolution, out of a
hundred and thirty-six Bishops more than a hundred and thirty remained
faithful to God and the Church: some offered the testimony of their
blood; the rest became confessors in all lands for Christ's sake, in
poverty, contempt, and banishment. After ten years, the civil governor,
who had lately professed himself a Mahometan, proposes to the Pope to
re-establish the Church, but on condition of himself nominating to the
sees, and those not the ancient sees of the country, but a selection from
them, to the number of eighty. Thereupon the Pope requires those eighty
Bishops and Confessors who still survived, and whom he acknowledged to be
not only blameless, but martyrs for the name of Christ, to resign into
his hands their episcopal powers. Of his own single authority he
abolishes the ancient sees of the eldest daughter of the Western Church,
constitutes that number of new sees which the civil power permits, and
treats as schismatics those few Bishops who disobey his requisition. I do
not presume to express any blame of Pope Pius; I simply mention a fact.
But it seems to me, certainly, that those who would entirely recognise
the power and precedence exercised by Pope Julius, are not necessarily
schismatics because they refuse to admit a power not merely greater in
degree, but different in kind, and to set the High Priesthood of the
Church beneath the feet of one, though it be the First of her
Pontiffs.</p>
<p>The restrictions under which, according to the Council of Sardica, the
Pope could cause a matter to be reheard, are specific. Much larger power
is assigned in the fourth General Council, that of Chalcedon, to the see
of Constantinople, in the ninth Canon, which says, "If any Bishop or
Clergyman has a controversy against the Bishop of the province himself
(<i>i.e.</i> the Metropolitan), let him have recourse to the Exarch of
the diocese, or to the throne of the Imperial city of Constantinople, and
plead his cause before him."</p>
<p>But, between these two Councils of Nicea, <span
class="scac">A.D.</span> 325, and Chalcedon, 451, the whole Patriarchal
system of the Church had sprung up, and covered the provinces of the
Roman Empire with as it were a finely reticulated net. The system may be
said to be built on two principles, recognised and enforced in the
Apostolic Canons, and consistently carried out, from the Bishop of the
poorest country town up to the primatial see of Rome. These principles
are, "the authority of the Metropolitan over his Bishops in important and
extraordinary affairs, and the supreme authority of Bishops in the
ordinary government of their particular bishoprics. With this
distinction, that the Metropolitan even cannot arrange important and
extraordinary affairs but with the counsel of his suffragans, whilst
every Bishop conducts all the common and ordinary affairs of his Diocese
without being obliged to take the advice of his Metropolitan."<a
name="NtA33" href="#Nt33"><sup>[33]</sup></a> This latter principle, it
will be seen, expresses the essential equality and unity of the High
Priesthood vested in Bishops by descent from the Apostles, to which St.
Cyprian bears such constant witness, so that it may be said to be the one
spirit which animates all his government: while the former, leaving this
quite inviolate, builds together the whole Church in one vast living
structure. For as the Bishops of the province have their Metropolitan,
and their spring and autumn Councils under him, so the Metropolitan
stands in a like relation to his Exarch, or Patriarch; and of the five
great Patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and
Jerusalem, who are found at the Council of Chalcedon to preside over the
Church Catholic, that of Rome has the unquestioned primacy, and is seen
at the centre, sustaining and animating the whole. "The most important of
all the powers of Metropolitans, Exarchs, and Patriarchs, was the
election of Bishops, the confirmation and consecration of Bishops
elected. For all the other degrees of authority were founded on this one,
which rendered the Metropolitan the Father, Master, and Judge of all his
suffragans."<a name="NtA34" href="#Nt34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> "And so that
famous Canon of the Council of Nicea, (the 6th,) which seems in
appearance only to confirm the ancient right of the three first
Metropolitans of the world to ordain the Bishops of all the provinces of
their dependence, establishes in effect all the rights and all the powers
of the Metropolitans, because it establishes the foundation on which they
all rest. 'If any one be made a Bishop contrary to the sentence of his
Metropolitan, the great Synod declares that he should not be a Bishop.'
Nothing is juster than to found the right of a holy and paternal rule on
the right of generation. For by ordination the Bishops engender not
children indeed, but Fathers, to the Church." This system continued
unimpaired in the whole Church, at least to the time of St. Gregory the
Great. It offers, I think, an unanswerable refutation to what must be
considered the strongest argument of the Roman Catholics for the
Supremacy, that there could be no unity in the Church without it, as a
living organized body; history says, there <i>was</i> unity, with five
co-ordinate Patriarchs, and an Episcopate twice as numerous as that of
the present Latin Communion. In the Latin Church itself, this system was
only gradually overshadowed by another system which sprang from the
excessive development of one of its parts; in the Greek and Russian
Church, it continues down to this day; whatever ecclesiastical
constitution we still have ourselves, is a part of this system. And by
reference to, and under cover of this, which if not strictly of Divine
right, as is the High Priesthood of Bishops, approaches very nearly
indeed to it, and was the effluence of the Spirit of God ruling and
guiding the Church of the Fathers, we must justify ourselves from the
damning blot of schism. We cannot, dare not, do this upon principles such
as "the right of private judgment"—"The Bible alone is the religion
of Protestants,"—and the like, which lead directly, and by most
certain consequence, to dissent, heresy, and anarchy. God forbid that
they who profess to be members of the One holy Catholic Church should,
urged by any unhappiness of their provisional and strange position, take
up Satanic and Antichristian arms. No! if we may not hope for that system
under which Augustin and Chrysostom laboured and witnessed, we will have
nothing to do with those who destroy dogmatic faith altogether, and break
up the visible unity of the Church of Christ into a multitude of atoms.
<i>Quot homines, tot voluntates.</i> We cannot so relapse into worse than
a second heathenism, and with the unity of Pentecost offered us,
deliberately choose the confusion of Babel.</p>
<p>But over and above his natural eminence in the Church, which I have
attempted to describe, a concurrence of events in the fourth century
tended to give a still greater moral weight to the voice of the Bishop of
Rome. While the other great sees of the Church were vexed with heresy or
schism, his was providentially exempted from both. The same century
witnessed Cœcilianus of Carthage, judged and supported by Pope
Melchiades, while the Donatist schism all that century long rent Africa
in twain; and St. Athanasius, of Alexandria, driven from his see, and
persecuted by the whole East, received and justified by Pope Julius; and
St. John Chrysostom, too good by far for a corrupt capital and a
degenerate court, in life protected, and in death restored, by Pope
Innocent. We have seen St. Jerome appeal to Pope Damasus, to know which
of three competitors for the Patriarchal throne of Antioch was the right
Bishop. But it is impossible to describe the confusion and violence which
the Arian heresy, and the cognate heresies concerning the Person of our
Lord, wrought throughout the Church and Empire. In all these the Roman
Patriarch was beheld immovable, supporting, with his whole authority,
what turned out to be the orthodox view. What Mr. Newman asserts is,
moreover, entirely in accordance with the Patriarchal system, as we have
attempted to describe it, "that the writers of the fourth and fifth
centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly allow, that the prerogatives of
Rome were derived from apostolic times, and that because it was the See
of St. Peter." I confess that these words set me upon the search, and
that I have found such testimonies in abundance; but then they are
invariably to the Bishop of Rome <i>as holding the first see, not as</i>
Episcopus Episcoporum: <i>they bear witness to the Patriarchal system,
not to the Papal</i>. For instance, all lovers of truth would be obliged
to Mr. Newman to point out, in all the works of St. Augustin, a single
passage which is sufficiently distinct and specific to justify the Papal
claims, nay, which does not consider the Pope the first Bishop, and <i>no
more</i>. It is little to say I have searched for such in vain. But in a
Western Father, whose extant writings are so voluminous, and whose
personal history is almost a history of the Church during the nearly
forty years of his episcopate, and who continually gives judgment on all
matters concerning the Church's government and constitution, it would
seem impossible but that such a testimony should be found, if a thing so
wondrous as is the Papal Power then existed. On the contrary, St.
Augustin, continually explaining those often cited passages of Scripture,
on which mediæval and later Roman writers ground the Papal prerogatives,
that is, Thou art Peter, &c., Feed my sheep, &c., says
specifically, that Peter represents the Church. One of these passages we
have already quoted. Take another. "And I say unto thee, because thou
hast said to me; thou hast spoken, now hear; thou hast given a
confession, receive a blessing; therefore, and I say unto thee, that thou
art Peter; because I am the Rock, thou art Peter; for neither from Peter
is the Rock, but from the Rock, Peter; because not from the Christian is
Christ, but from Christ the Christian. And upon this Rock I will build my
Church; <i>not upon Peter, which thou art, but upon the Rock which thou
hast confessed</i>. But I will build my Church, <i>I will build thee, who
in this answer representest the Church</i>."<a name="NtA35"
href="#Nt35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> Again, in a passage which conveys that
old view of Cyprian, that every Bishop's chair is the chair of St. Peter.
"For as some things are said which would seem to belong personally to the
Apostle Peter, yet cannot be clearly understood unless when they are
referred to the Church, which he is admitted, in figure, to have
represented, on account of the Primacy which he held among the
disciples,—as is,—I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom
of Heaven;—and if there be any such like."<a name="NtA36"
href="#Nt36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> Again: "For Peter himself, to whom He
entrusted His sheep as to another self, He willed to make one with
Himself, that so He might entrust His sheep to him; that he might be the
Head, the other bear the figure of the Body, that is, the Church; and
that, as man and wife, they might be two in one flesh."<a name="NtA37"
href="#Nt37"><sup>[37]</sup></a> Again: "The Lord Jesus chose out His
disciples before His Passion, as ye know, whom He named Apostles. Amongst
these, Peter alone almost everywhere was thought worthy (<i>meruit</i>)
to represent the whole Church. On account of that very representing of
the whole Church, which he alone bore, he was thought worthy to hear, I
will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. <i>For these keys
not one man but the unity of the Church received.</i> Here, therefore,
the eminence of Peter is set forth, because he represented the very
universality and unity of the Church, when it was said to him, I give to
thee what was given to all. For that you may know that the Church has
received the keys of the kingdom of God, hear what in another place the
Lord says to all his Apostles: Receive the Holy Ghost. And presently:
Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to him; whosesoever ye
retain, they are retained. This belongs to the keys concerning which it
was said, What ye loose on earth, shall be loosed in Heaven; and what ye
bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven. But this He said to Peter. That
you may know that Peter then represented the whole Church, hear what is
said to him,"<a name="NtA38" href="#Nt38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> &c.
"For deservedly, after His resurrection, the Lord delivered His sheep to
Peter himself to feed; <i>for he was not the only one among the disciples
who was thought worthy to feed the Lord's sheep</i>. But when Christ
speaks to one, unity is commended; and to Peter above all, because Peter
is the first among the Apostles."<a name="NtA39"
href="#Nt39"><sup>[39]</sup></a> Again: "As in the Apostles, the number
itself being twelve, that is, four divisions into three,"—(he seems
to mean, that there was a mystical universality betokened in the number
four, as a mystical unity in the number three,)—"and all being
asked, Peter alone answered, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God. And it is said to him, I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom
of Heaven, <i>as if he alone had received the power of binding and
loosing; the case really being, that he singly said that in the name of
all, and received this together with all, as representing unity itself;
therefore one in the name of all, because unity is in all</i>."<a
name="NtA40" href="#Nt40"><sup>[40]</sup></a> This, written at so many
different times, was evidently the view preferred by this great Father;<a
name="NtA41" href="#Nt41"><sup>[41]</sup></a> and be it observed, that
while, on the one hand, there is a total silence as to the local see of
Rome, on the other hand, there is in these words a specific denial of the
present Roman doctrine, that all spiritual jurisdiction throughout the
whole Church is derived from the see of Rome <i>alone</i>. That
jurisdiction is derived from the see of Rome, and the other Apostolic
Sees in conjunction, is the truth of the Patriarchal system; that it is
derived from the see of Rome, as distinct from them, and without them, is
the exaggeration of the Papal system.</p>
<p>I may remark here, that St. Leo the Great does apply these passages
both to St. Peter personally, as distinct from the other Apostles, and to
the Roman Pontiffs, as his successors, distinct from all other Bishops.
St. Augustin's different application is the more remarkable.</p>
<p>The strongest expressions respecting the power of the Roman see, which
I have been able to find in the works of St. Augustin, are contained not
in his proper works, but in two letters of Pope St. Innocent, written in
answer to the synodical letters of the Council of Milevi,—"who
thought fit likewise to communicate their judgment to the Pope St.
Innocent in order to join the Apostolical authority to their own."<a
name="NtA42" href="#Nt42"><sup>[42]</sup></a> Their own words
are,—"What we have done, Sir and Brother, we have thought good to
intimate to your holy charity, that the authority of the Apostolical See
may also be added to what we, in our mediocrity, have ordered, to protect
the salvation of many, and also to correct the perversity of some."<a
name="NtA43" href="#Nt43"><sup>[43]</sup></a> They were writing
concerning a point nearly touching the common faith, <i>i.e.</i>, in
condemnation of Pelagius. The Pope in his answer, praises them,
that—"Guarding, according to the duty of priests, the institutions
of the Fathers, ye resolve that those regulations should not be trodden
under foot, which they with no human but Divine voice decreed: viz., that
whatever was being carried on, although in the most distant and remote
provinces, should not be terminated before it was brought to the
knowledge of this see: by the full authority of which the just sentence
should be confirmed, and that thence all other churches might derive what
they should order; whom they should absolve; whom, as being bemired with
ineffaceable pollution, the stream, that is worthy only of pure bodies,
should avoid; so that as from their parent source all waters should flow,
and through the different regions of the whole world the pure streams of
the fountain well forth uncorrupted."<a name="NtA44"
href="#Nt44"><sup>[44]</sup></a> And in like manner to the Bishops of
Numidia, at the same Council. "Ye do, therefore, diligently and
becomingly consult the secrets of the Apostolical honour, (that honour, I
mean, on which beside those things that are without, the care of all the
Churches awaits,) as to what judgment is to be passed on doubtful
matters, following in sooth the direction of the ancient rule, which you
know, as well as I, has ever been observed in the whole world. But this I
pass by, for I am sure your prudence is aware of it: for how could you by
your actions have confirmed this, save as knowing that throughout all
provinces answers are ever emanating as from the Apostolic fountain to
inquirers? Especially, so often as a matter of faith is under inquiry, I
conceive that all our brethren and fellow-Bishops ought not to refer,
save to Peter, that is, the source of their own name and honour, just as
your affection hath now referred, for what may benefit all Churches in
common, throughout the whole world. For the inventors of evils must
necessarily become more cautious, when they see that at the reference of
a double synod they have been severed from ecclesiastical communion by
our sentence."<a name="NtA45" href="#Nt45"><sup>[45]</sup></a></p>
<p>There is certainly an indefiniteness about these expressions, which
may be made to embrace anything; but they do not fairly mean more than
that supervision of the faith which belonged to the office of the first
of the Patriarchs. Moreover, they come from a Pope; in St. Augustin's
mouth, they would have much more force. They show us, besides, what a
tendency there was in the power of the Patriarch continually to increase,
as being the centre of appeal to so many, not only Bishops, but
Metropolitans. Nay, at this very time, within less than a century, a
rival power had grown up in the East, in the See of Constantinople,
which, from a simple bishopric, under the Exarch of Heraclea, threatened
to push aside the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch; and, by virtue of
the Imperial residence at, or near Constantinople, to exercise as great
an influence through the whole East, as Rome did in the West. If this
happened where there was no Apostolic See to build upon, but simply the
privileges of the royal city, how much more in the case of Rome, which
stood alone in the West the single object of common reverence; "since it
is well known," says this same Pope Innocent, "that there were no
churches founded by any one, either in Italy, the Gauls, Spain, Africa,
Sicily, or in the adjacent islands, unless by those whom the Apostle St.
Peter, or his successors, had appointed Bishops."<a name="NtA46"
href="#Nt46"><sup>[46]</sup></a> So that the Pope, on the Patriarchal
theory, was the common father of the whole West.</p>
<p>In the latter years of St. Augustin's life, the important question of
appeals from African Bishops to Rome was settled. Apiarius, a priest, had
been excommunicated by his Bishop, and appealed to the Pope. The Bishops
of Africa would not agree to the Pope's claim, that the causes of clergy,
condemned by their own Bishop, should be brought before the neighbouring
Bishops; nor that Bishops should appeal to Rome. The Pope alleged the
Canons of Nicea, (not, be it observed, an inherent power in his see to
judge Bishops;) the Bishops of Africa said they could not find those
Canons in the copies which they had. They agreed, however, to be thus
treated, provisionally, for a short time, till they were better informed
of the decrees of Nicea. It turned out that, by the Canons of Nicea, the
Pope meant those of Sardica, to which the African Bishops refused
obedience. The end of this was, that Pope St. Cœlestine restored
Apiarius to communion, and sent him back to Africa, with Faustinus, his
Legate. "At his arrival, the Bishops of Africa assembled a Council, in
which Aurelius, of Carthage, and Valentine, Primate of Numidia, presided.
Thirteen more are named, but the name of St. Augustin does not appear
among them. This Council having examined the affair of Apiarius, found
him charged with so many crimes, that it was impossible for Faustinus to
defend him, though he acted the part rather of an advocate than of a
judge, and violated all right in the opposition he maintained against the
whole Council, under pretence of supporting the privileges of the Church
of Rome. For he wanted Apiarius to be received to the communion of the
Bishops of Africa, because the Pope had restored him to it, believing
that he had appealed, though he could not prove even the fact of his
appeal. After a debate of three days, Apiarius at last, stung with
remorse, and moved by God, confessed, on a sudden, all the crimes of
which he had been accused, which were so infamous and incredible as to
draw groans from the whole Council; after which he was for ever deprived
of all ecclesiastical administration.</p>
<p>"The Bishops wrote a synodical letter to Pope Cœlestine, in
which they conjure him, for the future, not to receive to his communion
those who have been excommunicated by them; since this was a point ruled
by the Nicene Council. For, they added, if this be forbidden with respect
to the minor Clergy, or Laymen, how much more did the Council intend its
observance in respect to Bishops? Those, therefore, who are interdicted
from communion in their own provinces, ought not to be restored by your
Holiness too hastily, and in opposition to the rules; and you ought to
reject the Priests, and other Clergy, who are so rash as to have recourse
to you. For no ordinance of our fathers has deprived the Church of Africa
of this authority, and the decrees of the Nicene Council have subjected
the Bishops themselves to their respective Metropolitans. <i>They have
ordained with great wisdom and justice, that all matters should be
terminated in the places when they arise; and did not think that the
grace of the Holy Ghost would be wanting in any province to bestow on its
Bishops the knowledge and strength necessary for their decisions;
especially, since whosoever thinks himself wronged, may appeal to the
Council of his province, or even to a General Council, unless it be
imagined that God can inspire a single individual with justice, and
refuse it to an innumerable multitude of assembled Bishops. And how shall
we be able to rely on a sentence passed beyond the sea, since it will not
be possible to send thither the necessary witnesses, whether from the
weakness of sex, or of advanced age, or any other impediment? For that
your Holiness should send any one on your part we can find ordained by no
Council.</i>"</p>
<p>"With regard to what you have sent us by our brother, Faustinus, as
being contained in the Nicene Council, we find nothing of the kind in the
more authentic copies of that Council, which we have received from our
brother, the Bishop of Alexandria, and the venerable Atticus, of
Constantinople, and which we formerly sent to Boniface, your predecessor,
of happy memory. For the rest, whoever desires you to delegate any of
your clergy to execute your orders, we beseech you not to comply, lest it
seem that we are introducing the pride of secular dominion into the
Church of Christ, which ought to exhibit to all men an example of
simplicity and humility. For as to our brother Faustinus, since the
wretched Apiarius is cut off from the Church, we depend confidently on
your goodness, that, without violating brotherly charity, Africa shall be
no longer forced to endure him. Such is the letter of the Council of
Africa to Pope St. Cœlestine."<a name="NtA47"
href="#Nt47"><sup>[47]</sup></a></p>
<p>I confess it was not without astonishment that I first read this
passage of history; so exactly had the African Bishops, in 426, when the
greatest father of the Church was one of them, anticipated and pleaded
the cause of the English Church, in 1534. It is precisely the same claim
made in both instances, viz. that these two laws should be observed, on
which the stability of the government of the whole Church Catholic rests;
as Thomassin remarks:—first, that the action of the Bishop in his
own diocese, in matters proper to that diocese, should not be interfered
with; secondly, that the action of the Metropolitan with his Suffragans,
in matters belonging to his province, should be left equally free. Who
ever accused the African Bishops, and St. Augustin, of schism, for
maintaining a right which had come down to them from all antiquity, was
possessed and acted on all over the Church, was specifically enacted at
the greatest Ecumenical Council, and recognised in every provincial
Council held up to that time? This was all that the Church of England
claimed; she based her claim on the unvarying practice of the whole
Church during, at least, the first six centuries. We repeat, it is not a
case of doubt, of conflicting testimony, in words elsewhere quoted, "of
Popes against Popes, Councils against Councils, some Fathers against
others, the same Fathers against themselves; a consent of Fathers of one
age against a consent of Fathers of another age, the Church of one age
against the Church of another age."<a name="NtA48"
href="#Nt48"><sup>[48]</sup></a> It is the Church of the Martyrs, the
Church of the Fathers, of Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, and Chrysostom,
Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, and Gregory the Great, bearing one unbiassed
indisputable witness, attested in a hundred Councils, denied in none, for
the Patriarchal system, and against a power assumed by one Bishop, though
the greatest, most venerable, and most illustrious in his own see, to
interfere, dispense with, suspend, or abrogate, the authority of the
Bishop in his Diocese, and of the Metropolitan in his Council; to
exercise singly, by himself, powers which belong only to an Ecumenical
Council, and to annul the enactments of at least the first four
Ecumenical Councils. Had an advocate been instructed to draw out the
abstract case of the English Church, he could not have described it more
exactly than the African Bishops in stating their own. True, indeed, it
is, that the African Bishops were maintaining a right which not only had
never been interrupted, but was universal; while the English Bishops
resumed a power which had been surrendered, not only by them, but by all
the west of Europe, for many hundred years. Accordingly, the African
Bishops did not suffer even a temporary suspension of communion with
Rome, for having both condemned afresh Apiarius, whom the Pope had
restored, and explicitly refused permission to the Pope to interfere in
the ordinary government of their dioceses; while the English Church has
ever since been accused of schism by the rest of the Latin communion.
This decision of the African Bishops, in the year 426, is a proof that
the Canon of the Council of Sardica, conferring, in certain cases, the
power of ordering a cause to be reheard on the Pope, and the most
favourable to his authority of any Canon of an ancient Council, was yet
not received even throughout all the West.</p>
<p>In the year 402, St. Augustin wrote a letter to the Catholics,
commonly called his treatise "on the Unity of the Church." The bearing of
this book on the controversy respecting schism between ourselves and the
Roman Catholics is very remarkable. The Saint refers triumphantly to most
express passages from the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, our Lord's own
teaching, and that of His Apostles, bearing witness to the catholicity of
the Church, an "Ecclesia toto terrarum orbe diffusa." He challenges his
adversaries, the Donatists, to produce a single passage, which either
restricted the Church to the confines of Africa, or declared that it
would perish from the rest of the world, and be restored out of Africa.
His test seems decisive against the Donatists, and against all those who
in after times have restricted the Church to one province, or have
declared the Roman Church to be so corrupt that it is not a part of the
true Church. For if it be not, then the promises of Christ have failed.
But while it annihilates the position of the Donatists, and of the
Puritan or Evangelical faction in these present times, it leaves
unassailed that of Andrewes and Ken. St. Augustin every where appeals to
the Church spread throughout the whole world, as being, by virtue of that
fact, the one communion in which alone there was salvation, and this upon
the testimony of the Holy Scriptures only. "To salvation itself, and
eternal life, no one arrives, save he who has Christ for his head. But no
one can have Christ for his head, except he be in His Body, which is the
Church, which like the Head itself we ought to recognise in the Holy
Canonical Scriptures, nor to seek after it in the various reports,
opinions, doings, sayings, and sights of men."<a name="NtA49"
href="#Nt49"><sup>[49]</sup></a> But in the whole book there is not one
word about the Roman see, or the necessity of communion with it, save as
it forms part of the one universal Church. It is not named by itself any
more than Alexandria, or Antioch. Any one will see the force of this fact
who has but looked into the writings of late Roman Catholic authors. He
will see how unwearied they are in setting forth the necessity of the
action of the Roman see; how they consider it, and rightly, the centre of
their system; how they are ever crying, "Without the sovereign pontiff
there is no true Christianity."—<i>De Maistre.</i> The contrast in
St. Augustin is the more remarkable. The creed of the Council of Trent
says, "I acknowledge one holy, catholic, and apostolic Roman Church, the
mother and mistress of all Churches: and I promise and vow true obedience
to the Roman Pontiff, successor of the blessed Peter, Prince of the
Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ." This is distinct and unambiguous:
just as much so is St. Augustin's "orbis terrarum." "For this the whole
world says to them (the Donatists,) an argument most briefly stated, but
most powerful by its truth. The case is, the African Bishops had a
contest between themselves; if they could not arrange between themselves
the dissension which had arisen, so that the wrong side should either be
reduced to concord, or deprived, and they who had the good cause remain
in the communion of the whole world through the bond of unity, there was
certainly this resource left, that the Bishops beyond the sea, where the
largest part of the Catholic Church is spread, should judge concerning
the dissensions of their African colleagues,"<a name="NtA50"
href="#Nt50"><sup>[50]</sup></a> &c. No doubt the Bishop of Rome was
one, and the most eminent of these Bishops beyond the sea; but St.
Augustin refers the decision of the Donatist controversy not to him
specially, but to the Bishops generally. This is the very principle, for
which the Eastern Church for a thousand years, and the English Church for
three hundred, have contended against the Church of Rome. I know not
whether what St. Augustin says or what he does not say is strongest
against the present Roman claim; but I think his <i>silence</i> in his
book "De Unitate Ecclesiæ" absolutely convincing to any candid mind. Let
us hold for an infallible truth his dogma, "Securus judicat orbis
terrarum;" but the Latin communion is not the "orbis terrarum." In truth,
the papal supremacy at once cut the Church in half; the West, where the
Pope's was the only apostolical see, unanimously held with him; the East,
with its four patriarchs, as unanimously refused his claim, as a new
thing which they had never received. Even De Maistre observes, (Liv. 4.
ch. 4,) "It is very essential to observe that never was there a question
about dogmas between us at the beginning of the great and fatal
division."</p>
<p>Again, St. Augustin has five sermons on the day of the Apostles Peter
and Paul; he enlarges, as we might expect, on their labours and
martyrdom; on the wonderful change of life which grace produced in them,
the one thrice denying, and then thrice loving; the other, a blasphemer
and persecutor, and then in labours more abundant than all. He speaks of
their being joined in their death, the first apostle and the last, in the
service and witness of Him, who is the First and the Last; of their
bodies, with those of other martyrs, lying at Rome. But not one allusion
is there in all these to the Roman Pontiff; not a word as to his being
the heir of a power not committed to the other Apostles. On the contrary,
on the very occasion of St. Peter's festival, he does say, "What was
commended to Peter,—what was enjoined to Peter, not Peter alone,
but also the other Apostles heard, held, preserved, and most of all the
partner of his death and of his day, the Apostle Paul. They heard that,
and transmitted it for our hearing: we feed you, we are fed together with
you." "Therefore hath the Lord commended his sheep to us, because he
commended them to Peter."<a name="NtA51" href="#Nt51"><sup>[51]</sup></a>
Thus Peter's commission is viewed not as excluding, but including that of
all the rest; not as distinguished from, but typical of, theirs. Yet at
this very time Roman Catholics would have us believe that the successor
of Peter communicated to all Bishops their power to feed the Lord's
flock; and that such a wonderful power and commission is passed <i>sub
silentio</i> by the Fathers.</p>
<p>The very same principles which the Great Voice of the Western Church
proclaims in Africa, St. Vincent of Lerins repeats from Gaul. Take the
summary of his famous Commonitorium by Alban Butler. "He layeth down this
rule, or fundamental principle, in which he found, by a diligent inquiry,
all Catholic pastors and the ancient Fathers to agree, that such doctrine
is truly catholic as hath been believed in all places, at all times, and
by all the faithful. By this test of universality, antiquity, and
consent, he saith all controverted points in belief must be tried. He
sheweth, that whilst Novatian, Photinus, Sabellius, Donatus, Arius,
Eunomius, Jovinian, Pelagius, Cœlestius, and Nestorius expound the
Divine oracles different ways, to avoid the perplexity of errors we must
interpret the Holy Scriptures by the tradition of the Catholic Church, as
the clue to conduct us in the truth. For this tradition, derived from the
Apostles, manifesteth the true meaning of the Holy Scripture, and all
novelty in faith is a certain mark of heresy; and in religion nothing is
more to be dreaded than itching ears after new teachers. He saith, 'They
who have made bold with one article of faith, will proceed on to others;
and what will be the consequence of this reforming of religion, but only
that these refiners will never have done, till they have reformed it
quite away?' He elegantly expatiates on the Divine charge given to the
Church, to maintain inviolable the sacred depositum of faith. He takes
notice that heretics quote the Sacred Writings at every word, and that in
the works of Paulus Samosatenus, Priscillian, Eunomius, Jovinian, and
other like pests of Christendom, almost every page is painted and laid on
thick with Scripture texts, which Tertullian also remarks. But in this,
saith St. Vincent, heretics are like those poisoners or quacks, who put
off their destructive potions under inscriptions of good drugs, and under
the title of infallible cures. They imitate the father of lies, who
quoted Scripture against the Son of God, when he tempted Him. The Saint
adds, that if a doubt arise in interpreting the meaning of the Scriptures
in any point of faith, we must summon in the holy Fathers, who have lived
and died in the faith and communion of the Catholic Church, and by this
test we shall prove the false doctrine to be novel. For that only must we
look upon as indubitably certain and unalterable, which all, or the major
part of these Fathers have delivered, like the harmonious consent of a
general council. But if any one among them, be he ever so holy, ever so
learned, holds any thing besides, or in opposition to the rest, that is
to be placed in the rank of singular and private opinions, and never to
be looked upon as the public, general, authoritative doctrine of the
Church. After a point has been decided in a general council, the
definition is irrefragable. These general principles, by which all
heresies are easily confounded, St. Vincent explains with equal elegance
and perspicuity." "The same rules are laid down by Tertullian in his book
of Prescriptions, by St. Irenæus, and other Fathers."—<i>Lives of
the Saints</i>, May. 24.</p>
<p>But not a word is there here of the authority of the See of Rome
deciding of itself what is, and what is not, error; or of its Communion
of itself being a touchstone of what is, and what is not, the Catholic
Church. These are necessary parts of the Papal Supremacy; instead of
which St. Vincent holds universal consent.</p>
<p>Now let us hear Bossuet speaking of St. Vincent's rule. "These things
then are understood not by this or by that Doctor, but by all Catholics
with one voice, that the authority of the Church Catholic agreeing is
most certain, irrefragable, and perspicuous. Christians must rest on that
agreement, as a most firm and divine foundation; from whom nothing else
is required but that in the Apostles' Creed, that believing in the Holy
Spirit they also believe the holy Catholic Church; and claim for her the
most certain authority and judgment of the Holy Spirit, by which they are
led captive to obedience. Which entirely proves that this indefectible
power both lies and is believed to lie in consent itself; and this clear
and manifest voice dwells altogether in the agreement of the Churches; in
which we see clearly, on the testimony of the same Vincent of Lerins,
that not a part of the Church, but universality itself, is heard: For we
follow," saith he, "the whole in this way, if we confess that to be the
one true faith which the whole Church throughout the world confesses."
And a little after, "What doth the Catholic Christian, if any part hath
cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What surely,
but prefer the soundness of the whole body to that pestilent and
corrupted member?<a name="NtA52" href="#Nt52"><sup>[52]</sup></a></p>
<p>"Thence floweth unto General Councils that certain and invincible
authority which we recognise in them. For it is on no other principle
that Unity and Consent have force in Councils, or in the assembled
Church, than because they have equal force in the Church spread through
the whole world. For the Council itself hath force, because it represents
the whole Church; nor is the Church assembled in order that Unity and
Consent may have force, but it is therefore assembled, that the Unity
which in itself has force in the Church, everywhere spread abroad, may be
more clearly demonstrated in the same Church assembled, by Bishops, the
Doctors of the Churches, as being the proper witnesses thereunto.</p>
<p>"Hence, therefore, is perceived a double method of recognising
Catholic truth; the first, from the consent of the Church everywhere
spread abroad; the second, from the consent of the Church united in
Ecumenical or General Councils; both which methods I must set forth in
detail, to show more clearly that this infallible and irresistible
authority resides in the whole body of the Church."</p>
<p>He then proceeds to show that the type or form of all Ecumenical
Councils was taken from the first Council held at Jerusalem by the
Apostles. He notes these particulars: First, there was a great
dissension, the cause of it: then, that the chief Church, in which Peter
sat, was then at Jerusalem; whence it became a maxim, that Councils
should not be regularly held without Peter and his Successors and the
First Church in which he sits. Thirdly, it was as universal as could be.
Fourthly, all were assembled together. Fifthly, the question was stated,
next deliberated on, lastly decided by common sentence; which all became
rules for future Councils. Sixthly, the discussion is thus stated in the
Acts, "when there had been much disputing." Seventhly, the deliberation
is opened by Peter, whence it became a custom that the President of the
Council should first give sentence. Eighthly, Paul and Barnabas give
their testimony, in confirmation of Peter's sentence; and James expressly
begins with Peter's words—"Simon hath declared," whence the custom
that the rest give their voice at the instance of the President. "They do
not, however, so proceed as if they were altogether bound by the
authority of the first sentence, but themselves give judgment; and James
says, 'I give sentence.' Then he proposes what additions seemed good to
the principal question, and gives sentence also concerning them."
Tenthly, "The decree was then drawn up in the common name, and adding the
authority of the Holy Spirit, 'It seemed good unto us being assembled
with one accord,' and 'It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us;' there
then lies the force, 'to the Holy Ghost and to us:' not, what seemed good
to Peter precisely, but, to us; and led by the Spirit, not Peter alone,
but the unity itself of the holy Council. Whence, too, Christ said that
concerning the Spirit whom he was about to send: 'But when He, the Spirit
of truth, is come, He shall teach you all truth:' you, saith He, the
Pastors of the Churches, and the Masters of the rest. Hence, the Spirit
is always added to the Church and the holy congregation. 'I believe in
the Holy Ghost, the holy Church, the Catholic Church:' and with reason
therefore, and carefully was the maxim which we have mentioned laid down
of old by our Doctors: 'The strength of Councils resides not in the Roman
Pontiff alone, but chiefly in the Holy Spirit and in the Catholic
Church.'</p>
<p>"Eleventhly: when the matter had been judged by common sentence,
nothing was afterwards reconsidered, nor any new dissension left to any
one; but the decree was carried to the Churches, and the people are
taught to keep the decrees which were decreed, in the Greek 'judged,' by
the Apostles and Elders which were at Jerusalem.</p>
<p>"This we Catholics urge with common consent against heretics who
decline the commands and authority of Councils: which would have no
force, unless together with the authority we also prove the form, and
place the force itself of the decree, not in Peter alone, but in Unity,
and in the Consent of the Apostles and the Pastors of the Church."<a
name="NtA53" href="#Nt53"><sup>[53]</sup></a></p>
<p>In another place he says, 'In ecclesiastical acts we do indeed find
that the Catholic Church is affirmed by Chief Pontiffs and Councils to be
represented by Ecumenical Synods, which contain all its virtue and power,
which we are wont to mean by the word "represent." But this we do not
read of the Roman Pontiff, as affirmed either by the Pontiffs themselves,
or by Ecumenical Councils, or any where in Ecclesiastical Acts.<a
name="NtA54" href="#Nt54"><sup>[54]</sup></a></p>
<p>I have been unable to find any testimony of St. Chrysostom to the
transmission of St. Peter's primacy over the whole Church to the Bishop
of Rome. He has, however, a passage about Rome which is worth
transcribing; for sometimes, as we have just seen, as much is proved by
what is <i>not</i> said, as by what <i>is</i> said. Speaking then of St.
Paul, he writes:—"Rather if we listen to him here, we shall surely
see him there; if not standing near him, yet we shall see him surely
shining near to the King's throne, where the Cherubim ascribe glory,
where the Seraphim spread their wings. There with Peter shall we behold
Paul—him that is the leader and director of the choir of the
saints,—and shall enjoy his true love. For if, being here, he so
loved men, that having the choice "to depart and be with Christ," he
chose to be here, much more there will he show warmer affection. Rome
likewise for this do I love, although having reason otherwise to praise
her, both for her size, and her antiquity, and her beauty, and her
multitude, and her power, and her wealth, and her victories in war. But
passing by all these things, for this I count her blessed; because, when
alive, he (Paul) wrote to them, and loved them so much, and went and
conversed with them, and there finished his life. Wherefore the city is
on that account more remarkable than for all other things together, and
like a great and strong body, it has two shining eyes, the bodies of
these saints. Not so bright is the heaven when the sun sends forth his
beams, as is the city of the Romans sending forth everywhere over the
world these two lights. Thence shall Paul, thence shall Peter, be caught
up. Think, and tremble, what a sight shall Rome behold, when Paul
suddenly riseth from that resting-place with Peter, and is carried up to
meet the Lord. What a rose doth Rome offer to Christ! with what two
garlands is that city crowned! with what golden fetters is she girdled;
what fountains does she possess! Therefore do I admire that city; not for
the multitude of its gold, nor for its columns, nor for its other
splendours, but for these the pillars of the Church."<a name="NtA55"
href="#Nt55"><sup>[55]</sup></a> Had St. Chrysostom felt like a Roman
Catholic could he have stopped there? Loving Rome for possessing the
blessed and priceless bodies of the two Apostles, could he have failed to
mention the sovereignty of the universal Church, which together with his
body Peter had left enshrined at Rome? Would it not have seemed to him by
far the greatest marvel at Rome, as it has to a late eloquent partisan,
that Providence has placed "in the middle of the world, to be there the
chief of a religion without its like, and of a society spread everywhere,
a man without defence, an old man who will be the more threatened, the
more the increase of the Church in the world shall augment the jealousy
of princes, and the hatred of his enemies."<a name="NtA56"
href="#Nt56"><sup>[56]</sup></a> "This vicar of God, this supreme pontiff
of the Catholic Church, this Father of kings and of nations, this
successor of the fisherman Peter, he lives, he raises among men his brow,
charged with a triple crown, and the sacred weight of eighteen centuries;
the ambassadors of nations are at his court: he sends forth his ministers
to every creature, and even to places which have not yet a name. When
from the windows of his palace he gazes abroad, his sight discovers the
most illustrious horizon in the world, the earth trodden by the Romans,
the city they had built with the spoils of the universe, the centre of
things under their two principal forms, matter and spirit: where all
nations have passed; all glories have come: all cultivated imaginations
have at least made a pilgrimage from far: Rome, the tomb of Martyrs and
Apostles, the home of all recollections. And when the Pontiff stretches
forth his arms to bless it, together with the world which is inseparable
from it, he can bear a witness to himself which no sovereign shall ever
bear, that he has neither built nor conquered, nor received his city, but
that he is its inmost and enduring life, that he is in it like the blood
in the heart of man, and that right can go no further than this, a
continuous generation which would make the parricide a suicide." Such
feelings as these are what any Churchman must habitually entertain, who
looks on the Roman Pontiff as at once the governing power and the life of
the Church. Could, then, St. Chrysostom have beheld in Rome the Church's
heart, whence her life-blood courses over the whole body, and have seen
no reason to love her for that? or have stated that she was more
remarkable for possessing even the bodies of the blessed Apostles than
for all other things together? What Roman Catholic would so speak now?
The power of the Roman Pontiff in the Latin Communion is actually such,
that Lacordaire's words respecting the city of Rome apply to the whole
Church; to destroy that power would be to destroy the Church herself; the
parricide would be a suicide. But how can this dogma be imposed upon us
as necessary to salvation, if St. Augustin, St. Chrysostom, and the
Church of their day knew it not? or let it be shown us, how any men who
did know it, could either have written as they write, or have been silent
as they are silent.</p>
<p>We may sum up St. Augustin's view of the relation of the Roman Pontiff
to his brother Bishops in his own beautiful words to Pope Boniface: "To
sit on our watch-towers and guard the flock belongs in common to all of
us who have episcopal functions, although the hill on which you stand is
more conspicuous than the rest."<a name="NtA57"
href="#Nt57"><sup>[57]</sup></a> My object in these remarks throughout
has been to show, that a denial of either of these truths is a violation
of the Church's divine constitution. The Papacy has greatly obscured the
essential equality of Bishops; its opponents have avenged themselves by
explaining away the unquestionable Primacy of St. Peter, and its
important action on the whole Church.</p>
<p>What this Primacy was, and how it was exercised at a most important
crisis of the Church, I will now endeavour to show. Five years after the
decision of the African Bishops about appeals, the third Ecumenical
Council assembled at Ephesus,—and here, as in other cases, I prefer
that another should speak, and he the most illustrious Prelate of France
in modern times.<a name="NtA58" href="#Nt58"><sup>[58]</sup></a> "In the
third general Council of Ephesus, and in those which follow, our whole
argument will appear in clearer light, its Acts being in our hands; and
there existing very many judgments of Roman Pontiffs <i>on matters of
faith</i>, set forth with the whole authority of their see, which were
afterwards re-considered in general Councils, and only approved after
examination, than which nothing can be more opposed to the opinion of
infallibility. And as to the Council of Ephesus, the thing is clear. The
innovation of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, is known; how, by
denying to the Virgin Mary the title of 'Mother of God,' he divided into
two the person of Christ. Pope St. Cœlestine, watchful, according
to his office, over the affairs of the Church, had charged the blessed
Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, to send him a certain report of the doctrine
of Nestorius, already in bad repute. Cyril declares this in his letter to
Nestorius; and so he writes to Cœlestine all the doctrines of
Nestorius, and sets forth his own: he sends him two letters from himself
to Nestorius, who likewise, by his own letters and explanations,
endeavoured to draw Cœlestine to his side. Thus the holy Pontiff,
having been most fully informed by letters from both sides, is thus
inquired of by Cyril. 'We have not confidently abstained from communion
with him (Nestorius) before informing you of this; condescend, therefore,
to unfold your judgment, that we may clearly know whether we ought to
communicate with him who cherishes such erroneous doctrine.'" And he
adds, that his judgment should be written to the other Bishops also,
"that all with one mind may hold firm in one sentence." Here is the
Apostolic See manifestly consulted by so great a man, presiding over the
second, or at least the third, Patriarchal See, and its judgment awaited;
and nothing remained but that Cœlestine, being duly consulted,
should perform his Apostolic office. But how he did this, the acts
themselves will speak out.</p>
<p>"And first, he approves of Cyril's letters and doctrine; for he writes
to him thus: 'We perceive that you hold and maintain all that we hold and
maintain:' and to Nestorius, 'We have approved, and do approve, the faith
of the Prelate of the Church of Alexandria:' and he threatens him with
extremities, "If you preach not that which Cyril preaches.' Nothing could
be said more marked. Nor does he only approve Cyril's doctrine, but
disapproves, too, the perverse dogma of Nestorius: 'We have seen,' he
says, 'your letters containing open blasphemy;' and that distinctly,
because he was unwilling to call the Blessed Virgin 'Mother of God:' and
he decrees that he should be deprived of the episcopate and communion,
unless, within ten days from the date of the announcing of the sentence,
he openly rejects this faithless innovation, which endeavours to separate
what Scripture joineth together, that is, the Person of Christ. Here is
the doctrine of Nestorius expressly disapproved, and a sentence of the
Roman Pontiff on a matter of faith most clearly pronounced under threat
of deposition and excommunication: then, that nothing be wanting, the
holy Pope commits his authority to Cyril to carry into execution that
sentence, 'associating,' he saith to Cyril, 'the authority of our See,
and using our person, place, and power:' so to Nestorius himself; so to
the Clergy of Constantinople; so to John of Antioch, then the Bishop of
the third or fourth Patriarchal See; so to Juvenal, Bishop of the Holy
City, whom the Council of Nice had ordered to be especially honoured: so
he writes to the other Bishops also, that the sentence given may be duly
and in order made known to all. Cyril proceeds to execute his office, and
performs all that he had been commanded. He promulgates and executes the
decrees of Cœlestine; declares to Nestorius, that after the
<i>ten</i> days prescribed and set forth by Cœlestine, he would
have no portion, intercourse, or place with the Priesthood. Nothing
evidently is wanting to the Apostolical authority being most fully
exercised; but whether the sentence put forward with such authority,
after a great dissension had arisen and mention been made of an
Ecumenical Council, was held to be final, the succeeding acts will
demonstrate.</p>
<p>"We have often said—we shall often say—that it is the
constitution of the Church only in extraordinary cases and dissensions to
recur, of necessity, to an Ecumenical Council. But in the usual order
even the most important questions on the faith, when they arise, are
terminated by the consent of the Church being added to the decree of the
Roman Pontiff. This is clearly manifest from the cause of Nestorius. We
confess plainly that the sentence of Cœlestine would have been
sufficient, as Cyril hoped, to repress the new heresy, had not great
commotions arisen, and the matter seemed of such a nature as to be
referred to an Ecumenical Council. But Nestorius, Bishop of the royal
city, possessed such influence, had deceived men's minds with such an
appearance of piety, had gained so many Bishops, and enjoyed such favour
with the younger Theodosius and the great men, that he could easily throw
everything into commotion; and thus there was need of an Ecumenical
Council, the question being most important, and the person of the highest
dignity; because many Bishops, amongst these almost all of the East, that
is, of the province of Antioch, and the Patriarch John himself, were ill
disposed to Cyril, and seemed to favour Nestorius; because men's feelings
were divided, and the whole empire of the East seemed to fluctuate
between Cyril and Nestorius. Such was the need of an Ecumenical
Council.</p>
<p>"To this must be added the prayers of the pious and orthodox; here
were most pious monks, who had suffered much from Nestorius for the
orthodox faith, and the expression, 'Mother of God,' supplicating the
Emperor 'for a sacred and Ecumenical Council to assemble, by the presence
of which he should unite the most holy Church, bring back the people to
one, and restore to their place the Priests who preached the pure faith,
before that impious doctrine (of Nestorius) crept wider.' And again, 'We
have asked you to call together an Ecumenical Council, which can most
fully consolidate and restore the tottering.' Here, after the judgment of
the Roman Pontiff, a firm and complete settling of the tottering state of
things is sought for by the pious in an Ecumenical Council.</p>
<p>"The Emperor, moved by these and other reasons, wrote to
Cyril,—'It is our will that the holy doctrine be discussed and
examined in a sacred Synod, and that be ratified which appeareth
agreeable to the right faith, whether the wrong party be pardoned by the
Fathers or no.'</p>
<p>"Here we see three things: first, after the judgment of St.
Cœlestine, another is still required, that of the Council;
secondly, that these two things would rest with the Fathers, to judge of
doctrine and of persons; thirdly, that the judgment of the Council would
be decisive and final."</p>
<p>"He adds, 'those who everywhere preside over the priesthood, and
through whom we ourselves are and shall be professing the truth, must be
judges of this matter; on whose faith we rest.' See in whose judgment is
the final and irreversible authority.</p>
<p>"Both the Emperor affirmed, and the Bishops confessed, that this was
done according to the Ecclesiastical Canons. And so all, and
Cœlestine himself, prepared themselves for the Council. Cyril does
no more, though named by Cœlestine to execute the pontifical
decree. Nestorius remained in his original rank; the sentence of the
universal Council is awaited; and the Emperor had expressly decreed,
'that before the assembling and common sentence of the most holy Council,
no change should be made in any matter at all, on any private authority.'
Rightly, and in order; for this was demanded by the majesty of an
universal Council. Wherefore, both Cyril obeyed and the Bishops rested.
And it was established, that although the sentence of the Roman Pontiff
on matters of faith, and on persons judged for violation of the faith,
had been passed and promulged, all was suspended, while the authority of
the universal Council was awaited. This we have seen acted on by the
Emperor, acquiesced in by the Bishops and the Pope himself. The
succeeding acts will declare that it was approved in the Ecumenical
Council itself.</p>
<p>"Having gone over what preceded the Council, we review the acts of the
Council itself, and begin with the first course of proceeding. After,
therefore, the Bishops and Nestorius himself were come to Ephesus, the
universal Council began, Cyril being president, and representing
Cœlestine, as being appointed by the Pontiff himself to execute his
sentence. In the first course of proceeding this was done. First, the
above-mentioned letter of the Emperor was read, that an Ecumenical
Council should be held, and all proceedings in the mean time be
suspended: this letter, I say, was read, and placed on the acts, and it
was approved by the Fathers, that all the decrees of Cœlestine in
the matter of Nestorius had been suspended until the holy Council should
give its sentence. You will ask if it was the will of the Council merely
that the Emperor should be allowed to prohibit, in the interim, effect
being given to the sentence of the Apostolic See. Not so, according to
the acts; but rather, by the intervention of a General Council's
authority, (the convocation of which, according to the discipline of
those times, was left to the Emperor,) the Council itself understood that
all proceedings were of course suspended, and depended on the sentence of
the Council. Wherefore, though the decree of the Pontiff had been
promulged and notified, and the ten days had long been past, Nestorius
was held by the Council itself to be a Bishop, and called by the name of
Most Religious Bishop, and by that name, too, thrice cited and summoned
to take his seat with the other Bishops in the holy Council; for this
expression, to take his seat, is distinctly written; and it is added, in
order to answer to what was charged against him. For it was their full
purpose that he should recognise, in whatever way, the Ecumenical
Council, as he would then afterwards be, beyond doubt, answerable to it;
but he refused to come, and chose to have his doors besieged with an
armed force, that no one might approach him.</p>
<p>"Thereupon, as the Emperor commanded, and the Canons required, the
rule of faith was set forth, and the Nicene Creed read, as the standard
to which all should be referred, and then the letters of Cyril and
Nestorius were examined in order. The letter of Cyril was first brought
before the judgment of the Council. That letter, I mean, concerning the
faith, to Nestorius, so expressly approved by Pope Cœlestine, of
which he had declared to Cyril, 'We see that you hold and maintain all
that we hold and maintain;' which, by the decree against Nestorius,
published to all churches, he had approved, and, wished to be considered
as a canonical monition against Nestorius: that letter, I repeat, was
examined, at the proposition of Cyril himself, in these words: 'I am
persuaded that I have in nothing departed from the orthodox faith, or the
Nicene Creed; wherefore I beseech your Holiness to set forth openly
whether I have written this correctly, blamelessly, and in accordance
with that holy Council.'</p>
<p>"And are there those who say that questions concerning the faith, once
judged by the Roman Pontiff on his Apostolical authority, are examined in
general Councils, in order to understand their contents, but not to
decide on their substance, as being still a matter of question? Let them
hear Cyril, the President of the Council; let them attend to what he
proposes for the inquiry of the Council: and though he were conscious of
no error in himself, yet, not to trust himself, he asked for the sentence
of the Council in these words: 'whether he had written correctly and
blamelessly, or not.' This Cyril, the chief of the Council, proposes for
their consideration. Who ever even heard it whispered, that after a final
and irreversible judgment of the Church on a matter of faith, any such
inquiry or question was made? It was never so done, for that would be to
doubt about the faith itself, when declared and discussed. But this was
done after the judgment of Pope Cœlestine: neither Cyril, nor any
one else, thought of any other course: that, therefore, was not a final
and irreversible judgment.</p>
<p>"In answer to this question, the Fathers in order give their
judgment,—'that the Nicene Creed, and the letter of Cyril in all
things agree and harmonise.' Here is inquiry and examination, and then
judgment. The acts speak for themselves: we say not here a word.</p>
<p>"Next that letter of Nestorius was produced, which Cœlestine had
pronounced blasphemous and impious. It is read: then at the instance of
Cyril it is examined, 'whether this, too, be agreeable to the faith set
forth by the holy Council of the Nicene Fathers, or not.' It is precisely
the same form according to which Cyril's letter was examined. The
Fathers, in order, give judgment that it disagreed from the Nicene Creed,
and was, therefore, censurable. The letter of Nestorius is disapproved in
the same manner, by the same rule, by which that of Cyril was approved.
Here, twice in the same proceeding of the Council of Ephesus, a judgment
of the Roman Pontiff concerning the Catholic Faith, uttered and
published, is re-considered. What he had approved and what he had
disapproved, is equally examined, and, only after examination,
confirmed.</p>
<p>"These were the first proceedings of the Council of Ephesus in the
matter of faith. We proceed to review what concerns the person of
Nestorius, in the same proceeding. First, the letter of Cœlestine
to Cyril is read and placed on the Acts; that, I mean, in which he gave
sentence concerning Nestorius: on which sentence, as the Fathers were
shortly, after full consideration, to pass their judgment, for the
present it was only to be placed among the Acts. In the letter of
Cœlestine there was no special doctrine: it only contained an
approval of Cyril's doctrine and letter, and a disapproval of those of
Nestorius; concerning which letters of Cyril and Nestorius, the judgment
of the Holy Council was already past, so that it would be superfluous to
add anything to them.</p>
<p>"But for the same reason, the other letter of Cyril being
read,—that, I mean, which executed the sentence of
Cœlestine,—nothing special was done concerning that letter,
but it was only ordered to be placed on the Acts.</p>
<p>"After these preliminaries, judgment was to be pronounced on the
person of Nestorius. Inquiry was made, whether what Cœlestine had
written to Nestorius, and what Cyril had done in execution, had been
notified to Nestorius; it was certified that it had been notified, and
that he had remained still in his opinion: and that the days had elapsed,
both which were first fixed by St. Cœlestine, and, afterwards by
the Emperor, convoking the Council. Next, for accumulation of proof,
testimonies of the Fathers are compared with the explanations of
Nestorius: the huge discrepancy shows Nestorius to be an innovator and
heretic. A decree is made in these words. The holy Council
declares,—'Since the most impious Nestorius has neither been
willing to obey our procedures, nor to admit the Bishops deputed by us,
we have, necessarily, proceeded to the examination of what he has
impiously taught: finding, therefore, partly from his own letters, partly
from his discourses, that he holds and preaches impiety,—compelled
by the holy Canons, and by the letters of our most holy Father, our
fellow-minister, Cœlestine, Bishop of the Roman Church,—we
have come to this sentence: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, by this most holy
Council, declareth Nestorius to be deprived of his dignity."' You see the
Canons joined with the letters of Cœlestine in terms, indeed, of
high honour, which tend to set forth the majesty of the Apostolic see.
You see the Council carry out what Cœlestine decreed, and thus
compelled it comes to a painful judgment, but that a new one, and put
forth in its own terms in the name of Christ; and after, by legitimate
inquiry, it was evident that all had been done rightly and in order.</p>
<p>"Finally, the sentence pronounced by the Council, is written to the
most impious Nestorius: 'The holy Council to Nestorius, another Judas:
know thou hast been deposed by the holy Council. So he, who before the
inquiry of the holy Council was called the most religious Bishop, after
this inquiry, is presently set forth as most impious, as another Judas,
and as deposed by an irrevocable sentence, from his episcopal seat.</p>
<p>"Thus a most weighty matter is completed by the most weighty
agreement; that same which we have asserted gives validity to everything
in the Church: and the order of the judgment is plain in itself. That is,
sentence is put forth by Cœlestine; it is suspended by the
Convocation of a General Council; it is heard and examined; it is
corroborated by a new and irrevocable judgment, united with the authority
of the whole Church. This the Fathers declare in their report to the
Emperor: 'We have removed Nestorius from his see, and canonically
deprived him; highly extolling Cœlestine, Bishop of Great Rome, who
before our sentence had condemned the heretical doctrines of Nestorius,
and had anticipated us in giving judgment against him.' This is that
unity, this that agreement, which gives invincible and irresistible force
to ecclesiastical judgments.</p>
<p>"So every thing is in harmony, and our judgment is supported. For in
that the holy Council approves and executes the judgment of the
Apostolical see, on a matter of faith and on a person, it does, indeed,
recognise the legitimate power and primacy of the said see. In that it
does not approve of its judgment, until after legitimate hearing and
renewed inquiry, it instructs us that the Roman Pontiff is, indeed,
superior to all Bishops, but is inferior only to a General Council, even
in matters of faith. Which was to be proved.</p>
<p>"In the mean time, the Bishops Arcadius and Projectus, and the
Presbyter Philip, had been chosen by Cœlestine to be present at the
Council of Ephesus, with a special commission from the Apostolic see, and
the whole Council of the West. So they come from Rome to Ephesus, and
appear at the holy Council, and here the second procedure commences.</p>
<p>"Wolf, of Louvain, amongst other records of antiquity, has put forth
the charge of Cœlestine to his Legates, and his instructions, as
Cœlestine himself calls them. In these he charged them, to defend
the dignity of the Apostolic see; 'not to mix themselves with the
dissensions of the Bishops, whose judges they should be,' in conjunction,
that is, with the Council: 'to confer on proceedings with Cyril, as being
faithful.' We shall now review what they did, in compliance with these
orders: and by this we shall easily show that our cause is confirmed.</p>
<p>"First, they bring forward the letter of St. Cœlestine to the
Council, in which the charge committed to his Legates is thus
expressed:—'We have directed our holy brethren to be present at the
proceedings, and to execute what we have ordained.' Hence, it is evident,
that the Council of Ephesus was employed in executing the Apostolical
judgment. But of what sort this execution is, whether it be, as they will
have it, mere obedience, or by a legitimate hearing of the Council
itself, and then by a certain and infallible judgment, the ensuing
proceedings will show.</p>
<p>"After reading the letter of Cœlestine, the Legates, in
pursuance, say to the Bishops;—'According to the rule of our common
faith, command to be completely and finally settled what Cœlestine
hath had the goodness before to lay down and now to remind you of.' This
is the advantage of a Council; after whose sentence there is no new
discussion, or new judgment, but merely execution. And this the Legates
request to be commanded by the Council, in which they recognise that
supreme authority.</p>
<p>"Firmus, Bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, answers for the
Council;—'The Apostolical and holy See of the Bishop
Cœlestine hath prescribed the sentence and rule for the present
matter.' The Greek words are, hath first set forth the sentence and rule,
or type, which expression is afterwards rendered, form. We will not
quarrel about words; let us hear the same Firmus accurately explaining
what the thing is:—'We,' says he, 'have charged to be executed this
form respecting Nestorius, alleging against him the Canonical and
Apostolic judgment;' that is, in the first procedure, in which, after
examination and deliberation, we have seen the decree of Cœlestine
confirmed. Thus a general Council executes the sentence of the First See,
by legitimate hearing and inquiry, and not as a simple functionary; but
after giving a canonical and apostolical judgment. Let the Pope's decree,
as is due to the authority of so great a See, be the form, the rule;
which same, after convocation of a Council, only receives full authority
from the common judgment.</p>
<p>"It behoved, also, that the Legates, sent to the Council on a special
mission, should understand whether the proceedings against Nestorius had
been pursued according to the requisition of the Canons, and due respect
to the Apostolic See. This we have already often said; wherefore, with
reason, they require the acts to be communicated, 'that we too,' say
they, 'may confirm them.' The proceedings themselves will declare what
that confirmation means.</p>
<p>"After that, at the request of the Legates, the acts against Nestorius
were given them, they thus report about them at the third
procedure:—'We have found all things judged canonically, and
according to the Church's discipline.' Therefore judgments of the
Apostolic see are canonically, and, according to the Church's discipline,
re-considered, after deliberation, in a General Council, and judgment
passed upon them.</p>
<p>"After the Legates had approved the acts against Nestorius
communicated to them, they request that all which had been read and done
at Ephesus from the beginning, should be read afresh in public Session,
'in order,' they say, 'that obeying the form of the most holy Pope
Cœlestine, who hath committed this care to us, we may be enabled to
confirm the judgment also of your Holiness.' After these all had been
read afresh, and the Legates agreed to them, Cyril proposes to the holy
Council, 'That the Legates, by their signature, as was customary, should
make plain and manifest their canonical agreement with the Council.' To
this question of Cyril the Council thus answers, and decrees that the
Legates, by their subscription, confirm the acts; by which place, this
confirmation, spoken of by the Council, is clearly nothing else but to
make their assent plain and manifest, as Cyril proposed. This true and
genuine sense of confirmation we have often brought forward, and shall
often again; and now congratulate ourselves that it is so clearly set
before us by the holy Council of Ephesus.</p>
<p>"But of what importance it was that the decrees of Ephesus should be
confirmed by the authority of the Legates of the Apostolic see, as says
Projectus, one of the Legates, is seen from hence; because, although
Cyril, having been named the executor of the Pope's sentence, had
executed it in the Council, yet he had not been expressly delegated to
the Council, of which Cœlestine had yet no thought, when he
entrusted Cyril to represent him. But Arcadius, Projectus and Philip,
being expressly sent by Cœlestine to the Council, confirmed the
acts of the Council, in virtue of their special commission, and put forth
in clear view by all manner and testimony the consent of all Churches
with the chief Church, that of Rome.</p>
<p>"Add to this, that the Legates, sent by special commission to the
Council of Ephesus, bore the sentence, not only of the Apostolic see, but
also of the whole West, whence the Presbyter Philip, one of the Legates,
after all had been read afresh, and approved by common consent, thus sums
up; 'It is then established according to the decree of all Churches, for
the Priests of the Church, (Eastern and Western,) either by themselves,
or by their Legates, to take part in this consent of the Priesthood,
which was pronounced against Nestorius.'</p>
<p>"Hence it is clear how the decrees of the Churches themselves mutually
confirm each other; for all those things have force of confirmation,
which declare the consent and unity of all Churches, inasmuch as the
strength of ecclesiastical decrees itself consists in unity and mutual
agreement. So that, in putting forth an exposition of the faith, the East
and the West, and the Apostolic see and Synodical assemblies, mutually
confirm each other; whence, too, we read that acclamation to
Cœlestine, in the Council of Ephesus:—'To Cœlestine,
guardian of the faith, (to Cœlestine agreeing with the Council,)
one Cœlestine, one Cyril one faith of the Council,' (one faith of
the whole world.)</p>
<p>"These acclamations, then, of Catholic unity being heard, Philip, the
Legate, thus answers:—'We return thanks to your holy and venerable
Council, because, by your holy voices, as holy members, you have joined
yourselves to a holy head; for your blessedness is not ignorant that the
blessed Peter is the head of the whole faith, or even of the Apostles.'
This, therefore, is the supreme authority—the supreme
power—that the members be joined with each other, and to the Roman
Pontiff, as their head. Because the force of an ecclesiastical judgment
is made invincible by consent.</p>
<p>"Finally, Cœlestine himself, after the conclusion of the whole
matter, sends a letter to the holy Council of Ephesus, which he thus
begins; 'At length we must rejoice at the conclusion of evils.' The
learned reader understands where he recognises the <i>conclusion</i>;
that is, after the condemnation of Nestorius by the infallible authority
of an Ecumenical Council, <i>viz.</i> of the whole Catholic Church. He
proceeds: 'We see, that you, with us, have executed this matter so
faithfully transacted.' All decree, and all execute, that is, by giving a
common judgment. Whence Cœlestine adds, 'We have been informed of a
just deposition, and a still juster exaltation:' the deposition of
Nestorius, begun, indeed, by the Roman see, but brought to a conclusion
by the sentence of the Council; to a full and complete settlement, as we
have seen above: the exaltation of Maximianus, immediately after the
Ephesine decrees substituted in place of Nestorius: this is the
conclusion of the question. Even Cœlestine himself recognises this
conclusion to lie not in his own examination and judgment, but in that of
an Ecumenical Council.</p>
<p>"And this was done in that Council in which it is admitted that the
authority of the Apostolic See was most clearly set forth, not only by
words, but by deeds, of any since the birth of Christ. At least the Holy
Council gives credence to Philip uttering these true and magnificent
encomiums, 'concerning the dignity of the Apostolic See, and Peter the
head and pillar of the Faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, and
by Christ's authority administering the keys, who to this very time lives
ever, and exercises judgment in his successors.' This he says, after
having seen all the acts of the Council itself, which we have mentioned,
so that we may indeed understand, that all these privileges of Peter and
the Apostolic See entirely agree with the decrees of the Council, and the
judgment entered into afresh, and deliberation upon matter of faith held
after the Apostolic See."</p>
<p>The letter of Pope Cœlestine, received with all honour as that
of the first Bishop in the world, recognises likewise the authority of
his brethren. It began thus: "The assembly of Priests is the visible
display of the presence of the Holy Ghost. He who cannot lie has said,
'Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them:' much more will He be present in so large a crowd of holy
men; for the Council is indeed holy in a peculiar sense,—it claims
veneration as the representative of that most holy Synod of Apostles
which we read of. Their Master, whom they were commanded to preach, never
forsakes them. It was He who taught them, it was He who instructed them,
what they should teach others; and He has assured the world, that in the
person of His Apostles they hear him. This charge of teaching has
descended equally upon all Bishops. We are all engaged in it by an
hereditary right; all we, who having come in their stead, preach the name
of our Lord to all the countries of the world, according to what was said
to them, 'Go ye and teach all nations.' You are to observe, my brethren,
that the order we have received is a general order, and that He intended
that we should all execute it, when he charged them with it as a duty
devolving equally upon all. We ought all to enter into the labours of
those whom we have all succeeded in dignity."</p>
<p>"Thus Pope Cœlestine acknowledged that it was Christ Himself who
established Bishops in the persons of His Apostles, as the teachers of
His Church: He places Himself in their rank, and declares that they ought
all to concur in the preservation of the sacred deposit of Apostolical
doctrine."<a name="NtA59" href="#Nt59"><sup>[59]</sup></a></p>
<p>The importance of this testimony will be felt by those who remember
that Bellarmine specifically denies that the government of the Church
resides in Bishops generally; and that in this he is at least borne out
by the last three centuries of Roman practice.</p>
<p>Bossuet proceeds to remark as follows:—"From this doctrine of
St. Cœlestine we draw many conclusions: first, this,—that
Bishops in the Apostles were appointed teachers by Christ Himself, not at
all by Peter, or Peter's successors. Nor does a Pontiff, seated in so
eminent a place, think it unworthy to mix himself with the rest of the
Bishops. 'We all,' he says, 'in the stead of the Apostles preach the name
of the Lord: we all have succeeded them in honour.' Whence it is the more
evident that authority to teach was transmitted from Christ, as well to
Cœlestine himself, as to the rest of the Bishops. Hence that the
deposit of sacred doctrine is committed to all, the defence of which lies
with all; and so the faith is to be settled by common care and consent;
nor will the protection of Christ, the true Master, be wanting to the
masters of Churches. This Cœlestine lays down equally respecting
himself and all Bishops, successors of the Apostles. Then what agrees
with it: that as the Apostles, assembled on the question concerning legal
rites, put forth their sentence as being at once that of the Holy Spirit
and their own, so too shall it be in other most important controversies;
and the Council of the Apostles will live again in the Councils of
Bishops. Which indeed shows us, that authority and the settlement of the
question lies not in the sentence of Peter alone, or of Peter's
successors, but in the agreement of all.</p>
<p>"Nor, therefore, does Cœlestine infringe on his own privilege in
reckoning himself with the other successors of the Apostles; for as the
other Bishops were made successors to the other Apostles, so he, being
made by Christ successor to Peter their chief, everywhere takes
precedence of all by authority of Peter, as we read set forth and acted
on in the same Council.</p>
<p>"Thus in the third holy General Council, and in those first ages, we
both prove against heretics, that the power of the Apostolical See
everywhere takes precedence and leads all, and, what is of the most
importance, in the name of Peter, and so as instituted by Christ. Not
less do we show to Catholics, that the final and infallible force of an
ecclesiastical judgment is seated there, where to the authority of Peter,
that is, of the Pope, is added the authority and agreement of Bishops
also, who are throughout the whole world in the stead of Apostles; which
alone the Church of France demands,"<a name="NtA60"
href="#Nt60"><sup>[60]</sup></a>—and, we may add, the Church of
England.</p>
<p>Again; compare the spirit of St. Cœlestine's words with the
spirit that dictated the following to De Maistre, whom we might leave
alone, if he were not the exponent of a theory now in the greatest vogue
in the Roman Church;—a theory, indeed, which those must accept, who
leave us, without any chance of modification; for it is not Bossuet's
most Catholic doctrine, but Bellarmine's, which is acted on and taught
now. "I do not affect to cast the least doubt upon the infallibility of a
general Council. I merely say, that it only holds this high privilege
from its head, to whom the promises have been made. We know well that the
gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. But why? On account
of Peter, on whom she is founded. Take away this foundation, how would
she be infallible, since she exists no longer? Unless I am deceived, in
order to be something, one must first exist."<a name="NtA61"
href="#Nt61"><sup>[61]</sup></a></p>
<p>Again: "We see that for two centuries and a half religion has done
very well without them (General Councils), and I do not think that any
one thinks of them, in spite of the extraordinary needs of the Church,
for which the Pope will provide much better than a General Council, if
only people knew how to avail themselves of his power."<a name="NtA62"
href="#Nt62"><sup>[62]</sup></a></p>
<p>It must not be forgotten that this same Council of Ephesus, which
allows none but heretics to refuse to the blessed Virgin the title and
the honour of 'Mother of God,' confirms by its eighth Canon the Episcopal
and Patriarchal system, and bears the strongest testimony against the
Roman. It runs thus: "The most beloved of God and our fellow-bishop
Rheginus, and Zeno and Evagrius, the most religious Bishops of the
Province of Cyprus, have declared unto us an innovation which has been
introduced contrary to the laws of the Church, and the Canons of the holy
Fathers, and which affects the liberty of all. Wherefore since evils
which affect the community require more attention, inasmuch as they cause
greater hurt; and especially since the Bishop of Antioch has not so much
as followed an ancient custom in performing ordinations in Cyprus, as
those most religious persons who have come to the holy Synod have
informed us, by writing and by word of mouth; we declare that they who
preside over the holy Churches which are in Cyprus, shall preserve,
without gainsaying or opposition, their right of performing by themselves
the ordinations of the most religious Bishops, according to the Canons of
the holy Fathers and the ancient custom. The same rule shall be observed
in all the other Dioceses, and in the Provinces everywhere, so that none
of the most religious Bishops shall invade any other Province, which has
not heretofore from the beginning been under the hands of himself or his
predecessors. But if any one has so invaded a Province and brought it by
force under himself, he shall restore it, that the Canons of the Fathers
may not be transgressed, nor the pride of secular dominion be privily
introduced under the appearance of a sacred office, nor we lose by little
the freedom which our Lord Jesus Christ, the deliverer of all men, has
given us by His own blood. The Holy and Ecumenical Synod has therefore
decreed, that the rights which have heretofore, and from the beginning,
belonged to each province, shall be preserved to it pure and without
restraint, according to the custom which has prevailed of old, each
metropolitan having permission to take a copy of the things now
transacted for his own security. But if any one shall introduce any
regulation contrary to what has been now defined, the whole Holy and
Ecumenical synod has decreed that it shall be of no effect."<a
name="NtA63" href="#Nt63"><sup>[63]</sup></a></p>
<p>It must be allowed that De Maistre has very good reasons for disliking
General Councils.</p>
<p>Nine years after this Council, St. Leo the Great became Pope, whose
long and able Pontificate will afford us the best means of judging what
the legitimate power of the Roman See was, and how it tended to the
preservation and unity of the whole Church. He lived at an important
crisis, when the barbarous tribes of the North were about to burst over
the Empire and the Church; the system of which, had it not been
consolidated by himself, his immediate predecessors and successors, might
have been dissolved and broken up into fragments.</p>
<p>I will first show, by a few quotations, that St. Leo had no slight
sense of his own duty and dignity among his brother Bishops. We will then
see how his actions, and the way in which they were received by others,
supported his words.</p>
<p>In a sermon on the anniversary of his consecration, after noticing
with pleasure the number of Bishops present, he continues, "Nor, as I
trust, is the most blessed Apostle Peter, in his kind condescendence and
faithful love, absent from this assembly, nor does he disregard your
devotion, reverence for whom has drawn you together. And so he at once
rejoices at your affection, and welcomes the observance of the Lord's
Institution in those who share his honour; approving that most orderly
charity of the whole Church, which in Peter's see receives Peter, and
slackens not in love to so great a shepherd, even in the person of so
unworthy an heir." On a like occasion,—"Although, then, beloved,
our partaking in that gift be a great subject for common joy, yet it were
a better and more excellent course of rejoicing, if ye rest not in the
consideration of our humility: more profitable and more worthy by far it
is to raise the mind's eye unto the contemplation of the most blessed
Apostle Peter's glory, and to celebrate this day chiefly in the honour of
him who was watered with streams so copious from the very Fountain of all
graces, that while nothing has passed to others without his
participation, yet he received many special privileges of his own. The
Word made flesh already dwelt in us, and Christ had given up Himself
whole to restore the race of man. Wisdom had left nothing unordered;
power left nothing difficult. Elements were obeying, spirits ministering,
angels serving; it was impossible that Mystery could fail of its effect
in which the Unity and the Trinity of the Godhead Itself was at once
working. <i>And yet out of the whole world, Peter alone is chosen to
preside over the calling of all the Gentiles, and over all the Apostles,
and the collected Fathers of the Church: so that though there be among
the people of God many priests and many shepherds, yet Peter rules all by
personal commission</i> (propriè), <i>whom Christ also rules by sovereign
power. Beloved, it is a great and wonderful participation of His own
power which the Divine condescendance gave to this man: and if He willed
that other rulers should enjoy ought together with him, yet never did He
give, save through him, what He denied not to others.</i> In fine, the
Lord asks all the Apostles what men think of Him; and they answer in
common so long as they set forth the doubtfulness of human ignorance. But
when what the Disciples think is required, he who is first in Apostolic
dignity is first also in confession of the Lord. And when he had said,
'Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God,' Jesus answered him,
'Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood hath not
revealed it to thee, but My Father, which is in heaven:' that is, Thou
art blessed, because My Father hath taught thee; nor opinion which is of
the earth deceived thee, but heavenly inspiration instructed thee; and
not flesh and blood hath shown Me to thee, but He, whose only-begotten
Son I am. And I, saith He, say unto thee, that is, as My Father hath
manifested to thee My Godhead, so I, too, make known to thee thine own
pre-eminence. For thou art Peter; that is, whilst I am the immutable
Rock, I, the cornerstone, who make both one, I, the foundation beside
which no one can lay another; <i>yet thou also art a rock, because by My
virtue thou art established, so that whatever is Mine by sovereign power,
is to thee by participation common with Me</i>. And upon this rock I will
build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it: on
this strength, saith He, I will build an eternal temple, and My Church,
which in its height shall reach the heaven, shall rise upon the firmness
of this faith. This confession the gates of hell shall not restrain, nor
the chains of death fetter; for that voice is the voice of life. And as
it raises those who confess it unto heavenly places, so it plunges those
who deny it into hell. Wherefore it is said to most blessed Peter, 'I
will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou
shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' The privilege of this power
did indeed pass to the other Apostles, and the order of this decree
reached to all the rulers of the Church, but not without purpose what is
intended for all is put into the hands of one. For therefore is this
entrusted to Peter singly, because all the rulers of the Church are
invested with the figure of Peter. The privilege, therefore, of Peter
remaineth, wheresoever judgment is passed according to his equity. Nor
can severity or indulgence be excessive, where nothing is bound, nothing
loosed, save what blessed Peter either bindeth or looseth. But at the
approach of His passion, which would disturb the firmness of His
disciples, the Lord saith, 'Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to
have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that
thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren,
that ye enter not into temptation.' The danger from the temptation of
fear was common to all the Apostles, and they equally needed the help of
Divine protection, since the devil desired to dismay, to make a wreck of
all: and yet the Lord takes care of Peter in particular, and asks
specially for the faith of Peter, as if the state of the rest would be
more certain, if the mind of their Chief were not overcome. <i>So then in
Peter the strength of all is protected, and the help of Divine grace is
so ordered, that the stability, which through Christ is given to Peter,
through Peter is conveyed to the Apostles.</i></p>
<p>"Since, therefore, beloved, we see such a protection divinely granted
to us, reasonably and justly do we rejoice in the merits and dignity of
our Chief, rendering thanks to the Eternal King, our Redeemer, the Lord
Jesus Christ, for having given so great a power to him whom He made chief
of the whole Church, that if anything, even in our time, by us be rightly
done and rightly ordered, it is to be ascribed to his working, to his
guidance, unto whom it was said,—'And thou, when thou art
converted, strengthen thy brethren:' and to whom the Lord, after His
resurrection, in answer to the triple profession of eternal love, thrice
said with mystical intent, 'Feed My sheep.' And this, beyond a doubt, the
pious shepherd doth even now, and fulfils the charge of his Lord;
strengthening us with his exhortations, and not ceasing to pray for us,
that we may be overcome by no temptation. But if, as we must believe, he
everywhere discharges this affectionate guardianship to all the people of
God, how much more will he condescend to grant his help unto us his
children, among whom on the sacred couch of his blessed repose he resteth
in the same flesh in which he ruled. To him, therefore, let us ascribe
this anniversary day of us his servant, and this festival, by whose
advocacy we have been thought worthy to share his seat itself, the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ helping us in all things, Who liveth and
reigneth with God the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever." I
have before me similar passages in abundance; but these are enough to
show how far the teaching of St. Leo, as to his own office, agreed with,
how far went beyond, that of St. Augustin. The combination of the
Patriarch's, and still more of the universal Primate's, power with that
of the Bishop, is a nice point. If this be pushed too far, it issues in a
monarchy; if the other alone be allowed, it converts the one kingdom of
Jesus Christ into an unlimited number of petty republics. On the one hand
there is danger pregnant to the high priesthood of the Church; on the
other hand, to the sacrament of unity. The one-sided development of St.
Leo's teaching has produced the Papacy, in which the Bishops, who
represent the Apostles, are no longer the brethren, co-ordinate in
authority, but the delegates, of St. Peter's successor: but the one-sided
development of St. Cyprian's teaching has rent into pieces the seamless
robe of Christ. Yet this need not be so: in the bright days of the Church
of Christ it was not so. Surely the first six centuries of her existence
are not a dream; and that beautiful image of St. Augustin not an
imagination, but what he saw before his eyes: "to sit on our
watch-towers, and guard the flock, belongs in common to all of us who
have episcopal functions, although the hill on which you stand is more
conspicuous than the rest."</p>
<p>A Pontiff so deeply and religiously impressed with the prerogatives of
St. Peter's successor was likely to be energetic in discharging his
duties. In truth we behold St. Leo set on a watch-tower, and directing
his gaze over the whole Church: over his own West more especially, but
over the East too, if need be. He can judge Alexandria, Antioch, and
Constantinople, as well as Eugubium, and is as ready too. Wherever Canons
are broken, ancient custom disregarded, encroachments attempted, where
Bishops are neglectful, or Metropolitans tyrannical, where heresy is
imputed to Patriarchs, in short, wherever a stone in the whole sacred
building is being loosened, or threatens to fall, there is he at hand to
repair and restore, to warn, to protect, or to punish. But still they are
brethren, they are equals, they are fellow-apostles, with whom he has to
act, over whom he presides. If Peter was reproved by Paul, and yet the
glorious Apostles laboured, witnessed, fought together, and together rest
in Roman earth, then may the successors of the Twelve remonstrate with,
nay, reprove and resist the successor of the Chief of the Twelve. If he
is vicar of Christ, so are they. We have already seen examples of this,
we shall find others, without schism.</p>
<p>It had become the custom of the Roman Pontiffs, at least as early as
St. Damasus, (366—384,) and St. Siricius, (384—398,) to
charge some one prelate, in each province where their influence extended,
to represent the Roman Church; to report any infractions of discipline,
or innovations on the faith; to announce the election and consecration of
Bishops. Thus Anastasius of Thessalonica presided over the ten
Metropolitans of Illyricum in Pope Leo's name. The Primate of Arles
represented him in southern Gaul; and others in Spain; and so on. It is
even said that all the Primacies of western Europe were in their origin
derivations thus made from the Primacy of St. Peter. An authority, which
was exercised on the whole for the good of all, seems to have been
generally submitted to by the Bishops of the different provinces:
doubtless every Bishop felt his hands strengthened in his particular
diocese, and had an additional security against any infraction of his
rights by his brethren, when he was able to throw himself back on the
unbiassed and impartial authority of the Bishop of Rome. An authority,
however, which in its commencement professed to be the especial guardian
of the Canons, and to protect and maintain all in their proper place, was
very liable to abuse, and had an inherent tendency to increase, and to
absorb the power of the local Bishops and Metropolitans in the indefinite
pretensions of the Patriarch. We have seen the resistance offered to the
Pope in the case of the wretched Apiarius by the African Church, and now
the Church of Gaul furnishes a defender of the rights of Metropolitans
against Pope Leo in one of the holiest and most apostolical of its
ancient Bishops.</p>
<p>St. Hilary of Arles, of noble birth, of splendid ability, having in
the world the highest prospects, was converted to God by the prayers of
St. Honoratus. Thereupon he sold his large possessions, and bestowed them
on the poor, and retired to the desert of Lerins. His friend, St.
Honoratus, was shortly after made Bishop of Arles, but he could not
persuade St. Hilary to remain there with him. Within three years he died,
and St. Hilary, who was attending him in his sickness, hastened, as soon
as all was over, to return to his monastery. But it was in vain: he was
pursued, brought back by force, and ordained, in spite of himself,
Metropolitan of the first See in Gaul, at the age of twenty-nine years.
At forty-eight he died, worn out with the severe labours and ascetic life
he had imposed on himself. The nineteen years of his episcopate were
devoted to the most incessant exertions as Bishop and Metropolitan.
Unwearied in energy, unbounded in charity, gifted with extraordinary
eloquence, a severe defender of discipline, yet winning others to follow
where he was ready to go before himself, he becomes the soul of the three
or four provinces over which the See of Arles then presided. He is
connected in some degree with ourselves, as having probably held one of
the chief places in that great council of the Gauls in the year 429,
which sent St. Germanus and St. Lupus into Britain to resist the
Pelagians. He belonged to the same monastery as St. Vincent of Lerins,
and at the same time. It is certain, also, that he was a great friend of
St. Germanus, and often conferred with him. On one of these occasions
great complaints were brought to the two saints against Celidonius,
Bishop of Besançon, for having formerly married a widow, and for having
condemned persons to death. St. Hilary judged Celidonius in a provincial
council, which declared that, having been husband of a widow, he could
not keep his bishopric, and that he ought voluntarily to quit a dignity
which the rules of Scripture permitted him not to hold. He was
accordingly deposed.</p>
<p>"Celidonius,<a name="NtA64" href="#Nt64"><sup>[64]</sup></a> finding
himself deposed, had recourse to Rome, where he complained that he had
been unjustly condemned. It seems that St. Leo, without further
examination, at once admitted him to his communion, in which he may have
followed what Zosimus and Cœlestinus did in respect of the
miserable Apiarius, priest of Africa. But I know not what Canon or what
rule of the Church justifies such a proceeding. St. Hilary learnt this at
the severest time of winter. Nevertheless, all the discomforts and
dangers of this season gave way to the ardour of his zeal and faith. He
undertook to pass the Alps, and to go on foot to Rome; and this he
accomplished, without having even a horse either to ride or to carry
baggage. Being come to Rome, he first visited the relics of the Apostles
and Martyrs. Next he waited on St. Leo; and having paid him the greatest
respect, he besought him very humbly to please to order what respected
the state of the Churches according to immemorial practice. Persons were
seen attending at Rome on the holy altar who had been juridically and
justly deposed in Gaul: he was obliged to address to him his complaints
of this; and, if they were found correct, besought the Pope at least to
stop by a secret order this violation of the Canons. If not, he would not
trouble him further, not being come to Rome to bring an action, and make
accusations, but to pay to him his respects, to declare to him the state
of things, and to beseech him to maintain the rules of discipline. There
is reason to believe that St. Hilary maintained that St. Leo had no right
at all to take cognizance of this cause as judge, meaning, doubtless,
that the Church of France was in the same condition as that of Africa,
and had the same power to terminate causes which arose there, without an
appeal elsewhere being allowed. St. Leo even sufficiently assures us that
this was St. Hilary's view; and he takes occasion from it to accuse him
of unwillingness to be subject to St. Peter, and to recognise the Primacy
of the Roman Church: which would prove that all the holy Bishops of
Africa did not recognise it, and give heretics a great advantage. St.
Leo, on the other hand, maintained not only that the Churches of the
Gauls had often consulted that of Rome in various
difficulties—which had nothing to do with the matter in
question—but, also, that they had often appealed to the Holy See,
which had either altered or confirmed judgments pronounced by them. If we
may be allowed to regard the depositions of St. Leo and St. Hilary as the
claims of different parties, and to examine the matter to the bottom,
according to the light which history sheds on it, we may say that we do
not find that the Gallican Church had hitherto admitted, up to that time,
any appeal to the Holy See; and that Zosimus, having wished to claim the
right of judging Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles, Proculus always
maintained himself, in spite of all the efforts of this Pope. Meanwhile,
as St. Leo, sufficiently jealous of the greatness of his See, found
himself opposed by St. Hilary in a point of this importance, it is not
surprising that he was susceptible of the bad impression given him of the
conduct of this great saint, as we shall see hereafter. 'I dare not
examine,' says the historian of St. Hilary, 'the judgment and the conduct
of two men so great, especially now that God has called them to the
possession of His glory. I confine myself to saying, that Hilary singly
opposed this great number of adversaries; that he was not shaken by their
menaces; that he laid the truth before those who would listen to it; that
he prevailed over those who would dispute with him; that he yielded not
to the powerful; in short, that he preferred running the risk of losing
his life to admitting to his communion him whom he had deposed together
with so many great Bishops.'</p>
<p>"Had St. Leo only required to have the affair reheard in the Gauls,
agreeably to the Canons of Sardica, the only ones which the Church had
hitherto made in favour of appeals to the Pope, St. Hilary would,
perhaps, have consented; that is, if he were better acquainted with this
Council than they were in Africa. But it is not apparent that such a
rehearing was mentioned. And as to suffering the matter to be judged at
Rome, St. Hilary, besides the other reasons which he might have,
considered, doubtless, with St. Cyprian, that the proofs of the facts on
which judgment must be made cannot be transported thither. So the
Gallican Church has always maintained itself in the right, that appeals
made to Rome be referred back to the spot. Though St. Hilary had
protested that he was not come to engage in any dispute, nevertheless he
did not refuse to take part in a conference, in which St. Leo heard him,
together with Celidonius. Several Bishops were there. Notes were made of
all that was said. St. Leo says that St. Hilary had nothing reasonable to
answer; his passion carried him away to say things that a layman would
not have dared to utter, and that the Bishops could not listen to. He
adds that this haughty pride touched him to the quick, and that,
nevertheless, he had used no other remedy than patience, not wishing to
sharpen and increase the wounds which this insolent language caused in
the soul of him who held it: that moreover, having received him at first
as his brother, he only thought of soothing rather than vexing and
paining him; and that indeed he did this to himself sufficiently by the
confusion into which the weakness of his answers threw him. It is clear
that St. Hilary would not answer on the main point of Celidonius's
affair, because he maintained that St. Leo could not be judge of it. And
we must not be surprised that the Romans found much insolence in the
inflexible firmness with which he maintained it. Doubtless it was this
pretended insolence which caused him even to be put under guard, which
may surprise us in the case of a Bishop, and in an affair purely
ecclesiastical. Among the insolent and rash expressions of which St. Leo
in general complains, he remarks, in particular, that St. Hilary had
often demanded to be condemned, if he had condemned Celidonius contrary
to the rules of the Canons. He wished, then, that we should judge others
by the rule which fully justifies St. Hilary. The saint, seeing that his
reasons were not listened to, would not wait St. Leo's sentence. He
preferred withdrawing secretly, while this affair was still being
examined. So he escaped from his guards, and though it was still winter,
left Rome, and returned to Arles, perhaps in February (445): so that when
they sought for him to speak further on this matter, it was found that he
was gone. St. Leo failed not to proceed, reversed the judgment delivered
against Celidonius, declared him absolved and acquitted of the accusation
of having married a widow, and restored him to his rank of Bishop, which
he had already done at first, without having examined the affair."</p>
<p>There were other accusations made against St. Hilary, into which we
need not enter. St. Leo wrote a very severe letter about him to the
Bishops of Gaul: he accused him "of raising himself against St. Peter,
and being unwilling to recognise his Primacy, as if all those who believe
that a successor of St. Peter passes the bounds of the Canons were
enemies of the Primacy of the Holy See. That would be to arm against the
Popes in favour of heretics a great number of Fathers, of Saints, and of
Councils."<a name="NtA65" href="#Nt65"><sup>[65]</sup></a> The result was
that he took away from St. Hilary his rights of Metropolitan, and
conferred them on the Bishop of Vienne, who had claims upon them. But
this measure was so disliked by the suffragans of Arles, that he restored
the See of Arles to most of its privileges under Ravennius, the successor
of St. Hilary. However, this matter had even more important consequences.
We will let the Roman Catholic historian, as before, describe them. "St.
Leo apparently feared that the Bishops of the Gauls would not be
sufficiently submissive to what he had ordered. And though he had made it
a charge against St. Hilary that he had employed an armed force in
affairs of the Church, for all that he recurred himself to the imperial
power against him. He represented him to the Emperor Valentinian the
Third as one who rebelled both against the authority of the Apostolic
See, and the majesty of the Empire, and obtained of this prince, who was
then at Rome, a celebrated rescript, addressed to the Patrician Aetius,
general of the armies of the Empire, by which, under pretext of
maintaining the peace of the Church, he forbids undertaking any thing
whatever without the authority of the Apostolic See, or resisting its
orders, which, says he, had always been observed inviolably up to
Hilarius. He orders all Bishops to hold as law all that the authority of
the Pope establishes, and all magistrates to compel by force to appear
before the tribunal of the Bishop of Rome all persons cited thither, if
they refused to go. It may be seen by what happened about this time to
Atticus, Metropolitan of Nicopolis, in Epirus, how scandalous this
employment of force was, and how opposed, according to St. Leo himself,
to the gentleness of the Church. Valentinian adds, that the sentence
given by St. Leo against St. Hilary, had no need of any one to be
executed in the Gauls, since the authority of so great a Pontiff has a
right to give any order to the Churches. He goes so far as to make it a
charge against St. Hilary, to have deposed and ordained Bishops without
consulting the Pope. He even names him a criminal of State on the score
of his being charged with having employed the force of arms to establish
Bishops, and to place them on a throne where they had only to preach
peace. This law is dated the 6th of June, 445, and it is this which fixes
the time of all this history. It is undoubtedly very proper, as says
Baronius, to show that the Emperors have greatly contributed to establish
the greatness and authority of the Popes. This is not the place to make
other reflections upon it; but we cannot forbear saying that, in the mind
of those who have any love for the liberty of the Church, and any
knowledge of its discipline, this law will always as little honour him
whom it praises as it will injure him whom it condemns. Pope Hilary
quotes this law, and avails himself of the authority it attributes to the
decisions of Rome."<a name="NtA66" href="#Nt66"><sup>[66]</sup></a> It
would be presumptuous to add a word to the judgment of one who has made
the first centuries of the Church his especial study. St. Hilary, on his
return to Arles, made many attempts to reconcile the Pope to him, but all
were fruitless, as he would not give up the point in dispute. "It seems,"
says Tillemont, "that he continued resolved to do nothing in prejudice of
the rights he believed to belong to his Church, but that seeing the two
great powers of Church and State united against him, he remained quiet
and silent, occupied only in the work of his salvation, and that of his
people." During the four years he survived, he redoubled his austerities
and good works: he died in the odour of sanctity; and after his death,
"St. Leo, though still persuaded that he was a presumptuous spirit, calls
him 'of holy memory.' Yet, we have neither proof nor probability that he
had restored him to his communion, from which he had cut him off."<a
name="NtA67" href="#Nt67"><sup>[67]</sup></a> His name occurs in the
Roman Martyrology.</p>
<p>Thus an encroachment, which had failed in Africa, succeeded through a
conjuncture of circumstances, especially the intervention of the civil
power, in Gaul. Of course it was made the stepping-stone to further
advances. This one specimen may give us a notion how the lawful power of
the Patriarch and the recognised pre-eminence of the one Apostolic See of
the West had a continual tendency to develop, and won, by degrees,
unlimited control over the original and acknowledged rights of the
Bishops and Metropolitans. Still, even in the hands of St. Leo, this was
merely an extraordinary interference. Ravennius, the successor of this
very St. Hilary, was elected and consecrated by the Bishops of his
province, who then announced it to Pope Leo, and received a
congratulatory answer.<a name="NtA68" href="#Nt68"><sup>[68]</sup></a> He
says himself to the Bishops of the province of Vienne, "It is not for
ourselves that we defend the ordinations of your provinces, which perhaps
Hilarius may, according to his wont, falsely state to you, to render
disaffected the mind of your Holiness; but it is for you we claim them
through our solicitude." And again: "Decreeing this, that if any one of
our brethren in any province die, he who is known to be the Metropolitan
of that province, should claim to himself the ordination of the
Priest."<a name="NtA69" href="#Nt69"><sup>[69]</sup></a></p>
<p>So long as the election and consecration of Bishops and Metropolitans
were thus free and canonical, the greatness of the central See could
never depress and extinguish the essential equality of the Episcopate.
Let it be remembered that St. Leo, with all his power and influence,
consecrated no other Bishops than those of Southern Italy, Sicily, and
Sardinia, which were the bounds of his proper patriarchate; there his
authority was direct and immediate; but in Africa, the Gauls, Spain,
Illyricum, and the West generally, it was only properly exercised in
matters beyond the range of the Bishops and Metropolitans. We suppose it
is impossible to define a power which was to correct and restore in
emergencies. The Bishops of the province of Aries afterwards besought
Pope Leo to restore the primacy to Arles, and render, <span
class="scac">A.D.</span> 450, this undoubted testimony to the Primacy of
the Roman Church, and to the connexion between the rights of the
Metropolitan and the Patriarch:—</p>
<p>"By the Priest of this Church (Arles) it is certain that our
predecessors, as well as ourselves, have been consecrated to the High
Priesthood by the gift of the Lord; in which, following antiquity, the
predecessors of your Holiness confirmed by their published letters this
which old custom had handed down concerning the privileges of the Church
of Arles, (as the records of the Apostolical See doubtless prove;)
believing it to be full of reason and justice, that as through the most
blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, the holy Roman Church holds
primacy over all the Churches of the whole world, so also within the
Gauls the Church of Arles, which had been thought worthy to receive for
its Priest St. Trophimus, sent by the Apostles, should claim the right of
ordaining to the High Priesthood."<a name="NtA70"
href="#Nt70"><sup>[70]</sup></a></p>
<p>The view on which St. Leo acted in these proceedings against St.
Hilary is very plainly set forth in certain of his letters. Thus, "To our
most beloved Brethren, all the Bishops throughout the province of Vienne,
Leo Bishop of Rome.... The Lord hath willed that the mystery of this gift
(of announcing the Gospel) should belong to the office of all the
Apostles, on the condition of its being chiefly seated in the most
blessed Peter, first of all the Apostles; and from him, as it were from
the head, it is His pleasure that His gifts should flow into the whole
body, that whoever dares to recede from the rock of Peter may know that
he has no part in the divine mystery. For him hath He assumed into the
participation of His indivisible unity, and willed that he should be
named what He himself is, saying, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my Church:' that the rearing of the eternal temple by the
wonderful gift of the grace of God might consist in the solidity of
Peter, strengthening with this firmness His Church, that neither the
rashness of man might attempt it, nor the gates of hell prevail against
it."<a name="NtA71" href="#Nt71"><sup>[71]</sup></a> So to his vicar the
Bishop of Thessalonica, whom he was erecting into an Exarch over the ten
Metropolitans of Eastern Illyricum: "As my predecessors to your
predecessors, so have I, following the example of those gone before,
committed to your affection my charge of government; that you imitating
our gentleness might relieve the care <i>which we in virtue of our
headship</i> (principaliter), <i>by Divine institution, owe to all
Churches</i>, and might, in some degree, discharge our personal
visitation to provinces far distant from us; since you can readily
ascertain, by near and convenient inspection, what in every matter you
might either by your own zeal arrange, or reserve to our judgment." "For
we have entrusted your affection to represent us on this condition, that
you are called to a part of our solicitude, but not to the fulness of our
power.... But if in a matter which you believe fit to be considered and
decided on with your brethren," (the Bishops of the province,) "their
sentence differs from yours, let every thing be referred to us on the
authority of the Acts, that all doubtfulness may be removed, and we may
decree what pleaseth God. For to this we direct all our solicitude and
care, that the unity of mutual agreement and the maintenance of
discipline be broken by no dissension, nor neglected by any
slothfulness.... For the compactness of our unity cannot remain firm,
unless the bond of charity bind us into an inseparable whole; because,
'as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same
office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members
one of another.' For it is the joining together which makes one
soundness, and one beauty in the whole body: and this joining together,
as it requires unanimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord
among Priests. For though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an
equal jurisdiction; (<i>quibus cum dignitas sit communis, non est tamen
ordo generalis</i>;) since even amongst the most blessed Apostles, as
there was a likeness of honour, so was there a certain distinction of
power; and the election of all being equal, pre-eminence over the rest
was given to one. From which type (<i>forma</i>) the distinction between
Bishops also has arisen, and it was provided by an important arrangement
that all should not claim to themselves power over all, but that in every
province there should be one, whose sentence should be considered the
first among his brethren; and others again seated in the greater cities
should undertake a larger care, through whom the direction of the
Universal Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and nothing
anywhere disagree from its head."<a name="NtA72"
href="#Nt72"><sup>[72]</sup></a></p>
<p>I think it fair to admit that the germ of something very like the
present papal system, without, however, such a wonderful concentration
and absorption of all power, is discernible in these words. I shall give
further on, Bossuet's interpretation of their most remarkable expression.
But it is also certain that such is not the view of the Church's
government set before us by St. Cyprian, St. Augustin, St. Vincent of
Lerins, and the Fathers generally, nor the one supported by the acts of
the ancient Church. There is a very distinct tone in the teaching and
acts of St. Leo, and the other Popes generally, from that of the
contemporary Bishops and Fathers who had not succeeded to St. Peter's own
see. It consists in dwelling on the Primacy so strongly, as quite to
throw out of view the apostolic powers of other Bishops; whereas these
latter dwell upon the apostolic powers of the episcopate generally; and,
while they admit St. Peter's Primacy and that of the Roman see, place the
government of the Church in the harmonious agreement of all. St. Leo's
view, rigorously carried out, as it has been by the later Roman Church,
substitutes St. Peter singly, for St. Peter and his brethren; and this
usurpation, I repeat, we have to admit afresh, or else be accounted
heretics and schismatics.</p>
<p>Now, as to the government of which St. Leo had the ideal before him, I
must first remark that it was <i>new</i>. He says himself to the Bishop
of Thessalonica: "The government of Churches in Illyricum, which we
commit in our stead to your affection, following the example of Siricius
of blessed memory, who to your predecessor Anysius of holy memory <i>then
first committed with a certain charge</i> the supporting of the Churches
of that province, which he desired to be maintained in discipline."<a
name="NtA73" href="#Nt73"><sup>[73]</sup></a> That is, it was scarcely
sixty years since Pope Siricius had selected the Bishop of the Metropolis
to keep a watch over the maintenance of the canons. And now Pope Leo was
already requiring the Metropolitans to consecrate no Bishop without first
consulting the Bishop of Thessalonica as his vicar.</p>
<p>Secondly, this proceeding on the part of the Popes was not submitted
to generally, even throughout the West. The "Codex Ecclesiæ Africanæ" is
full of prohibitions against even appealing to "Bishops beyond the sea,"
<i>i.e.</i> the Pope. In St. Augustin's time, as we have seen, they
positively forbad the Pope's interference with their internal government,
and only submitted to it after they had been enfeebled by the irruption
of the Vandals.</p>
<p>Thirdly, this power was set up very much indeed by help of the
imperial authority. The process, in fact, of centralizing in the Church,
ran completely parallel with that in the State. The law of Valentinian,
above mentioned, is a strong proof of this. Of course the object of the
emperors was to control the action of the Church through one Bishop made
the chief. But it is somewhat remarkable that that Church which maintains
a standing protest against the interference of the State with spiritual
matters, (a protest for which she is worthy of all respect and
admiration,) should owe to the support of the State, in different periods
of her history, very much more of her power than any other Church. It may
be that God rewards the fearless maintenance of spiritual rights by the
grant of that very temporal power which threatens them with
destruction.</p>
<p>Now as we have had St. Jerome in a noted place appealing to Rome, and
acknowledging her primacy, let us take another passage of his which, I
think, implicitly denies St. Leo's view. Arguing then against the pride
of the Roman deacons, in which city, as they were only seven in number,
the office was in higher estimation than even the priesthood, which was
numerous, he observes, "Nor is the Church of the Roman city to be
considered one, and that of the whole world another. Both the Gauls, and
the Britains, and Africa, and Persia, and the East, and India, and all
barbarous nations, adore one Christ, observe one rule of truth. If you
require authority, <i>the world is greater than the city</i>. Wherever a
bishop is, be it at Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, or
Alexandria, or Tanæ, he is of the same rank, the same priesthood. The
power of riches, and the humility of poverty, make a bishop neither
higher nor lower. But all are successors of the Apostles. But you say,
how is it that at Rome a priest is ordained upon the testimony of a
deacon? Why allege to me <i>the custom of a single city</i>? Why defend
against the laws of the Church a fewness of number, which is the source
of their pride?"<a name="NtA74" href="#Nt74"><sup>[74]</sup></a> The very
force of St. Leo's view lies in the exact contradictory of St. Jerome's
words: viz. <i>the city is greater than the world</i>, and this alone
justifies and bears out the present claim of the Roman see, and its
attitude both to those within, and to those without, its pale.</p>
<p>But fourthly, had this government, as imaged out by St. Leo, been
submitted to not only in Gaul, Spain, Africa, and Illyricum, but
throughout the West generally, all this would still be nothing for its
catholicity, and therefore its binding effect, unless it had been allowed
by the East. Now we have the strongest proof that it never was so
allowed. This interference, and much more, the centralization pointed at,
as it never would have been tolerated, so neither was it attempted, in
the patriarchates of the East. There was far less danger of the
patriarchal power becoming excessive, when it was possessed by five, who
were a check to each other. St. Leo's influence and authority in the West
were balanced by the exercise of like influence and authority in the
East, originally by the sees of Alexandria and Antioch, and at this and
later times still more by that of Constantinople. And though throughout
the East the Bishop of Rome was reckoned the first of these in rank, yet
the Easterns were governed entirely by their own Patriarchs. So far from
there being any authority delegated by Rome to the Eastern Patriarchs,
there was no appeal from them to Rome, that is to say, in a matter
belonging to their particular government; for as to the general faith of
the Church, in any peculiar emergency or violation of the usual order of
procedure, there was an appeal, if not lawful, at least exercised, to any
of the Patriarchs. Thus Theodoret of Cyrus, unjustly deposed by Dioscorus
of Alexandria in the Latrocinium of Ephesus, flies "to the Apostolic
throne" of St. Leo; "for in all things it is becoming that you should
have the primacy. For your throne is adorned with many advantages. It has
the sepulchres of our common Fathers and teachers of the truth, Peter and
Paul. These have made your throne exceedingly illustrious. This is the
height of your blessings."<a name="NtA75"
href="#Nt75"><sup>[75]</sup></a> Though a supplicant, he addresses him
only as first Bishop of the Church, not as monarch. It is a virtual
denial of the present Papal authority, because a silence, where it would
have been put forward, had it been known. So the heretic Eutyches, before
the council of his own Patriarch, "when his deposition was read, appealed
to the holy synod of the most holy Bishop of Rome, and Alexandria, and
Jerusalem, and Thessalonica."<a name="NtA76"
href="#Nt76"><sup>[76]</sup></a> Thus St. Isidore of Spain, in the sixth
century, says: "The order of Bishops is fourfold; that is, Patriarchs,
Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Bishops. In Greek a Patriarch is called
the first of the Fathers, because he holds the first, that is, the
Apostolic place, and therefore, because he holds the highest rank, he has
such an appellation, as the Roman, the Antiochene, and the
Alexandrine."<a name="NtA77" href="#Nt77"><sup>[77]</sup></a> Accordingly
Gieseler says, "At the end of this period," (<span
class="scac">A.D.</span> 451,) the four Patriarchs of the East "were held
in their patriarchates for ecclesiastical centres, to which the other
Bishops had to attach themselves for maintenance of ecclesiastical unity;
and in conjunction with their patriarchal synod they formed the highest
tribunal of appeal in all ecclesiastical matters of the patriarchate;
whilst, on the other hand, they were treated as the highest
representatives of the Church, who, through mutual communication with
each other, were to maintain the unity of the universal Church, and
without whose concurrence no decrees concerning the whole Church could be
made."<a name="NtA78" href="#Nt78"><sup>[78]</sup></a></p>
<p>But no more certain proof of the independence of the Eastern Church
can be given than the Synodical Epistle of the Council of Constantinople
to the Pope and the Western Bishops. This was a Synod of purely Eastern
Bishops, held in 381, which afterwards, by the consent of the Western
Church, became Ecumenical. This Council "arranged, without any reference
to the West, the affairs of the Oriental Church, and was even quite
openly on the side of the party of Meletius, rejected by the Westerns;
just so the interference attempted by the Italian Bishops in the matter
of Maximus, the counter-Bishop of Constantinople, remained quite
disregarded."<a name="NtA79" href="#Nt79"><sup>[79]</sup></a> They write
thus: "To our most honoured Lords and pious brethren and
fellow-ministers, Damasus," of Rome, "Ambrosius," of Milan, "Britton,
Valerianus, Ascholius, Anemius, Basilius, and the other holy Bishops
assembled in the great city of Rome, the holy Synod of orthodox Bishops
assembled in the great city of Constantinople greeting in the Lord."<a
name="NtA80" href="#Nt80"><sup>[80]</sup></a> Then after informing them
what they had decreed concerning the highest matters of the faith, they
go on—"But as to the management of particular matters in the
Churches, both an ancient fundamental principle, (<span title="thesmos" class="grk"
>θεσμὸς</span>,) as ye know, hath
prevailed, and the rule of the holy Fathers at Nicea, that in each
province those of the province," <i>i.e.</i> the Bishops, "and if they be
willing, their neighbours also, should make the elections according as
they judge meet. In accordance with which know ye both that the rest of
the Churches are administered by us, and that Priests of the most
distinguished Churches have been appointed. Whence in the, so to say,
newly-founded Church of Constantinople, which by the mercy of God we have
snatched as it were out of the jaws of the lion, from subjection to the
blasphemy of the heretics, we have elected Bishop the most reverend and
pious Nectarius, in an Ecumenical<a name="NtA81"
href="#Nt81"><sup>[81]</sup></a> Council, with common agreement, in the
sight both of the most religious emperor Theodosius, and with the consent
of all the Clergy and the whole city. And those," the Bishops, "both of
the province and of the diocese<a name="NtA82"
href="#Nt82"><sup>[82]</sup></a> of the East, being canonically
assembled, the whole accordant Church as with one voice honouring the
man, have elected the most reverend and religious Bishop Flavian to the
most ancient and truly apostolical Church of Antioch in Syria, where
first the venerable name of Christian became known: which legitimate
election the whole Synod hath received." (And this notwithstanding the
Bishop Paulinus, who was received by Rome and the West, had survived St.
Meletius, and was then alive. So that they would not, even when such an
opportunity occurred, accept the Bishop in communion with Rome—a
fact on the one side, which I suppose may weigh against those words of
St. Jerome on the other, "I know not Vitalis; Meletius I reject; I am
ignorant of Paulinus." <a href="#quot26">Quoted, p. 26.</a> It seems that
though the test of communion with Rome satisfied St. Jerome, it did not
satisfy an Ecumenical Council.) "But of the Church in Jerusalem, <i>the
mother of all Churches</i>, we declare that the most reverend and
religious Cyril is Bishop, both as long since canonically elected by
those of his province, and as having struggled much against the Arians in
different places. Whom, as being lawfully and canonically established by
us, we invite your piety also to congratulate, through spiritual love,
and the fear of the Lord, which represses all human affection, and
accounts the edification of the Churches more precious than sympathy
with, or favour of, individuals. For thus, by agreement in the word of
faith, and by the establishment of Christian love in us, we shall cease
to say what the Apostle has condemned—I am of Paul, and I of
Apollos, and I of Cephas. For all being shown to be Christ's, who in us
is not divided, by the help of God we shall keep the body of the Church
unrent, and shall stand with confidence before the tribunal of the
Lord."</p>
<p>Here is the whole East, in the year 381, long before the schism,
announcing to the Bishops of Rome, Milan, Aquilea, and the West, the
election of its Patriarchs, and exercising as an ancient incontestable
right that liberty of self-government, according to the canons, for
continuing to do which very thing, and for nothing else, the Latin Church
accounts both the Greek and English Church schismatic. Now the Eastern
Church, as its own rituals to this day declare, always acknowledged St.
Peter's primacy, and that his primacy was inherited by the Bishop of
Rome; but it is apparent at once that it never received, nay most
strongly abhorred, that system of centralization of all power in Rome,
which St. Leo seems to have had before his eyes. Its most holy and
illustrious Fathers never submitted to this domination. St. Basil had
already complained of the Western pride, (<span title="dutikê ophrus" class="grk"
>δυτικὴ
ὀφρύς</span>.)<a name="NtA83"
href="#Nt83"><sup>[83]</sup></a> St. Gregory of Nazianzum is that very
Archbishop by whose voluntary cession and advice Nectarius is elected.
St. Gregory of Nyssa, and Peter, brothers of St. Basil, are in this
council, and so St. Cyril of Jerusalem. And yet Bellarmine will have it
that Bishops who so wrote and so acted received their jurisdiction from
Rome; and what is far more important, if they did not, the present Papal
theory falls to the ground.</p>
<p>When Gieseler speaks of "the principle of the mutual independence of
the Western and Eastern Church being firmly held in the East
generally,"<a name="NtA84" href="#Nt84"><sup>[84]</sup></a> of course it
must be understood that there can be no independence, strictly so called,
in the Church and Body of Christ. Independence annihilates membership and
coherence. Accordingly, I am fully prepared to admit that the Primacy of
the Roman See, even among the Patriarchs, was a real thing; not a mere
title of honour. The power of the First See was really exerted in
difficult conjunctures to keep the whole body together. I am quite aware
that the Bishop of Rome could do, what the Bishop of Alexandria, or of
Antioch, or of Constantinople, or of Jerusalem, could not do. Even merely
as standing at the head of the whole West he counterbalanced all the
four. But I accept <i>bona fide</i> what Socrates and Sozomen tell us. I
believe they had before them neither the Papal Empire of St. Gregory the
Seventh, nor the maxims of the Reformation. They are unbiassed witnesses.
Sozomen then tells us, that when St. Athanasius, unjustly deposed, fled
to Rome for justice, together with Paul of Constantinople, Marcellus of
Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, "the Bishop of the Romans, having inquired
into the accusations against each, when he found them all agreeing with
the doctrine of the Nicene Synod, admitted them to communion as agreeing
with him. <i>And inasmuch as the care of all belonged to him on account
of the rank of his See, he restored to each his Church</i>. And he wrote
to the Bishops throughout the East, &c., which they took very ill;"<a
name="NtA85" href="#Nt85"><sup>[85]</sup></a> so ill, indeed, that they
afterwards pronounced a sentence of deposition against the Pope himself.
Again, Pope Julius "wrote to them, accusing them of secretly undermining
the doctrine of the Nicene Synod, and that, contrary to the laws of the
Church, they had not called him to their Council. <i>For that it was an
hierarchical law to declare null what was done against the sentence of
the Bishop of the Romans.</i>"<a name="NtA86"
href="#Nt86"><sup>[86]</sup></a> That is, in matters concerning the state
of the whole Church, as was this cause of Athanasius. So Socrates says,
in reference to the same matter, that Pope Julius asserted to the Bishops
of the East, that "they were breaking the Canons in not having called him
to their Council, <i>the ecclesiastical Canon ordering that the Churches
should not make Canons contrary to the sentence of the Bishop of
Rome</i>."<a name="NtA87" href="#Nt87"><sup>[87]</sup></a> These passages
mark the prerogative of the First See: yet are they quite compatible with
the general self-government of the Eastern Church. No doubt, when the
Patriarchs of the East were at variance, all would look for support to
him who was both the first of their number, and stood alone with the
whole West to back him.</p>
<p>And thus again in St. Leo's time a very extraordinary emergency arose,
which still further raised the credit of the Roman Patriarch. Dioscorus
of Alexandria, supporting the heretic Eutyches, had, by help of the
Emperor, deposed and murdered St. Flavian of Constantinople: Juvenal of
Jerusalem was greatly involved in this transaction. Dioscorus had then
consecrated Anatolius to be the successor of St. Flavian, and Anatolius
had consecrated Maximus to Antioch, instead of Domnus, who, too, had been
irregularly deposed after St. Flavian. Now, had Dioscorus been otherwise
blameless, his consecrating Anatolius, of his own authority, to
Constantinople, and Anatolius then consecrating Maximus to Antioch,
without the participation of Rome, was an infringement of the just rights
of the Primacy; as a Patriarch could not be deposed without the
concurrence of the First See. Thus the whole East was in confusion. A
heretic had been absolved; one Patriarch murdered, two deposed; and of
the other two, one was chief agent, and the other not clear, in these
transactions. No wonder that at the Council of Chalcedon, the Bishop of
Rome appeared at the head of the West, both to vindicate his own violated
rights, for Dioscorus had even deposed him, and as the restorer of true
doctrine, and the deliverer of the Church.</p>
<p>But I must now quote, at considerable length, the argument of Bossuet,
and his statement as to where the sovereign power in the Church resides.
We have already seen what he has said respecting the Council of Ephesus;
and his observations on that of Chalcedon and the four succeeding
Councils are equally important. His argument, which was intended for the
justification of the Gallican Church, really reaches to that of the Greek
and English Church also; and it is of the very utmost value, as it rests
upon authorities which are sacrosanct in the eyes of every
Catholic—the proceedings and decrees of Ecumenical Councils. Let it
only be remembered, that I quote no German rationalist, no one who denies
either the doctrine or hierarchy of the Church; but a Catholic prelate,
the most strenuous defender of the faith, and one who, in the great
assembly of his brethren, cried out, "If I forget thee, Church of Rome,
may I forget myself; may my tongue dry, and remain motionless in my
mouth, if thou art not always the first in my remembrance, if I place
thee not at the beginning of all my songs of joy."<a name="NtA88"
href="#Nt88"><sup>[88]</sup></a></p>
<p>The question then at issue is, whether the Bishop of Rome be the first
of the Patriarchs, and first Bishop of the whole world, the head of the
Apostolic college, and holding among them the place which Peter held, all
which I freely acknowledge, as the testimony of antiquity; or whether he
be, further, not only this, but the source of all jurisdiction, uniting
in his single person all those powers which belonged to Peter and the
Apostles collectively: an idea which, however extravagant, is actually
maintained at present in the Church of Rome, is moreover absolutely
necessary to justify its acts, and to condemn the position of the Greek
and English Church. Bossuet, who fought for the Gallican liberties,
fought for the Anglican likewise.</p>
<p>"Let<a name="NtA89" href="#Nt89"><sup>[89]</sup></a> us now review the
Acts of the General Council of Chalcedon. The previous facts were these.
The two natures of Christ were confounded by Eutyches, an Archimandrite
and Abbot of Constantinople, an old man no less obstinate than out of his
senses. He then was condemned by his own Bishop, St. Flavian of
Constantinople, and appealed to all the Patriarchs, but chiefly to the
Roman Pontiff. Leo writes to Flavian, and 'orders everything to be laid
before him.' Flavian answers and requests of Leo 'that, making his own
the common cause and the discipline of the holy Churches, he should, at
the same time, decree that the condemnation of Eutyches was regularly
passed, and by his own words should strengthen the faith of the Emperor.'
He added, 'For the cause only needs your support and definition; and you
should, by your own determination, bring it to peace.' This means, it is
plain and clear, it has yet few followers, and those obscure, and of no
great name. He ends, 'For so the heresy which has arisen will be most
easily destroyed, by the cooperation of God, through your letters; and
the Council, of which there are rumours, be given up, that the holy
Churches be not disturbed.' This, too, is in accordance with discipline,
for heresies to be immediately suppressed, first by the Bishop's care,
then by that of the Apostolic See: nor is it forthwith necessary that an
universal Council be assembled, and the peace of all Churches
troubled.</p>
<p>"After the proceedings had been sent to Leo, he writes to Flavian,
most fully and clearly setting forth the mystery of the Lord's
incarnation, as he says himself, and as all Churches bear witness; at the
same time he praises the acts of Flavian, and condemns Eutyches, yet with
the grant of indulgence, should he make amends. This is that noble and
divine letter which was afterwards so warmly celebrated through the whole
Church, and which I wish to be understood so often as I name simply Leo's
letter.</p>
<p>"And here the question might have been terminated, but for those
incidents which induced the Emperor Theodosius the younger to call the
Synod of Ephesus. He was the same who had appointed the First Council of
Ephesus, under Cœlestine and Cyril.</p>
<p>"Of this Synod St. Leo writes to Theodosius, at first, 'that the
matter was so evident, that for reasonable causes the calling of a Synod
should be abstained from.' And Flavian likewise seemed to have been
against this. But after the Emperor, with good intentions, had convoked
the Synod, Leo gives his consent, and sends the letter to the Synod, in
which he praises the Emperor for being willing to hold an assembly of
Bishops, 'that by a fuller judgment all error may be done away with.' He
mentions that he had sent Legates, who, says he, 'in my stead shall be
present at the sacred assembly of your Brotherhood, and determine, by a
joint sentence with you, what shall please the Lord.'</p>
<p>"Here are three points: first, that in questions of faith it is not
always necessary for an Ecumenical Council to be assembled. Secondly,
that Leo, great Pontiff as he was, did not decline a judgment, if the
cause required it, after the matter had been judged by himself. Thirdly,
that, if a Synod were held, it behoved that all error should be done away
with by a fuller judgment, and the question be terminated by the
Apostolic See, by a joint sentence with the Bishops, in which he
acknowledges that full force of consent, so often mentioned by me.</p>
<p>"But after Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, the protector of Eutyches,
had done every thing with violence and crime, and not a Council, but an
assembly of robbers downright, had been held at Ephesus, then, when the
Episcopal order had been divided, and the whole Church thrown into
confusion, under the name of the Second Ecumenical Council of Ephesus,
Leo himself admits that a new general Council must be held, which should
either remove or mitigate all offences, so that there should no longer be
either any doubt as to faith, or division in charity. Therefore he
perceived that schisms, and such a fluctuation of minds respecting the
faith itself, could not be sufficiently removed by his own judgment. And
the Pontiff, no less wise and good than resolute, demanded a fuller,
firmer, greater judgment, by the authority of a General Council, by
which, that is, all doubt might be removed.</p>
<p>"But the Emperor Theodosius would not hear of a new Council, so long
as he thought that due order had been preserved at Ephesus. 'For the
matter was settled at Ephesus by the deposition of those who deserved it;
and a decision having been once passed, nothing else can be determined
after it.' Here the difference between the judgments of Roman Pontiffs
and of General Councils is very evident; the judgment of the Roman
Pontiff being reconsidered in a Council, whereas after a Council, so long
as it is held a lawful one, nothing can be reconsidered, nothing
heard.</p>
<p>"But as Theodosius shortly afterwards died, the Emperor Marcian, upon
understanding that the Ephesine assembly had used violence, and acted
otherwise against the Canons, and was therefore refused the name and
authority of an Ecumenical Council by most Bishops, but chiefly by the
Roman Pontiff, could not deny the calling of a new Council to Leo's
request. So the Council of Chalcedon took place, and all admitted that
there were certain dissensions on matter of faith so grave, that they can
only be settled by the authority of an Ecumenical Council.</p>
<p>"All know that more than six hundred Bishops assembled at Chalcedon.
The Bishops Paschasinus and Lucentius presided over the holy Council in
Leo's stead. Magistrates were assigned by the Emperor to direct the
proceedings, and restrain disorder; but to leave the question of faith
and all ecclesiastical matters to the power and judgment of the
Council.</p>
<p>"But in this Council two things make for us: first, the deposition of
Dioscorus; secondly, the sentence of the Council respecting the approval
of Leo's letter.</p>
<p>"With Dioscorus they thus proceeded: when, upon being cited, he
refused to present himself to judgment, and his crimes were notorious to
all, Paschasinus, Legate of the Apostolic See, asks the
Fathers,—'We desire to know what your Holiness determines:' the
holy Synod replied, 'What the Canons order.' The Bishop Lucentius said,
'Certain proceedings took place in the holy Council of Ephesus by our
most blessed Father Cyril; look into their form, and assign what form you
determine on.' The Bishop Paschasinus said, 'Does your piety command us
to use Ecclesiastical punishment? Do you consent?' The holy Council said,
'We all consent.' The Bishop Paschasinus said, 'Again I ask, what is the
pleasure of your blessedness?' Maximus, Bishop of the great city of
Antioch, said, 'We are conformable to whatever seems good to your
Holiness.' Thus the initiative, and form, as it was called, was to be
given by the Apostolic See. And so the Legates, after recounting the
crimes of Dioscorus, thus pronounced: 'Wherefore, holy Leo, by us and
this present Council, together with the most blessed Apostle Peter, who
is the rock and ground of the Church, and the foundation of the right
faith, hath declared him cut off from all sacerdotal power.' Anatolius,
Bishop of Constantinople, said, 'As our most blessed Archbishop and
Father Leo, so Anatolius.' The rest to the same effect: 'I agree; I am of
the same mind; I agree to the condemnation made by the Council; I
declare, I decree the same:' and the subscription, 'I, Paschasinus,
declare and subscribe;' 'I, Anatolius, declare and subscribe;' and so the
rest.</p>
<p>"Thus from Peter the head and source of Unity the sentence began, and
then became of full force by common agreement of the Bishops, just as
that first Council of the Apostles is always represented.</p>
<p>"By this is understood the letter of the Emperor Valentinian to the
Emperor Theodosius: 'We ought to defend with all devotion, and preserve
in our times uninjured, the dignity of the veneration due to the blessed
Apostle Peter: so that the most blessed Bishop of the Roman city may have
power to judge concerning the faith and Bishops.' Not, however, alone,
but with the condition added by the Emperor, 'That the aforesaid Bishop,'
at least, in those causes which touch the faith and the universal state
of the Church, 'may give sentence after assembling the Priests from the
whole world.' That is, by a common decree, as both Leo himself had
demanded, and as we have seen done in the Council itself.</p>
<p>"With the same view, the Empress Pulcheria writes to Leo concerning
assembling the Bishops, 'who,' she says, 'when the Council is made, shall
decree, at your instance, concerning the Catholic confession, and
concerning Bishops.'</p>
<p>"The Emperors Valentinian and Marcian write the same to Leo: that, 'by
the Council to be held,' every thing should be done at his instance:
first laying this down, that he 'possessed the first rank in the
Episcopate, as to faith.'</p>
<p>"Hence it is very plainly evident, that, in the usual order, both the
Pope should have the initiative, and the Bishops sitting with him should
be judges; and that the force of an irreversible decree lies in
agreement: the very thing to which the Empress Pulcheria bears witness,
in her letter to Strategus the Consular, who was ordered to protect the
Council from all violence: 'that the holy Council, holding its sittings
with all discipline, what has been revealed by the Lord Christ should be
confirmed in common by all, without any disturbance, and with
agreement.'</p>
<p>"Meanwhile, it is evident that proceedings are at the instance of the
Pontiff, yet so that the force of the decree lies, not in the sole
authority of the Pontiff, which no one then imagined, but in the consent
itself and approval of the Council: and that the Fathers and the Council
decree together, judge together, and the sentence of the Council is the
sentence of the Pope; which, when the consent of the Churches is added,
is then held to be irreversible and final, which is all I demand.</p>
<p>"Another important point treated in the Council of Chalcedon, that is,
the establishing of the faith, and the approval of Leo's letter, is as
follows. Already almost the whole West, and most of the Easterns, with
Anatolius himself, Bishop of Constantinople, had gone so far as to
confirm by subscription that letter, before the Council took place; and
in the Council itself the Fathers had often cried out, 'We believe, as
Leo: Peter hath spoken by Leo: we have all subscribed the letter: what
has been set forth is sufficient for the faith: no other exposition may
be made.' Things went so far, that they would hardly permit a definition
to be made by the Council. But neither subscriptions privately made
before the Council, nor these vehement cries of the Fathers in the
Council, were thought sufficient to tranquillize minds in so unsettled a
state of the Church, for fear that a matter so important might seem
determined rather by outcries than by fair and legitimate discussion. And
the Clergy of Constantinople exclaimed, 'It is a few who cry out, not the
whole Council which speaks.' So it was determined that the letter of Leo
should be lawfully examined by the Council, and a definition of faith be
written by the Synod itself. So the acts of foregoing Councils being
previously read, the magistrates proposed concerning Leo's letter, 'As
the Gospels lie before you, let every one of the most reverend Bishops
declare whether the exposition of the 318 Fathers, and, after that, of
the 150 Fathers, agrees with the letter of holy Leo.'</p>
<p>"Since the question as to examining the letter of Leo was put in this
form, it will be worth while to weigh the sentences, and, as they are
called, the votes of the Fathers, in order to understand from the
beginning why they approved of the letter; why they afterwards defended
it with so much zeal; why, finally, it was ratified after so exact an
examination of the Council. Anatolius first gives his sentence. 'The
letter of the most holy Leo agrees with the Creed of the 318 and the 150
Fathers; as also with what was done at Ephesus under Cœlestine and
Cyril; therefore I agree and willingly subscribe to it.' These are the
words of one plainly deliberating, not blindly subscribing out of mere
obedience. The rest say to the same effect: 'It agrees, and I subscribe.'
Many plainly and expressly, 'It agrees, and I therefore subscribe.' Some
add, 'It agrees, and I subscribe, as it is correct.' Others, 'I am sure
that it agrees.' Others, 'As it is concordant, and has the same aim, we
embrace it, and subscribe.' Others, 'This is the faith we have long held:
this we hold: in this we were baptized: in this we baptize.' Others, and
a great part, 'As I see, as I feel, as I have proved, as I find that it
agrees, I subscribe.' Others, 'As I am persuaded, instructed, informed,
that all agrees, I subscribe.' Many set forth their difficulties, mostly
arising from a foreign language; others from the subject matter, saying,
that they had heard the letter, 'and in very many points were assured it
was right: some few words stood in their way, which seemed to point at a
certain division in the person of Christ.' They add, that they had been
informed by Paschasinus and the Legates 'that there is no division, but
one Christ; therefore,' they say, 'we agree and subscribe.' Others, after
mentioning what Paschasinus and Lucentius had said, thus conclude: 'By
this we have been satisfied, and, considering that it agrees in all
things with the holy Fathers, we agree and subscribe.' Where the Illyrian
Bishops, and others who before that examination had expressed their
acclamations to the letter, again cry out, 'We all say the same thing,
and agree with this.' So that, indeed, it is evident that, in the Council
itself, and before it, their agreement is based on this, that, after
weighing the matter, they considered, they judged, they were persuaded,
that all agreed with the Fathers, and perceived that the common faith of
all and each had been set forth by Leo.</p>
<p>"This was done at Chalcedon; but likewise before that Council our
Gallic Bishops, at a synod held in Gaul, wrote thus to Leo himself,
concerning receiving his letter: 'Many in that letter of Leo to Flavian
with joy and exultation have recognised what their faith was assured of,
and are with reason delighted that, by tradition from their fathers, they
have always held just what your Apostleship has set forth. Some rendered
more careful, congratulate themselves every way on being instructed by
receiving the admonition of your blessedness, and rejoice that an
occasion is given them, in which they may speak out freely and
confidently, and each one assert what he believes, supported by the
authority of the Apostolic See.'</p>
<p>"The Italian (Bishops) agree, at the instance of Eusebius, Bishop of
Milan, 'for it was evident that that (letter of Leo to Flavian) had the
full and vigorous simplicity of the faith; was illuminated likewise by
statements from the Prophets, by authorities from the Gospels, and by
testimonies of Apostolic teaching, and in every point agreed with what
the holy Ambrose, moved by the Holy Spirit, put in his books concerning
the mystery of the Lord's incarnation. And inasmuch as all the statements
agree with the faith of our ancestors delivered down to us from
antiquity, all determined that whoever hold impious opinions concerning
the mystery of the Lord's incarnation, are to be visited with fitting
condemnation, as they themselves agree, according to the sentence of your
authority.'</p>
<p>"See here an authoritative sentence in the Roman Pontiff; and also the
agreement of the Bishops to the instance of the Roman Pontiff, and that
granted after inquiry into the truth. On these terms they gave their
approval, and their subscription, and decreed that a letter, agreeing
with the apprehensions of their common faith, and found and judged to be
such by them, was of universal authority by the union of their sentences
with the Apostolic See. Which wonderfully accords with what we have just
read in the sentences of the Fathers of Chalcedon.</p>
<p>"This is that examination of Leo's letter, synodically made at
Chalcedon, and placed among the acts; of which examination Leo himself
thus writes to Theodoret: 'What God had before set forth by our ministry,
He hath confirmed by the irreversible assent of the whole brotherhood, to
show that what was first put forth in form by the First See of all, and
then received by the judgment of the whole Christian world, really
proceeded from Himself (that in this too the members might agree with the
Head.)'<a name="NtA90" href="#Nt90"><sup>[90]</sup></a></p>
<p>"He proceeds: 'For in order that the consent of other sees to that
which the Lord appointed to preside over all the rest should not appear
flattery, or any other adverse suspicion creep in, persons were found who
doubted concerning our judgment.... The truth, likewise, itself is both
more clearly conspicuous, and more strongly maintained, when
after-examination confirms what previous faith had taught.' Here he
speaks distinctly of examination, and that most free. 'In fine, the merit
of the priestly office shines forth very brightly, when the authority of
the highest is preserved, without the liberty of the lower seeming to be
at all infringed. And the end of the examination profits to the greater
glory of God, when it has confidence enough to exert itself so far as to
prevail over the opposite opinion. So that what is in itself proved to be
heterodox may not seem overcome, merely because it is passed over in
silence,' Lastly, 'the letter of the Apostolic See, confirmed by the
assent of the whole holy Council'<a name="NtA91"
href="#Nt91"><sup>[91]</sup></a> is proposed as a most certain and
perfect rule of faith, not again to be reconsidered. Here is what Leo
considered to be irrevocable, or rather not to be mended, which no one
can be blamed for holding together with the world and the Fathers of
Chalcedon: the form is set forth by the Apostolic See; yet it is to be
examined, and that freely, and every Bishop, the highest and the lowest,
to pronounce judgment in a body concerning decreeing it.</p>
<p>"They conceived no other way of removing all doubt; for after the
conclusion of the synod, the emperor thus proclaims: 'Let then all
profane contention cease, for he is indeed impious and sacrilegious, who,
after the sentence of so many priests, leaves any thing for his own
opinion to consider.' He then prohibits all discussion concerning
religion; for, says he, 'he does an injury to the judgment of the most
religious Council, who endeavours to open afresh, and publicly discuss
what has been once judged, and rightly ordered.'</p>
<p>"Here in the condemnation of Eutyches is the order of Ecclesiastical
judgments in questions of faith. He is judged by his proper Bishop
Flavian: the cause is reheard, reconsidered by the Pope St. Leo;" (let it
be remembered that Eutyches likewise appealed to Alexandria, Jerusalem,
and Thessalonica;) "it is decided by a declaration of the Apostolic See:
after that declaration follows the examination, inquiry, judgment of the
Fathers or Bishops, in a General Council: after the declaration has been
approved by the judgment of the Fathers no place is any longer left for
doubt or discussion.</p>
<p>"To the same effect Leo: 'For no longer is any refuge or excuse
allowable to any, on plea of ignorance, or difficulty of understanding,
inasmuch as for this very purpose the Council of about six hundred of our
brethren and fellow-Bishops met together hath permitted no skill in
reasoning, no flow of eloquence, to breathe against the faith built on a
divine foundation. Since, through the endeavours of our brethren and
representatives, by the help of God's grace, (their devotion in every
procedure being most entire,) it hath been fully and evidently made
manifest, not only to the priests of Christ, but to princes also, and
Christian powers, and to all ranks of the clergy and people, that this is
the truly Apostolic and Catholic faith, flowing from the fountain of
Divine goodness, which we preach, and now with the agreement of the whole
world defend pure and clean from all pollution of error.'<a name="NtA92"
href="#Nt92"><sup>[92]</sup></a></p>
<p>"Thus at length supreme and infallible force is given to an Apostolic
decree, after that it is strengthened by universal inquiry, examination,
discussion, and thereupon consent and testimony."</p>
<p><a name="NtA93" href="#Nt93"><sup>[93]</sup></a>"We add a third point,
important to our cause, respecting the restitution of Theodoret to his
see. After, then, by order of the Bishops, he had openly anathematized
Nestorius, 'the most illustrious magistrates said, all doubt respecting
Theodoret is now removed; for he hath both anathematized Nestorius before
you, and has been received by Leo, most holy Archbishop of old Rome, and
has willingly accepted the definition of faith set forth by your piety,
and moreover hath subscribed the epistle of the aforesaid most holy
Archbishop Leo. It is fitting, therefore, that sentence be pronounced by
your most acceptable holiness, that he may recover his Church, as the
most holy Archbishop Leo has judged.' All the most reverend Bishops cried
out, 'Theodoret is worthy of his See. Leo hath judged after God.' So then
the judgment put forth by Leo concerning his restoration to his See would
have profited Theodoret nothing, unless, after the matter had been
brought before the Council, he had both approved his faith to the
Council, and the judgment of Leo been confirmed by the same Council. This
was done in the presence of the Legates of the Apostolic See, who
afterwards pronounced that sentence on confirming Leo's judgment, which
the whole Synod approved."</p>
<p>Let any one of candour consider these Acts of the Council of
Chalcedon, and then say, which of these two views agrees with them, viz.
that St. Leo was first Bishop of the Church, looked up to with great
reverence as the special successor of St. Peter, and representative of
the whole West; or that he was beside this the only Vicar of Christ, the
source and origin of the Episcopate, from whom his brethren received
their jurisdiction, which is the Papal idea of the middle ages. For on
the truth of this latter view depends the charge, that the Church of
England is in schism.</p>
<p>What follows may perhaps assist our solution of the question. At this
very Council of 630 Bishops, the largest ever held in ancient times, and
where the credit of the Roman Pontiff was so great, a very celebrated
Canon was enacted concerning the rank of the Bishop of Constantinople.
The Pope's legates attempted, by absenting themselves, to prevent its
being enacted, but that only led to its being confirmed the next day, in
spite of their opposition. The circumstances were as follows, and they
seem to deserve our most stedfast consideration, from their bearing upon
the great subject we are considering, the Papal Supremacy.</p>
<p>"On the same day, being the last of October, the fifteenth session was
held, at which neither the magistrates nor legates were present: for
after the formula of faith had been agreed to, and the private business
brought before the Council had been despatched, the Clergy of
Constantinople asked the legates to join them in discussing an affair
concerning their Church. This they refused, saying, that they had
received no instructions about it. They made the same proposal to the
magistrates, and these referred the matter to the Council. When the
magistrates and legates therefore had retired, the rest of the Council
made a Canon respecting the prerogatives of the Church of
Constantinople."<a name="NtA94" href="#Nt94"><sup>[94]</sup></a> To make
the scope of this clear we must observe, that the See of Constantinople
had been now for at least seventy years the chief See of the East: at the
second Ecumenical Council, held in 381, at Constantinople, it is declared
in the third canon, that "the Bishop of Constantinople shall have the
primacy of honour after the Bishop of Rome, because that Constantinople
is New Rome." It seems that in the interval that Bishop had not only
taken precedence of Alexandria and Antioch, and reduced under him the
Exarchs of Pontus, Thrace, and Asia, but that his authority was very
great throughout all the East. Theodoret says,<a name="NtA95"
href="#Nt95"><sup>[95]</sup></a> that St. Chrysostom governed
twenty-eight provinces. Accordingly, in its famous 28th Canon, the
Council of Chalcedon only confirmed an authority to the Bishop of
Constantinople which he had long enjoyed and often exceeded. It ran thus:
"We, following in all things the decisions of the holy Fathers, and
acknowledging the Canon of the 150 most religious Bishops which has just
been read, do also determine and decree the same things respecting the
privileges of the most holy city of Constantinople, New Rome. For the
Fathers properly gave the primacy to the throne of the elder Rome,
because that was the imperial city. And the 150 most religious Bishops,
being moved with the same intention, gave equal privileges to the most
holy throne of New Rome, judging with reason, that the city which was
honoured with the sovereignty and senate, and which enjoyed equal
privileges with the elder royal Rome, should also be magnified like her
in Ecclesiastical matters, being the second after her. And (we also
decree) that the Metropolitans only of the Pontic, and Asian, and
Thracian Dioceses, and, moreover, the Bishops of the aforesaid Dioceses
who are amongst the Barbarians, shall be ordained by the above-mentioned
most holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople; each
Metropolitan of the aforesaid Dioceses ordaining the Bishops of the
Province, as has been declared by the divine Canons; but the
Metropolitans themselves of the said Dioceses shall, as has been said, be
ordained by the Bishop of Constantinople, the proper elections being made
according to custom, and reported to him."</p>
<p>"The Legates,<a name="NtA96" href="#Nt96"><sup>[96]</sup></a> being
informed of what had passed, demanded that the Council should assemble
again, and the magistrates be present. On the morrow, therefore, being
Thursday, the 1st November, the twelfth sitting<a name="NtA97"
href="#Nt97"><sup>[97]</sup></a> was held. The magistrates were there
with the Legates, and the Bishops of Illyria, and all the rest. After
they had taken their seats, Paschasinus spoke, having asked permission of
the magistrates, and said, that he was astonished that so many things had
been done the day before in their absence, which were contrary to the
Canons and the peace of the Church, for which the Emperor was labouring
with so much application and zeal. He demanded the reading of what had
passed the day before. And Aetius, (Archdeacon of Constantinople,) having
said that it was the Legates themselves who had refused to be present at
the deliberation, presented the Canon which had been drawn up with the
signatures of the Bishops. After the signatures had been read, Lucentius
said the Bishops had been surprised, and compelled to sign. This is what
St. Leo repeated often in the letter which he wrote concerning this
twenty-eighth Canon, accusing Anatolius of having extorted the signatures
of the Bishops, or of having surprised them by his artifices.
Nevertheless, upon the reproach of Lucentius, all the Bishops cried out
that no one had been forced. They protested again afterwards, both all in
common, and the principal by themselves, that they had signed it of their
full consent. Anatolius also maintains to St. Leo, that the Bishops took
this resolution of their own accord.</p>
<p>"The Legates continued to oppose the Canon, and showed that they had
an express order of the Pope to do so. They alleged that the Canon was
contrary to the Council of Nicea, of which they read the sixth Canon,
with the celebrated heading—'The Roman Church has always had the
primacy,' which is also found added in the ancient Roman code. The same
Canon was afterwards read as it is in the original Greek, and the Canon
of the second Ecumenical Council, to which the Legates answered
nothing.</p>
<p>"The magistrates having next begged the Bishops who had not signed the
day before, to give their opinion, Eusebius, of Ancyra, represented with
much gentleness and modesty, that it was better for the Church that
ordinations should be made upon the spot by the Council of the province.
Thalassius then spoke a single word, but I know not his meaning."</p>
<p>Thereupon "the magistrates<a name="NtA98"
href="#Nt98"><sup>[98]</sup></a> said,—'It appears, from the
depositions, first of all, that the primacy and precedency of honour
(<span title="ta prôteia, kai tên exaireton timên" class="grk"
>τὰ πρωτεῖα,
καὶ τὴν
ἐξαίρετον
τιμήν</span>) should be preserved according to the
Canons for the Archbishop of Old Rome, but that the Archbishop of
Constantinople ought to enjoy the same privileges, (<span title="tôn autôn presbeiôn tês timês" class="grk"
>τῶν αὐτῶν
πρεσβείων
τῆς τιμῆς</span>,) and that
he has a right to ordain the Metropolitans of the Dioceses of Asia,
Pontus, and Thrace, in the manner following. In each metropolis, the
clergy, the proprietors of lands, and the gentry, with all the Bishops of
the province, or the greater part of them, shall issue a decree for the
election of one whom they shall deem worthy of being made a Bishop of the
metropolis. They shall all make a report of it to the Archbishop of
Constantinople, and it shall be at his option either to enjoin the Bishop
elect to come thither for ordination, or to allow him to be ordained in
the province. As to the Bishops of particular cities, they shall be
ordained by all, or the greater part, of the comprovincial Bishops, under
the authority of the Metropolitan, according to the Canons, the
Archbishop of Constantinople taking no part in such ordination. These are
our views, let the Council state theirs.' The Bishops shouted, 'This is a
just proposal: we all say the same: we all assent to it, we pray you
dismiss us:' with other similar acclamations. Lucentius, the Legate,
said,—'The Apostolic See ought not to be degraded in our presence;
we, therefore, desire that yesterday's proceedings, which violate the
Canons, may be rescinded; otherwise let our opposition be inserted in the
Acts, that we may know what we are to report to the Pope, and that he may
declare his opinion of this contempt of his See, and subversion of the
Canons.' The magistrates said,—'The whole Council approves of what
we said.' Such was the last Session of the Council of Chalcedon."</p>
<p>The remarks of Tillemont on this Canon are significant, and worth
transcribing.<a name="NtA99" href="#Nt99"><sup>[99]</sup></a> "It seems,"
he says, "to recognise no particular authority in the Church of Rome,
save what the Fathers had granted it, as the seat of the empire. And it
attributes in plain words as much to Constantinople as to Rome, with the
exception of the first place. <i>Nevertheless I do not observe that the
Popes took up a thing so injurious to their dignity, and of so dangerous
a consequence to the whole Church.</i> For what Lupus quotes of St. Leo's
78th (104th) letter, refers rather to Alexandria and to Antioch, than to
Rome. St. Leo is contented to destroy the foundation on which they built
the elevation of Constantinople, maintaining that a thing so entirely
ecclesiastical as the Episcopate ought not to be regulated by the
temporal dignity of cities, which, nevertheless, has been almost always
followed in the establishment of the metropolis, according to the Council
of Nicea.</p>
<p>"St. Leo also complains that the Council of Chalcedon broke the
decrees of the Council of Nicea, the practice of antiquity, and the
rights of Metropolitans. Certainly it was an odious innovation to see a
Bishop made the chief, not of one department, but of three; for which no
example could be found save in the authority which the Popes took over
Illyricum, where, however, they did not claim the power to ordain any
Bishop."</p>
<p>Now I suppose any Roman Catholic would observe that this Canon is
entirely opposed to the present Papal theory: he would say that St. Leo
and the West for that very reason refused to receive it. The opposition,
beyond all question, is such, that it is quite impossible to reconcile
them. Let any one, then, read through the 104th letter of St. Leo to the
Emperor Mauricius, the 105th to the Empress Pulcheria, and the 106th to
Anatolius himself, and he will see that St. Leo bases his opposition to
it throughout on its being a violation of the Nicene Canons: there is not
a word in all the three letters about any violation of the rights of St.
Peter. May we not quote, alas! St. Leo's words, in these letters, to St.
Leo's successor. "He<a name="NtA100" href="#Nt100"><sup>[100]</sup></a>
loses his own, who lusts after what is not his due.... For the privileges
of the Churches, instituted by the Canons of the holy Fathers, and fixed
by the decrees of the venerable Nicene Synod, cannot be plucked up by any
wickedness, or changed by any innovation. In the faithful execution of
which work, by the help of Christ, I am bound to show persevering
service; since the dispensation has been entrusted to me, and it tends to
my guilt, if the rules of the Fathers' sanctions, which were made in the
Nicene Council for the government of the whole Church, by the teaching of
God's Spirit, be violated, which God forbid, by my connivance; and if the
desire of one brother be of more weight with me than the common good of
the whole house of the Lord." This to the Emperor. To the Empress,
thus:—"Since no one is allowed to attempt<a name="NtA101"
href="#Nt101"><sup>[101]</sup></a> anything against the statutes of the
Fathers' Canons, which many years ago were based on spiritual decrees in
the city of Nicea; so that if any one desires to decree anything against
them, he will rather lessen himself than injure them. <i>And if these are
kept uninjured, as it behoves, by all Pontiffs, there will be tranquil
peace and firm concord through all the Churches. There will be no
dissensions concerning the degree of honours; no contests about
ordinations; no doubts about privileges; no conflicts about the
usurpation of another's right; but under the equal law of charity, both
men's minds and duties will be kept in the due order</i>; and he will be
truly great, who shall be alien from all ambition, according to the
Lord's words, 'Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your
minister, &c.'" But to Anatolius, thus:—"Those<a name="NtA102"
href="#Nt102"><sup>[102]</sup></a> holy and venerable Fathers, who in the
Nicene city established laws of ecclesiastical Canons, <i>which are to
last to the end of the world</i>, when the sacrilegious Arius with his
impiety was condemned, live both with us and in the whole world by their
constitutions; and if anything anywhere is presumed upon contrary to what
they appointed, it is without delay annulled, &c."</p>
<p>But <i>what</i> the violation was he likewise states: it is not any
wrong done to his own see personally. He says to the Empress: "But<a
name="NtA103" href="#Nt103"><sup>[103]</sup></a> what doth the prelate of
the Church of Constantinople desire more than he hath obtained? Or what
will satisfy him, if the magnificence and glory of so great a city
satisfy him not? It is too proud and immoderate to go beyond one's own
limits, and, trampling on antiquity, to wish to seize on another's right.
And, in order to increase the dignity of one, to impugn the primacy of so
many Metropolitans; and to carry a new war of disturbance into quiet
provinces, settled long ago by the moderation of the holy Nicene
Council," &c.</p>
<p>To Anatolius himself he says: "I grieve—that you attempt to
infringe the most sacred constitutions of the Nicene Canons; as if this
were a favourable opportunity presented to you, when the See of
Alexandria may lose the privilege of the second rank, and the Church of
Antioch its possession of the third dignity; so that when these places
have been brought under your jurisdiction, all Metropolitan Bishops may
be deprived of their proper honour."<a name="NtA104"
href="#Nt104"><sup>[104]</sup></a> "I oppose you, that with wiser purpose
you may refrain from throwing into confusion the whole Church. Let not
the rights of provincial Primacies be torn away, nor Metropolitan Bishops
be deprived of their privileges in force from old time. Let no part of
that dignity perish to the See of Alexandria, which it was thought worthy
to obtain through the holy Evangelist Mark, the disciple of blessed
Peter; nor, though Dioscorus falls through the obstinacy of his own
impiety, let the splendour of so great a Church be obscured by another's
disgrace. Let also the Church of Antioch, in which first, at the
preaching of the blessed Apostle Peter, the name of Christian arose,
remain in the order of its hereditary degree, and being placed in the
third rank never sink below itself."</p>
<p>So then it was not St. Peter's Primacy, nor his own proper authority
in the Church, which St. Leo conceived to be attacked by this Canon; but
he refused to be a party to "treading under foot the constitution of the
Fathers"—to disturbing "the state of the universal Church,
protected of old by a most wholesome and upright administration."<a
name="NtA105" href="#Nt105"><sup>[105]</sup></a> So the Emperor Marcian,
Anatolius, Julian of Cos, beseech Leo to grant this, without so much as
imagining that they are injuring <i>his</i> rank by asking it. I see not
how it is possible to avoid the conclusion, that the power of the First
See, even as its most zealous occupant viewed it, was quite different
from that power which was set up in the middle ages. This is only one of
a vast number of proofs which distinguish the Primacy from the present
Supremacy. And it is the more valuable, because St. Leo certainly carries
his notion of his own rights as universal Primate further than any Father
of his time. I shall have occasion to make a like remark presently in the
matter of St. Gregory's protest.</p>
<p>But, indeed, such a Canon as this being passed in the most numerous
Ecumenical Synod, in spite of the opposition of the Pope's Legates,
speaks for itself. I am well aware that St. Leo refused to receive it,
that, "by the authority of the blessed Peter, he annulled it by a general
declaration, as contrary to the holy Canons of Nicea."<a name="NtA106"
href="#Nt106"><sup>[106]</sup></a> Accordingly it was not received in the
West; but it nevertheless always prevailed in the East, and the Popes
ultimately conceded the point it enacted. And<a name="NtA107"
href="#Nt107"><sup>[107]</sup></a> from the hour it was enacted to this,
it has remained the law of the Eastern Church; and the Patriarchal power,
which in the Western Church has developed into the Papal, has remained
attached to the throne of Constantinople in the other great division of
Christ's kingdom.</p>
<p>The ninth Canon of Chalcedon also says:—"If a Clergyman has any
matter against his own Bishop or another, let him plead his cause before
the Council of the province. But if either a Bishop or Clergyman have a
controversy against the Metropolitan of the same province, let him have
recourse either to the Exarch of the Diocese, or to the throne of the
imperial city of Constantinople, and plead his cause before it." I remark
this, because it is a far greater power of hearing appeals granted to the
Bishop of Constantinople, than was granted to the Bishop of Rome a
hundred years before at the Council of Sardica.</p>
<p>Now, let us be fair and even-handed. If the great influence and
authority exercised at the Council of Chalcedon by St. Leo is to be
acknowledged as witnessing the Roman Primacy, let us also grant, that
unless the Acts and the Canons of the first four Ecumenical Councils are
to be swept away as waste paper before the omnipotence of Papal
prerogative, then the ancient decrees of Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus,
and Chalcedon, offer an insurmountable barrier to the present claims of
Rome. But concerning the Canons of Nicea, St. Leo, at least,
says:—"I hold all ecclesiastical rules to be dissolved, if any part
of that sacrosanct constitution of the Fathers be violated."<a
name="NtA108" href="#Nt108"><sup>[108]</sup></a> St. Gregory
repeats:—"I receive the four Councils of the holy universal Church
as the four books of the Holy Gospel."<a name="NtA109"
href="#Nt109"><sup>[109]</sup></a> Mr. Newman says, "that the definition
passed at Chalcedon is the Apostolic Truth once delivered to the Saints,
is most firmly to be received from faith in that overruling Providence,
which is by special promise extended over the Acts of the Church."<a
name="NtA110" href="#Nt110"><sup>[110]</sup></a> Does it not equally
follow that the Church government recognised as immemorial, and enforced
at Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, <i>and the doctrine
which is involved therein</i>, are likewise to be maintained, and that
none who appeal to them with truth, as practised by themselves, whatever
else they may fall into, can be guilty of schism?</p>
<p>The hundred and thirty years between the death of St. Leo and the
accession of St. Gregory, were years of trouble, confusion, and disaster:
"the stars fell from heaven, and the powers of the heavens were shaken."
The Western empire was overthrown; barbarians and heretics obtained the
mastery in Italy, and generally in the West; there was but one fixed and
central authority to which the eyes of churchmen could turn with hope and
confidence in the whole West, that of the Roman Pontiff.</p>
<p>I select the following points as bearing on our subject:—</p>
<p>In the year 536 we have one of those rare instances in which the
Primacy of Rome is seen acting on the Eastern Church, but in perfect
accordance with the Canons and the Patriarchal system. The Pope Agapetus
had been compelled by Theodatus, king of the Goths, to proceed to
Constantinople, in order that he might, if possible, prevail upon
Justinian not to attempt the recovery of Italy. Not having wherewith to
pay the expenses of his journey, he had been compelled to borrow money on
the sacred vessels of St. Peter's Church. On arriving at Constantinople
he refused to see the new Patriarch Anthimus, or to receive him to his
communion, both because he was suspected of heresy, and had been
translated from the See of Trebisond. Anthimus refused to appear in the
Council that the Pope held at Constantinople to judge him; so he was
deposed, and returned his pallium to the Emperor. Mennas was elected in
his stead by the Emperor, with the approbation of all the Clergy and the
people, and the Pope consecrated him in the church of St. Mary. "Pope
Agapetus wrote a synodal letter to Peter, Patriarch of Jerusalem, to
acquaint him with what he had done in this Council. 'When we arrived,'
said he, 'at the court of the Emperor, we found the See of Constantinople
usurped, contrary to the Canons, by Anthimus Bishop of Trebisond. He even
refused to quit the error of Eutyches. Therefore, after having waited for
his repentance, we declare him unworthy of the name of Catholic and
Bishop, until he fully receive the doctrine of the Fathers. You ought
likewise to reject the rest whom the Holy See has condemned. We are
astonished that you approved this injury done to the See of
Constantinople, instead of informing us of it; and we have repaired it by
the ordination of Mennas, who is the first of the Eastern Church ordained
by the hands of our See.'"<a name="NtA111"
href="#Nt111"><sup>[111]</sup></a> I find this Pope presently called by
the Easterns, 'Father of fathers,' 'Archbishop of ancient Rome,'
'Ecumenical Patriarch.' This latter title is also given to Mennas. I
shall have more to say about it hereafter; but it is remarkable that it
was first given, so far as we have any record, to Dioscorus,<a
name="NtA112" href="#Nt112"><sup>[112]</sup></a> by a Bishop in some
complaint made to him at the Latrocinium of Ephesus; but Justinian gives
to the Patriarch of Constantinople the title, "to the most holy and
blessed Archbishop of this royal city, and Ecumenical Patriarch."<a
name="NtA113" href="#Nt113"><sup>[113]</sup></a></p>
<p>The Pope shortly after dies at Constantinople, and a Council is held,
at which the Patriarch Mennas presides, the Bishops who had accompanied
the defunct Pope taking rank after him. He writes to the Patriarch Peter
of Jerusalem, and informs him of the acts of this Council. Peter
assembles his Council at Jerusalem: the procedure which took place at
Constantinople was there found canonical, and the deposition of Anthimus
was confirmed. Here the same facts which prove the Pope's Primacy refute
his Supremacy: and this is not an isolated incident, but one link in a
vast and uninterrupted chain of evidence.</p>
<p>I find in the laws of the Emperor Justinian just at the same time,
looking at them merely as facts, a full confirmation and recognition of
the Episcopal and Patriarchal constitution of the Church. In 538, the
Emperor, in an edict, addressing the Patriarch Mennas, says, "Wherefore
we exhort you to assemble all the Bishops who are in this imperial city
... and oblige them all to anathematize by writing the impious Origen ...
that your Blessedness send copies of what you do on this subject to all
the other Bishops, and to all the superiors of monasteries.... We have
written as much to Pope Vigilius and the other Patriarchs".... "The
Patriarch Mennas, and the Bishops who were at Constantinople, subscribed
to this: it was then sent to Pope Vigilius, to Zoilus, Patriarch of
Alexandria, to Ephrem of Antioch, and to Peter of Jerusalem, who all
subscribed to it".... "There are three great laws of the year 511, of
which the first regulates ordinations:" those of the Bishops were still
in the hands of the several clergy, laity, and Metropolitans.... "The
second law of the 18th March enacts, that the four General Councils shall
have the force of law, that the Pope of Rome is the first of all the
Bishops, and after him the Bishop of Constantinople."—"Bishops
cannot be called to appear against their will before secular judges for
any cause whatsoever. If Bishops of the same province have a difference
together, they shall be judged by the Metropolitan, accompanied by the
other Bishops of the province, <i>and may appeal to the Patriarch, but
not beyond</i>. Likewise if an individual, clerk or lay, has a matter
against his Bishop. The Metropolitan can only be tried before the
Patriarch."—"Simony is forbidden ... still it is allowed to give
for consecrations, according to ancient customs, in the following
proportion. The Pope and the four Patriarchs of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, may give to the Bishops and the Clergy
according to custom, provided that it exceed not twenty pounds of gold.
The Metropolitans and the other Bishops may give a hundred gold solidi
for their enthronement," &c.<a name="NtA114"
href="#Nt114"><sup>[114]</sup></a></p>
<p>So, again: "Therefore let the most holy Patriarchs of each Diocese
propose these things to the most holy Churches under them, and make known
to the Metropolitans, most beloved of God, what we have ratified. Let
these again set it forth in the most holy Metropolitan Church, and notify
it to the Bishops under them. But let each of these propose it in his own
Church, that no one in our commonwealth be ignorant of it."<a
name="NtA115" href="#Nt115"><sup>[115]</sup></a></p>
<p>"We charge the most blessed Archbishops and Patriarchs, that is, of
elder Rome, and Constantinople, and Alexandria, and Theopolis and
Jerusalem."<a name="NtA116" href="#Nt116"><sup>[116]</sup></a></p>
<p>But Pope Pelagius I. himself says: "As often as any doubt ariseth to
any concerning an Universal Council, in order to receive account of what
they do not understand—let them recur to the Apostolical
Sees.—Whosoever then is divided from the Apostolical Sees, there is
no doubt that he is in schism."<a name="NtA117"
href="#Nt117"><sup>[117]</sup></a></p>
<p>St. Augustin had said long before, "What hath the See of the Roman
Church done to thee, in which Peter sat, in which Anastasius sitteth now:
or of the Church of Jerusalem, in which James sat, and where now John
sitteth: with which we are joined in Catholic unity, and from which ye in
impious fury have separated."<a name="NtA118"
href="#Nt118"><sup>[118]</sup></a></p>
<p>We now come to the dark and sad history of Pope Vigilius. And here I
am glad that another can speak for me. Bossuet says: "The acts of the
Second Council of Constantinople, the fifth general, under Pope Vigilius
and the Emperor Justinian, will prove that the decrees of the third and
fourth Councils were understood in the same sense by the fifth as we have
understood them. And this Council received the account of them near at
hand, and transmitted it to us."<a name="NtA119"
href="#Nt119"><sup>[119]</sup></a></p>
<p>"The three chapters were the point in question; that is, respecting
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret's writings against Cyril, and the
letter of Ibas of Edessa to Maris the Persian. The question was whether
that letter had been approved in the Council of Chalcedon. So much was
admitted that it had been read there, and that Ibas, after anathematizing
Nestorius, had been received by the Council. Some contended that his
person only was spared; others that his letter also was approved. Thus
inquiry was made at the fifth Council how writings on the faith were wont
to be approved in former Councils. The acts of the third and fourth
Council, those which we have mentioned above respecting the letter of St.
Cyril and of St. Leo, were set forth. Then the holy Council
declared—'It is plain, from what has been recited, in what manner
the holy Councils are wont to approve what is brought before them. For,
great as was the dignity of those holy men who wrote the letters recited,
yet they did not approve their letters simply or without inquiry, nor
without taking cognisance that they were in all things agreeable to the
exposition and doctrine of the holy Fathers, with which they were
compared.' But the acts proved that this course was not pursued in the
case of the letter of Ibas; they inferred, therefore, most justly, that
that letter had not been approved. So, then, it is certain, from the
third and fourth Councils, the fifth so declaring and understanding it,
that letters approved by the Apostolic See, such as was that of Cyril, or
even proceeding from it, as that of Leo, were received by the holy
Councils not simply, nor without inquiry."</p>
<p>Pope Vigilius afterwards, when consenting to this Council,
"acknowledges that the letter of St. Leo was not approved at the Council
of Chalcedon until it had been examined and found conformable to the
faith of the three preceding Councils; and this avowal is the more
important in the mouth of a Pope."<a name="NtA120"
href="#Nt120"><sup>[120]</sup></a></p>
<p>"Again, in the same fifth Council the acts against the letter of
Nestorius are read, in which the Fathers of Ephesus plainly pronounce,
'that the letter of Nestorius is in no respect agreeable to the faith
which was set forth at Nicea.' So this letter also was rejected, not
simply, but, as was equitable, after examination; and Ibas condemned, who
stated that Nestorius had been rejected by the Council of Ephesus without
examination and inquiry.</p>
<p>"The holy Fathers proceed to do what the Bishops at Chalcedon would
have done, had they undertaken the examination of Ibas' letter. They
compare the letters with the acts of Ephesus and Chalcedon. The holy
Council declared—'The comparison made proves, beyond a doubt, that
the letter which Ibas is said to have written is, in all respects,
opposed to the definition of the right faith, which the Council of
Chalcedon set forth. All the Bishops cried out, 'We all say this; the
letter is heretical.' Thus, therefore, is it proved by the fifth Council
that our holy Fathers in Ecumenical Councils pronounce the letters read,
whether of Catholics or heretics, or even of Roman Pontiffs, to be
orthodox or heretical, according to the same procedure, after legitimate
cognisance, the truth being inquired into, and then cleared up; and upon
these premises judgment given.</p>
<p>"What! you will say, with no distinction, and with minds equally
inclined to both parties? Indeed we have said, and shall often repeat,
that there was a presumption in favour of the decrees of orthodox
Pontiffs; but in Ecumenical Councils, where judgment is to be passed in
matter of faith, that they were bound no longer to act upon presumption,
but on the truth clearly and thoroughly ascertained.</p>
<p>"Such were the acts of the fifth Council. This it learnt from the
third and fourth Councils, and approved; and in this argument we have
brought at once in favour of our opinion the decrees of the Ecumenical
Councils of Ephesus, Chalcedon, and the second Constantinopolitan."<a
name="NtA121" href="#Nt121"><sup>[121]</sup></a></p>
<p>The point here taken up by Bossuet, and proved upon indisputable
authority, is of the greatest importance, viz. that the decree of a Roman
Pontiff, <i>de fide</i>, and he, perhaps, the greatest of the whole
number, was judged by a General Council, and only admitted when it was
found conformable to antiquity. It settles, in fact, the whole question,
that the Bishop of Rome is indeed possessed of the First See, and Primate
of all Christendom; but that he is not the sole depository of Christ's
power in the Church, which is, in truth, the Papal idea, laid down by St.
Gregory the Seventh, and acted upon since. The difference between these
two ideas is the difference between the Church of the Fathers and the
present Latin Communion in the matter of Church government, in which they
are wide as the poles asunder.</p>
<p>The history of Pope Vigilius further confirms the truth of what we
have said. Bossuet proceeds: "In the same fifth Council the following
acts support our cause.</p>
<p>"The Emperor Justinian desired that the question concerning the
above-mentioned three Chapters should be considered in the Church. He
therefore sent for Pope Vigilius to Constantinople. There he not long
after assembled a Council. The Orientals thought it of great moment that
these Chapters should be condemned, against the Nestorians, who were
raising their heads to defend them; Vigilius, with the Occidentals,
feared lest thus occasion should be taken to destroy the authority of the
Council of Chalcedon; because it was admitted that Theodoret and Ibas had
been received in that Council, whilst Theodore, though named, was let go
without any mark of censure. Though then both parties easily agreed as to
the substance of the faith, yet the question had entirely respect to the
faith, it being feared by the one party lest the Nestorian, by the other
lest the Eutychean, enemies of the Council of Chalcedon should
prevail.</p>
<p>"From this struggle many accusations have been brought against
Vigilius, which have nothing to do with us. I am persuaded that
everything was done by Vigilius with the best intent, the Westerns not
enduring the condemnation of the Chapters, and things tending to a
schism." The facts here alluded to, but for obvious reasons avoided by
Bossuet, are as follows, very briefly. Vigilius on the 11th of April,
548, issues his 'Judicatum' against the three Chapters, saving the
authority of the Council of Chalcedon. Thereupon the Bishops of Africa,
Illyria, and Dalmatia, with two of his own confidential Deacons, withdraw
from his communion. In the year 551, the Bishops of Africa, assembled in
Council, excommunicate him, for having condemned the three Chapters. At
length the Pope publicly withdraws his 'Judicatum.' While the Council is
sitting at Constantinople he publishes his 'Constitutum,' in which he
condemns certain propositions of Theodore, but spares his person; the
same respecting Theodoret; but with respect to Ibas, he declares his
letter was pronounced orthodox by the Council of Chalcedon. Bossuet goes
on: "however this may be, so much is clear that Vigilius, though invited,
declined being present at the Council; that nevertheless the Council was
held without him; that he published a 'Constitutum' in which he
disapproved of what Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas were said to have
written against the faith; but decreed that their name should be spared,
because they were considered to have been received by the fourth Council,
or to have died in the communion of the Church, and to be reserved to the
judgment of God. Concerning the letter of Ibas, he published the
following, that, understood in the best and most pious sense, it was
blameless; and concerning the three Chapters generally, he ordered that
after his present declaration Ecclesiastics should move no further
question.</p>
<p>"Such was the decree of Vigilius, issued upon the authority with which
he was invested. And the Council, after his constitution, both raised a
question about the three Chapters, and decided that question was properly
raised concerning the dead, and that the letter of Ibas was manifestly
heretical and Nestorian, and contrary in all things to the faith of
Chalcedon, and that they were altogether accursed, who defended the
impious Theodore of Mopsuestia, or the writings of Theodoret against
Cyril, or the impious letter of Ibas defending the tenets of Nestorius;
and who did not anathematize it, but said it was correct.</p>
<p>"In these latter words they seemed not even to spare Vigilius,
although they did not mention his name. And it is certain their decree
was confirmed by Pelagius the Second, Gregory the Great, and other Roman
Pontiffs.... These things prove, that in a matter of the utmost
importance, disturbing the whole Church, and seeming to belong to the
faith, the decrees of sacred Councils prevailed over the decrees of
Pontiffs, and that the letter of Ibas, though defended by a judgment of
the Roman Pontiff, could nevertheless be proscribed as heretical."</p>
<p>Compare with this history the following remark of De Maistre, "that
Bishops separated from the Pope, and in contradiction with him, are
superior to him, is a proposition to which one does all the honour
possible in calling it only extravagance."<a name="NtA122"
href="#Nt122"><sup>[122]</sup></a></p>
<p>After all this Fleury says: "At last the Pope Vigilius resigned
himself to the advice of the Council, and six months afterwards wrote a
letter to the Patriarch Eutychius, wherein he confesses that he has been
wanting in charity in dividing from his brethren. He adds, that one ought
not to be ashamed to retract, when one recognises the truth, and brings
forward the example of St. Augustin. He says, that, after having better
examined the matter of the three chapters, he finds them worthy of
condemnation. 'We recognise for our brethren and colleagues all those who
have condemned them, and annul by this writing all that has been done by
us or by others for the defence of the three chapters.'"<a name="NtA123"
href="#Nt123"><sup>[123]</sup></a></p>
<p>Nor can I think it a point of little moment that Bishops of Rome were
at different times deposed or excommunicated by other Bishops. As in the
second century the Eastern Bishops disregard St. Victor's excommunication
respecting Easter; and in the third St. Firmilian in Asia, and St.
Cyprian in Africa, disregard St. Stephen's excommunication in the matter
of rebaptizing heretics; so when the Bishops of the Patriarchate of
Antioch found that Pope Julius had received to communion St. Athanasius,
and others whom they had deposed, they proceeded to depose him, with
Hosius and the rest.<a name="NtA124" href="#Nt124"><sup>[124]</sup></a>
This was in the fourth century. In the fifth, Dioscorus, at the
Latrocinium of Ephesus, attempts to excommunicate St. Leo. In the sixth,
as we have just seen, the Bishops of Africa, Illyria, and Dalmatia, all
of the West, separate Pope Vigilius from their communion, and the former
afterwards solemnly excommunicate him. It matters not that in all these
cases the Bishops were wrong; I quote these acts merely to prove that
they esteemed the Bishop of Rome the first of all Bishops indeed, yet
subject to the Canons like themselves, and only of equal rank. For on the
present Papal theory, such an act, as we have seen le Père Lacordaire
affirm, would be merely suicidal,—pure insanity. It is in utter
contradiction to the notion of an ecclesiastical monarchy.</p>
<p>In like manner we find portions of the Church, as that of
Constantinople, again and again out of communion with the Roman Pontiff,
but they do not therefore cease to be parts of the true Church. So
Gieseler states that in consequence of jealousies about the condemning
the three Chapters the Archbishops of Aquileia, with their Bishops, were
out of communion with Rome from <span class="scac">A.D.</span> 568 to
698.<a name="NtA125" href="#Nt125"><sup>[125]</sup></a> A reconciliation
takes place, and communion is renewed. Facts of the same nature, and
applying closely to our own position, are mentioned by Bossuet;<a
name="NtA126" href="#Nt126"><sup>[126]</sup></a> viz. that the Spanish
Bishops, not having been present at, nor invited to, the sixth General
Council, did not receive it as Ecumenical, though invited to do so by the
Pope of the day, until they had themselves examined its acts, and found
them accordant with previous Councils. And as to the second Nicene, or
seventh General Council, the Gallic Bishops, with Charlemagne at their
head, long refused to receive it, though supported by the Pope, because
neither they nor other Occidentals were present at it. "Nor were they in
the mean time held as heretical or schismatical, though they differed on
a point of the greatest moment, that is, the interpretation of the
precepts of the first table, because they seemed to inquire into the
matter with a good intention, not with obstinate party spirit."<a
name="NtA127" href="#Nt127"><sup>[127]</sup></a> Yet Pope Adrian had
himself written against them.</p>
<p>Now all these various facts, from the first Nicene Council, converge
towards one view, for which, I think, there is as full evidence as for
most facts of history,—that the Pope, to the time of St. Gregory
the Great, and indeed long afterwards, was but the first of the
Patriarchs, who, in their own Patriarchates, enjoyed a co-ordinate and
equal authority with his in the West. I suppose De Maistre acknowledges
as much in his own way, when he says, "The Pope is invested with five
very distinct characters; for he is Bishop of Rome, Metropolitan of the
Suburbican Churches, Primate of Italy, Patriarch of the West, and,
lastly, Sovereign Pontiff. The Pope has never exercised over the other
Patriarchates any powers save those resulting from this last; so that
except in some affair of high importance, some striking abuse, or some
appeal in the greater causes, the Sovereign Pontiffs mixed little in the
ecclesiastical administration of the Eastern Churches. And this was a
great misfortune, not only for them, but for the states where they were
established. It may be said that the Greek Church, from its origin,
carried in its bosom a germ of division, which only completely developed
itself at the end of twelve centuries, but which always existed under
forms less striking, less decisive, and so endurable."<a name="NtA128"
href="#Nt128"><sup>[128]</sup></a> The confession of one who travesties
antiquity so outrageously as De Maistre is curious at least:—and
now let us proceed to the testimony of St. Gregory.</p>
<p>And, assuredly, if there was any Pontiff who, like St. Leo, held the
most strong and deeply-rooted convictions as to the prerogatives of the
Roman see, it was St. Gregory. His voluminous correspondence with
Bishops, and the most notable persons throughout the world, represents
him to us as guarding and superintending the affairs of the whole Church
from the watch-tower of St. Peter, the loftiest of all. Let one assertion
of his prove this. Writing to Natalis, Bishop of Salona in Dalmatia, he
says, "After the letters of my predecessor and my own, in the matter of
Honoratus the Archdeacon, were sent to your Holiness, in despite of the
sentence of us both, the above-mentioned Honoratus was deprived of his
rank. <i>Had either of the four Patriarchs done this, so great an act of
contumacy could not have been passed over without the most grievous
scandal.</i> However, as your brotherhood has since returned to your
duty, I take notice neither of the injury done to me, nor of that to my
predecessor."<a name="NtA129" href="#Nt129"><sup>[129]</sup></a> The
following words in another letter will elucidate his meaning here. "As to
what he says, that he (a Bishop) is subject to the Apostolical See, <i>I
know not what Bishop is not subject to it, if any fault be found in
Bishops. But when no fault requires it, all are equal according to the
estimation of humility.</i>"<a name="NtA130"
href="#Nt130"><sup>[130]</sup></a> And again, writing to his own Defensor
in Sicily, a part of the Church most under his own control, "I am
informed that if any one has a cause against any clerks, you throw a
slight upon their Bishops, and cause them to appear in your own court. If
this be so, we expressly order you to presume to do so no more, because
beyond doubt it is very unseemly. For if his own jurisdiction is not
preserved to each Bishop, what else results but that the order of the
Church is thrown into confusion by us, who ought to guard it."<a
name="NtA131" href="#Nt131"><sup>[131]</sup></a> Gieseler says: "They
(the Roman Bishops) maintained, that not only the right of the highest
ecclesiastical tribunal in the West belonged to them, but the supervision
of orthodoxy, and maintenance of the Church's laws, in the whole Church;
and they based these claims, still, it is true, at times, upon imperial
edicts, and decrees of Councils, but most commonly upon the privileges
granted to Peter by the Lord."<a name="NtA132"
href="#Nt132"><sup>[132]</sup></a> And I suppose if the Primacy of
Christendom has any real meaning, it must mean this, that in case of
necessity, such as infraction of the Canons, an appeal may be made to it.
So undoubtedly St. Gregory understood his own rights. What his ordinary
jurisdiction was, Fleury thus tells us:—"The Popes ordained clergy
only for the Roman (local) Church, but they gave Bishops to the greater
part of the Churches of Italy."<a name="NtA133"
href="#Nt133"><sup>[133]</sup></a> "St. Gregory entered into this detail
only for the Churches which specially depended on the Holy See, and for
that reason were named suburbican; that is, those of the southern part of
Italy, where he was sole Archbishop, those of Sicily, and the other
islands, though they had Metropolitans. But it will not be found that he
exercised the same immediate power in the provinces depending on Milan
and Aquileia, nor in Spain and the Gauls. It is true that in the Gauls he
had his vicar, who was the Bishop of Arles, as was likewise the Bishop of
Thessalonica for Western Illyricum. The Pope further took care of the
Churches of Africa, that Councils should be held there, and the Canons
maintained; but we do not find that he exercised particular jurisdiction
over any that belonged to the Eastern empire, that is to say, upon the
four patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople.
He was in communion and interchange of letters with all these Patriarchs,
without entering into the particular management of the Churches depending
on them, except it were in some extraordinary case. The multitude of St.
Gregory's letters gives us opportunity to remark all these distinctions,
in order not to extend indifferently rights which he only exercised over
certain Churches."<a name="NtA134" href="#Nt134"><sup>[134]</sup></a></p>
<p>Now in St. Gregory's time a discussion arose, which served to draw
forth statements on his part most remarkably bearing on the present
claims of the See of Rome. In the year 589 Gregory, Patriarch of Antioch,
accused of a grievous crime, appealed to the Emperor and his Council. He
accordingly went to Constantinople, and was tried. All the Patriarchs of
the East in person, or by their deputies, attended this trial, the Senate
likewise, and many Metropolitans; and the cause having been examined in
several sittings, Gregory was absolved, and the accuser flogged through
the city and banished. At this Council John the Faster, Patriarch of
Constantinople, took the title of Universal Bishop. Immediately the Roman
Pontiff Pelagius heard of it, he sent letters by which, of St. Peter's
authority, he annulled the acts of this Council, save as to the
absolution of Gregory, and ordered his deacon, the Nuncio, not to attend
the mass with John. But he left the contest about the name Ecumenical, or
Universal, Bishop or Patriarch, to his successor Gregory. We have many
letters of Gregory on the subject, of which I will give extracts. The
Pope foresaw the great danger there was that the Patriarch of
Constantinople would reduce completely under him the other three Eastern
Patriarchs, and perhaps attempt to gain the Primacy of the whole Church;
for this, among other reasons, neither St. Leo, nor any of his
successors, had ever allowed in the West the 28th Canon of Chalcedon,
giving him the next place to Rome. And now this title of Ecumenical,
combined with the fact that the Bishop of that See was, from his
position, the intermediary between all the Bishops of the East and the
imperial power, seemed to point directly to such a consummation. He was
the natural president of a Council continually sitting at Constantinople,
which might be said to lead and give the initiative to the whole East.
Accordingly St. Gregory appears in this matter the great defender of the
Patriarchal equilibrium. "Gregory to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, and
Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch."<a name="NtA135"
href="#Nt135"><sup>[135]</sup></a>... "As your venerable Holiness is
aware, this name Universal was offered by the holy Synod of Chalcedon to
the Pontiff of the Apostolic See, a post which by God's providence I
fill. But no one of my predecessors ever consented to use so profane a
term, because plainly, if a single <i>Patriarch is called Universal, the
name of Patriarch is taken from the rest</i>. But far, far be this from
the mind of a Christian, that any one should wish to claim to himself
that by which the honour of his brethren may seem to be in any degree
diminished. Since, therefore, we are unwilling to receive this honour
when offered to us, consider how shameful it is that any one has wished
violently to usurp it to himself. Wherefore let your Holiness in your
letters <i>never call any one Universal, lest in offering undue honour to
another you should deprive yourself of that which is your due</i>.... Let
us, therefore, render thanks to Him, who, dissolving enmities, hath
caused in His flesh, that in the whole world there should be one flock
and one fold under Himself the one Shepherd.... For because he is near of
whom it is written, 'He is king over all the children of pride,' what I
cannot utter without great grief, our brother and fellow-Bishop John,
despising the Apostolic precepts, the rules of the Fathers, endeavours by
this appellation to go before him in pride.... So that he endeavours to
claim the whole to himself, and aims by the pride of this pompous
language <i>to subjugate to himself all the members of Christ, which are
joined together to the one sole head, that is, Christ</i>.... By the
favour of the Lord we must strive with all our strength, and take care
lest by one poisonous sentence the living members of Christ's body be
destroyed. For if this is allowed to be said freely, <i>the honour of all
the Patriarchs is denied</i>. And when, perchance, he who is termed
Universal perishes in error, presently no Bishop is found to have
remained in the state of truth. Wherefore it is your duty firmly, and
without prejudice, to preserve the Churches as you received them, and let
this attempt of diabolic usurpation find nothing of its own in you. Stand
firm, stand fearless; <i>presume not ever either to give or receive
letters with this false title of Universal</i>. Keep from the pollution
of this pride all the Bishops subject to your care, that the whole Church
may recognise you for Patriarchs, not only by good works, but by your
genuine authority. But if perchance adversity follow, persisting with one
mind, we are bound to show, even by dying, that we love not any special
gain of our own to the general loss." So, likewise to the Bishops of
Illyricum he says—"Because as the end of this world is approaching,
the enemy of the human race hath appeared in anticipation, to have for
his precursors through this name of pride, those very priests who ought
by a good and humble life to resist him; I therefore exhort and advise
that no one of you ever give countenance to this name, ever agree to it,
ever write it, ever receive a writing wherein it is contained, or add his
subscription; but, as it behoves ministers of Almighty God, keep himself
clean from such-like poisonous infection, and give no place within him to
the crafty lier-in-wait; <i>since this is done to the injury and
disruption of the whole Church, and, as we have said, in contempt of all
of you. For if, as he thinks, one is universal, it remains that you are
not Bishops</i>."<a name="NtA136" href="#Nt136"><sup>[136]</sup></a> To
Sabinianus, then his Deacon, afterwards his successor—"For to
consent to this nefarious name, is nothing else but to lose our faith."<a
name="NtA137" href="#Nt137"><sup>[137]</sup></a> "Gregory to the Emperor
Mauricius"<a name="NtA138" href="#Nt138"><sup>[138]</sup></a>...
"Concerning which matter, my Lord's affection has enjoined me in his
commands, saying that scandal ought not to grow between us, for the term
of a frivolous name. But I beg your Imperial Piety to consider, that some
frivolities are very harmless, some highly injurious. When Antichrist at
his coming calls himself God, will it not be very frivolous, but yet
cause great destruction? If we look at the amount of what is said, it is
but two syllables, (<i>Deum</i>,) if at the weight of iniquity, it is
universal destruction. <i>But I confidently affirm that whoever calls
himself, or desires to be called, Universal Priest, in his pride goes
before Antichrist</i>; because through pride he prefers himself to the
rest. And he is led into error by no dissimilar pride, because like that
perverse one, he wishes to appear God over all men; so, <i>whoever he is
who desires to be called sole Priest</i>, he lifts up himself above all
other Priests. But since the Truth says, 'every one who exalteth himself
shall be abased,' I know that the more any pride inflates itself, the
sooner it bursts."</p>
<p>"Gregory to the Emperor Mauritius."<a name="NtA139"
href="#Nt139"><sup>[139]</sup></a> ... "But since it is not my cause, but
God's, and since not I only, but the whole Church, is thrown into
confusion, since sacred laws, since venerable synods, since the very
commands even of our Lord Jesus Christ are disturbed by the invention of
this haughty and pompous language, let the most pious Emperor lance the
wound, &c.... <i>For to all who know the Gospel, it is manifest that
the charge of the whole Church was entrusted by the voice of the Lord to
the holy Apostle Peter, chief of all the Apostles.</i> For to him is
said, Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep. To him is said, Behold, Satan
hath desired to sift you, &c. To him is said, Thou art Peter, &c.
<i>Lo he hath received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of
binding and loosing is given to him, the care of the whole Church is
committed to him, and the Primacy, and yet he is not called Universal
Apostle.</i> And that holy man, my fellow-priest, John, endeavours to be
called Universal Bishop.... Do I, in this matter, most pious Lord, defend
my own cause? is it a private injury that I pursue? the cause of Almighty
God, the cause of the universal Church. Who is he, who, in violation of
the statutes of the Gospel, in violation of the decrees of Canons,
presumes to usurp a new name to himself? <i>Would that he who desires to
be called universal may exist himself without diminution to
others!</i>... If, then, any one claims to himself that name in that
Church, as in the judgment of all good men he has done, the whole Church
(which God forbid!) falls from its place, when he who is called Universal
falls. But far from Christian hearts be that blasphemous name, in which
the honour of all Priests is taken away, while it is madly arrogated by
one to himself! Certainly, to do honour to the blessed Peter, chief of
the Apostles, this was offered to the Roman Pontiff by the venerable
Synod of Chalcedon. But no one of them ever consented to use this
singular appellation, that all Priests might not be deprived of their due
honour by something peculiar being given to one. How is it, then, that we
seek not the glory of this name, though offered us, yet another presumes
to claim it, though not offered?"</p>
<p>John had been succeeded by Cyriacus at Constantinople: and he writes
further,<a name="NtA140" href="#Nt140"><sup>[140]</sup></a> "Gregory to
Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch.... I thought it not worth while on account
of a profane appellation to delay receiving the synodical letter of our
Brother and Fellow-Priest Cyriacus, that I might not disturb the unity of
the holy Church: nevertheless, I have made a point of admonishing him
respecting that same superstitious and haughty appellation, saying that
he could not have peace with me unless he corrected the pride of the
aforesaid expression, <i>which the first Apostate invented</i>. But you
should not call this cause of no importance; because, if we bear this
patiently, we corrupt the faith of the whole Church. For you know how
many, not only heretics, but even heresiarchs, have come forth from the
Church of Constantinople. And, not to speak of the injury done to your
honour, if one Bishop be called Universal, the whole Church tumbles to
pieces, if that one, being universal, falls.<a name="NtA141"
href="#Nt141"><sup>[141]</sup></a> But far be such folly, far be such
trifling, from my ears. But I trust in the Almighty Lord, that what He
hath promised, He will quickly perform: every one that exalteth himself
shall be abased." In another most interesting letter he communicates to
the Bishop of Alexandria, that "while the nation of the English, placed
in a corner of the world, was remaining up to this time in unbelief,
worshipping stocks and stones, by the help of your prayers I determined
that I ought to send over to it a monk of my monastery, by the blessing
of God, to preach there. After permission from me, he has been made a
Bishop by the Bishops of Germany, and, assisted by their kindness,
reached the aforesaid nation at the end of the world; and even at this
present moment I have received accounts of his safety and labours; for
either he, or those who have gone over with him, are distinguished among
that nation by so great miracles, that they seem to imitate the powers of
Apostles by the signs which they show forth. On this last feast of the
Lord's Nativity more than ten thousand English are reported to have been
baptized by this our brother and fellow-bishop, which I mention that you
may know what you are doing among the people of Alexandria by your voice,
and in the ends of the world by your prayers."<a name="NtA142"
href="#Nt142"><sup>[142]</sup></a>—"Your Blessedness has also taken
pains to tell me that you no longer write to certain persons those proud
names, which have sprung from the root of vanity, and you address me,
saying, <i>as you commanded</i>, which word <i>command</i> I beg you to
remove from my ears, because I know who I am, and who you are. For in
rank you are my Brother, in character my Father. I did not, therefore,
command, but took pains to point out what I thought advantageous. I do
not, however, find that your Blessedness was willing altogether to
observe the very thing I pressed upon you. For I said that you should not
write any such thing <i>either to me or to any one else</i>, and lo! in
the heading of your letter, directed to me, the very person who forbad
it, you set that haughty appellation, <i>calling me Universal Pope</i>.
Which I beg your Holiness, who are most agreeable to me, to do no more,
because <i>whatever is given to another more than reason requires is so
much taken away from yourself</i>. It is not in appellations, but in
character, that I wish to advance. Nor do I consider that an honour by
which I acknowledge that my brethren lose their own. For my honour is the
honour of the Universal Church. My honour is the unimpaired vigour of my
brethren. Then am I truly honoured, when the true honour is not denied to
each one in his degree. <i>For if your Holiness calls me Universal Pope,
you deny that you are yourself what you admit me to be, Universal.</i>
But this God forbid. Away with words which inflate vanity, and wound
charity. Indeed, in the holy Synod of Chalcedon, and by the Fathers
subsequently, your Holiness knows this was offered to my predecessors.
Yet none of them chose ever to use this term; that, while in this world
they entertained affection for the honour of all Priests, in the hands of
Almighty God they might guard their own."</p>
<p>As to what Gregory says about the Council of Chalcedon offering this
title, Thomassin says,<a name="NtA143" href="#Nt143"><sup>[143]</sup></a>
"It authorized at least by its silence the title of Ecumenical
(Patriarch), which was given to Pope Leo in several requests there read."
It appears these requests really were the complaints of two Alexandrian
Deacons against Dioscorus.<a name="NtA144"
href="#Nt144"><sup>[144]</sup></a> How very different it was to pass over
without reprobating a title bestowed in documents which came before it,
from itself conferring that title, is plain at once. In just the same way
it had been given at the Latrocinium to Dioscorus. However, the title
Ecumenical has been constantly since, and is now, borne by the Patriarch
of Constantinople; no doubt a very innocent meaning may be given to it.
The remarkable thing is, that Gregory has pointed out in such precise
unmistakeable language a certain power and claim, which he inferred,
rightly or wrongly, would be set up on this title Ecumenical, and which
he pronounces to be a corruption of the whole constitution of the
Church.</p>
<p>Perhaps, however, the most remarkable passage remains yet to be
quoted. It is in a letter to the Patriarch John himself. "Consider, I
pray you, that by this rash presumption the peace of the whole Church is
disturbed, and the grace, poured out upon all in common, contradicted.
And in this, indeed, you yourself will be able to increase just so much
as you purpose in your own mind; and become so much the greater, as you
restrain yourself from usurping a proud and foolish name. And you profit
in the degree that you do not study to arrogate to yourself by derogating
from your brethren. Therefore, most dear brother, with all your heart
love humility, by which the harmony of all the brethren and the unity of
the holy universal Church, may be preserved. Surely the Apostle Paul,
hearing some say, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, exclaimed, in
exceeding horror at this rending of the Lord's Body, by which His members
attached themselves, as it were, to other heads, saying, Was Paul
crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? If he then
rejected the members of the Lord's Body being subjected to certain heads,
as it were, besides Christ, and that even to Apostles themselves, as
leaders of parts, what will you say to Christ, <i>who is, as you know,
the Head of the Universal Church, in the examination of the last
judgement</i>,—<i>you, who endeavour to subject to yourself under
the name of Universal, all His members</i>? Who, I say, in this perverse
name, is set forth for imitation but he, who despised the legions of
angels joined as companions to himself, and endeavoured to rise to a
height unapproached by all, that he might seem to be subject to none, and
be alone superior to all. Who also said, 'I will ascend into heaven: I
will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the
mount of the congregation, on the sides of the North. I will ascend above
the height of the clouds: I will be like the Most High.'</p>
<p>"For what are all your brethren, the Bishops of the Universal Church,
but the stars of heaven? Whose life and language together shine amid the
sins and errors of men, as among the shades of night. And while you seek
to set yourself over these by a proud term, and to tread under foot their
name, in comparison with your own, what else do you say, but 'I will
ascend into the heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.'
Are not all the Bishops clouds, who rain down the words of their
preaching, and shine with the light of good works? And while your
brotherhood despises them, and endeavours to put them under you, what
else do you say but this, which is said by the old enemy: 'I will ascend
above the heights of the clouds?' And when I see all these things with
sorrow, and fear the secret judgments of God, my tears increase, my heart
contains not my groans, that that most holy man, the Lord John, of such
abstinence and humility, seduced the persuasion of those about him, hath
proceeded to such pride, that in longing after a perverse name, he
endeavours to be like him, who, desiring in his pride to be as God, lost
even the grace of that likeness to God which had been given him; and so
forfeited true blessedness, because he sought false glory. <i>Surely
Peter, the first of the Apostles, a member of the holy universal Church,
Paul, Andrew, John, what else are they but the heads of particular
communities? and yet all are members under one head.</i> And to
comprehend all in one brief expression, the saints before the law, the
saints under the law, the saints under grace, all these making up the
body of the Lord, are disposed among members of the Church, and no one
ever wished to be called Universal. Let, then, your Holiness acknowledge
how great is your pride, who seek to be called by that name, by which no
one has presumed to be called who was really holy."<a name="NtA145"
href="#Nt145"><sup>[145]</sup></a></p>
<p>Now had these passages occurred in the writings of some ancient saint,
who was generally opposed to the authority of the Roman See, had they
belonged to a Patriarch of Antioch, or Constantinople, jealous of his own
rights, they would surely have had their weight, as testimonies to a
fact, not mere opinions of the speaker. They would have borne witness to
no such thing as they reprobate having, till then, been allowed or
thought of. Or, had they been isolated statements, not borne out by
contemporaneous or antecedent documents, but standing alone,
uncontradicted indeed, but unsupported, they would still have told. How,
then, are we to express their weight, or the full assurance of faith
which they give us, as being the deliberate, oft-repeated, official
statements of a Pope, than whom there never was one more vigorous in
defending or in exercising the rights of his See? As being supported and
borne out, and in every possible way corroborated by the facts of
history, the decrees of Councils, the innumerable testimonies of all
parts of the world, the everyday life of the living, breathing Church for
six hundred years? In an early work, Mr. Newman had said, "What there is
not the shadow of a reason for saying that the Fathers held, what has not
the faintest pretensions of being a Catholic Truth, is this, that St.
Peter, and his successors, were and are universal Bishops; that they have
the whole of Christendom for their own diocese, in a way in which other
Apostles and Bishops had and have not."</p>
<p>In his last work he has retracted, saying, "Most true, if, in order
that a doctrine be considered Catholic, it must be formally stated by the
Fathers generally from the very first: but, on the same understanding,
the doctrine also of the Apostolic succession in the Episcopal order has
not the faintest pretensions of being a Catholic truth."<a name="NtA146"
href="#Nt146"><sup>[146]</sup></a></p>
<p>Now these words of Mr. Newman seem to imply that the expressions of
Fathers, or the decrees of Councils, look towards this presumed Catholic
truth, tend to it, and finally admit it, as a truth which they had been
all along implicitly holding, or unconsciously living upon, and at last
recognised and expressed. On the contrary, to my apprehension, they hold
another view about the See of Rome, and express it again and again. It is
not a point on which there is variation or inconsistency among them. I
have as clear a conviction as one can well have that St. Augustine did
<i>not</i> hold the Papal theory. I think the words that I have quoted
from him prove this. Moreover, the Fathers generally express a view about
other Bishops which is utterly incompatible with this theory as now
received, which by no process of development can be made to agree with
it. And I confess that I am unable to understand the meaning of words, if
this so-called "Catholic truth" of the Pope being the universal Bishop,
is not distinctly considered in these passages of St. Gregory, formally
repudiated for himself as well as for others, and the very notion
declared to be, in any case whatsoever, <i>that of the Pope being
specially named</i>, blasphemous and antichristian. Could heretics say
any thing of the kind against the doctrine of the Apostolical succession,
out of the first six centuries, they would have an advantage against the
Church, which, thank God, they are far from possessing.</p>
<p>And it is of no small importance that we have here speaking a Pope,
one to whom twelve centuries have given the name of Great, one who, with
St. Leo, stands forth out of the ancient line of St. Peter's heirs as an
especially legislative mind. Every Catholic is bound to take his words
without suspicion. Now St. Gregory asserts, as we have seen, the right of
his See to call <i>any</i> Bishop to account, even the four Patriarchs,
in case of a violation of the Canons; declaring at the same time that,
when the Canons are kept, the meanest Bishop is his equal in the
estimation of humility. Even while arguing against this title he says,
"To all who know the Gospel is manifest that the charge of the whole
Church was entrusted by the voice of the Lord to the holy Apostle
Peter,"—"and yet he is not called Universal Apostle;" but this
title, he asserts, and the theory implied in it, is devilish, an
imitation of Satan, an anticipation of Antichrist. What else can we
conclude but that which so many other documents prove, that this Primacy
over the whole Church, the ancient and undoubted privilege of the Bishop
of Rome, was something quite different from what he is here reprobating?
For St. Gregory, least of all men, was so blind as to use arguments which
might be retorted with full force against himself. And yet, any one
reading these words of his, and not knowing whence they came, would
suppose they were written by a professed opponent of the present Papal
claims. For in these letters St. Gregory acknowledges all the Patriarchs
as co-ordinate with himself, acknowledges our Lord to be sole Head of the
Church, declares the title of Universal Bishop blasphemous and
Antichristian, expressly on the ground that it is a wrong done to the
Universal Church, to every Bishop and Priest: "If one is universal, it
remains that you are not Bishops;" declares, moreover, that St. Peter
himself is only a member of the Universal Church, as St. Paul, St. John,
St. Andrew, were other members, the heads of different communities. This
may be said to be the precise logical contradictory of De Maistre's
assertion, that "the Pope" is "the Church," in which he assuredly only
expresses the Papal idea. Rarely, indeed, is it that any controversy,
appealing to ancient times, can have a testimony on all its details so
distinct, and specific, and authoritative as this: and yet it may be said
no more than to crown the testimony of the six centuries going before it.
That during this period the Bishop of Rome was recognised to be first
Bishop of the whole Church, of very great influence, successor of St.
Peter, and standing in the same relation to his brethren the Bishops that
St. Peter stood in to his brother Apostles; this, on the whole, I believe
to be the testimony of the first six centuries, such as a person, not
wilfully blind, and who was not content to take the witness of a Father
when it suited his purpose and pass it by when it did not, would draw
from ecclesiastical documents. I have set it forth to the best of my
ability, as well where it seemed to tell against the present position of
the Church of England, as in those many points in which it supports
her.</p>
<p>What then is our defence on her part against the charge of schism? It
is simply this. That no one can now be in the communion of Rome without
admitting this very thing which Pope Gregory declares to be blasphemous
and anti-Christian, and derogatory to the honour of every Priest. This is
the very head and front of our offending, that we refuse to allow that
the Pope is Universal Bishop. If the charge were that we refuse to stand
in the same relation to the Pope that St. Augustin of Canterbury stood in
to this very St. Gregory, that we refuse to regard and honour the
successor of St. Gregory with the same honour with which our Archbishops,
as soon as they were seated in the government of their Church, and were
no longer merely Missionaries but Primates, regarded the occupant of St.
Peter's See, I think both the separation three hundred years ago, and the
present continuance of it on our part, would, so far as this question of
schism is concerned, be utterly indefensible. But this is <i>not</i> the
point. It may indeed be, and frequently is, so stated by unfair
opponents. The real point is, that, during the nine hundred years which
elapsed between 596 and 1534 the power of the Pope, and his relation to
the Bishops in his communion, had essentially altered: had been, in fact,
placed upon another basis. That from being first Bishop of the Church,
and Patriarch, originally of the ten provinces under the Præfectus
Prætorii of Italy, then of France, Spain, Africa, and the West generally,
he had claimed to be the source and channel of grace to all Bishops, the
fountain-head of jurisdiction to the whole world, East as well as West;
in fact, the 'Solus Sacerdos,' the 'Universus Episcopus,' contemplated by
St. Gregory. There is a worldwide difference between the ancient
signature of the Popes, 'Episcopus Catholicæ Ecclesiæ Urbis Romæ,' and
that of Pope Pius at the Council of Trent, 'Ego Pius Catholicæ Ecclesiæ
Episcopus.' It has been no longer left in the choice of any to accept his
<i>Primacy</i>, without accepting his <i>Monarchy</i>, which those who
profess to follow antiquity must believe that the Bishops of Nicea,
Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, Augustin and Chrysostom, the West
and the East, would have rejected with the horror shown by St. Gregory at
the first dawning of such an idea. And, whereas Holy Scripture and
antiquity present us with one accordant view of the Universal Church
governed by St. Peter and the Apostolic College, and, during the first
six centuries at least, as the Bishop of Rome is seen to exercise the
Primacy of St. Peter, so his brother-Bishops stand to him as the College
of Apostles stood to St. Peter: instead of this, which is the Church's
divine hierarchy, instituted by Christ Himself, the actual Roman Church
is governed by one Bishop who has an apostolical independent power,
whilst all the rest, who should be his brethren, are merely his
delegates, receiving from his hand the investiture of such privileges as
they still retain. If St. Gregory did not mean this by the terms 'Solus
Sacerdos,' 'Universus Episcopus,' what did he mean? That the Pope should
be the only Priest who offered sacrifice, or the only Bishop who
ordained, confirmed, &c. is physically impossible. Nor did the title
of the Bishops of Constantinople tend to this: but to claim to themselves
jurisdiction over the co-ordinate Patriarchs of the East, as the Popes
have since done over the Bishops of the whole world. We have no need to
consider what is the amount of this difficulty to Roman Catholics
themselves: the same Providence which has placed them under that
obedience, has placed us outside of it. Our cause, indeed, cannot be
different now from what it was at the commencement of the separation. If
inherently indefensible then, it is so now. But if then 'severe but
just,' the lapse of three centuries in our separate state may materially
affect our relative duties. I affirm my conviction, that it is better to
endure almost any degree of usurpation, provided only it be not
anti-Christian, than to make a schism: for the state of schism is a
frustration of the purposes of the Lord's Incarnation; and through this,
not only the English, and the Eastern Church, but the Roman also, lies
fettered and powerless before the might of the world, and bleeding
internally at every pore. How shall a divided Church meet and overcome
the philosophical unbelief of these last times? or, the one condition to
which victory is attached being broken, crush the deadliest attack of the
old enemy? But the schism is made; let those answer for it before
Christ's tribunal who made it. Now that it is made, I see not how a
system, which is not a true development of the ancient Patriarchal
constitution, but its antagonist, according to St. Gregory's words, can
be forced upon us, on pain of our salvation, who have the original
succession of the ancient Bishops of this realm, if any such there be,
and the old Patriarchal constitution, 'sua tantum si bona norint.' I
ground our present position simply on the appeal to tradition and the
first six centuries.</p>
<p>Not that there is any abrupt break in the testimony of history there;
but it is necessary to put a limit somewhere. Otherwise the seventh
century supplies us with the remarkable fact of Pope Honorius condemned,
by the sixth Ecumenical Council in 681, as having connived at and
favoured the Monothelite heresy, condemned more than forty years after
his death; a fact which utterly destroys the new dogma of the
infallibility of the one Roman Pontiff by himself; and which Bellarmine
and Baronius can only meet by attempting to prove that the acts of the
sixth Council have been falsified, though they had been received for
genuine by the seventh and eighth Councils, and for nine hundred years;
and the letter of St. Leo, immediately after that Council, falsified
also, in which he condemns the Monothelites, and amongst them Honorius,
"who did not adorn this Apostolical See with the doctrine handed down
from the Apostles, but endeavoured to subvert the undefiled faith by a
profane tradition." The condemnation of the Council runs as
follows:—"Having examined the letters of Sergius of Constantinople
to Cyrus, and the answer of Honorius to Sergius, and having found them to
be repugnant to the doctrine of the Apostles, and to the opinion of all
the Fathers, in execrating their impious dogmas, we judge that their very
names ought to be banished from the Holy Church of God; we declare them
to be smitten with anathema; and, together with them, we judge that
Honorius, formerly Pope of ancient Rome, be anathematized, since we find,
in his letter to Sergius, that he follows in all respects his error, and
authorizes his impious doctrine."<a name="NtA147"
href="#Nt147"><sup>[147]</sup></a></p>
<p>It appears, likewise, that as the letter of St. Cyril was read and
approved in the third Council, and that of Pope St. Leo in the fourth, so
that of Pope St. Agathon was read and approved in the sixth, and that of
Pope Adrian the First in the seventh, <span class="scac">A.D.</span> 787.
But here it may be well to give Bossuet's summary. "This tradition"
(<i>i.e.</i> that the supreme authority in the Church resides in the
consent of the Bishops) "we have seen to come down from the Apostles, and
descend to the first eight General Councils; which eight General Councils
are the foundation of the whole Christian doctrine and discipline, of
which the Church venerates the first four, in St. Gregory's words, no
less than the four Gospels. Nor is less reverence due to the rest, as,
guided by the same Spirit, they have a like authority. Which eight
Councils, with a great and unanimous consent, have placed the final power
of giving decisions in nothing else but in the consent of the Fathers. Of
which the six last have legitimately examined the sentence of the Roman
Pontiff even given upon Faith, and that with the approval of the
Apostolic See, the question being put in this form, as we read in the
Acts—'Are these decrees right, or not?'</p>
<p>"But we have seen that the judgment of a General Council never was so
reconsidered, but that all immediately yielded obedience to it. Nor was a
new inquiry ever granted to anyone after that examination, but punishment
threatened. Thus acted Constantine; thus Marcian; thus Cœlestine;
thus Leo; thus all the rest, as we have seen in the Acts. The Christian
world hath acknowledged this to be certain and indubitable.</p>
<p>"To this we may add the testimony of the admirable Pope St. Gelasius:
'A good and truly Christian Council once held, neither can nor ought to
be unsettled by the repetition of a new Council.' And again: 'There is no
cause why a good Council should be reconsidered by another Council, lest
the mere reconsideration should detract from the strength of its
decrees.' Thus what has received the final and certain judgment of the
Church, is not to be reconsidered; for that judgment of the Holy Spirit
is reversed, whenever it is reconsidered by a fresh judgment. But the
judgment put forth by a Roman Pontiff is such, that it has been
reconsidered. It is not therefore that ultimate and final judgment of the
Church.</p>
<p>"Nor is that sentence of Gregory the Great less clear, comparing the
four General Councils to the four Gospels, with the reason given;
'Because being decreed by universal consent, whoever presumes either to
loose what they bind, or bind what they loose, destroys not them but
himself.'</p>
<p>"So then our question is terminated by the tradition of the ancient
Councils and Fathers. All should consent to the power of the Roman
Pontiff, as explained according to the decree of the Council of Florence,
after the practice of General Councils. The vast difference between the
judgment of a Council and of a Pontiff is evident, since after that of
the Council no question remains, but only the obedience of the mind
brought into captivity; but that of the Pontiff is upon examination
approved, room being given to object,—which was to be proved."<a
name="NtA148" href="#Nt148"><sup>[148]</sup></a></p>
<p>Here the real question at issue is, whether the Bishop of Rome be
First Bishop, or Monarch, of the Church. Now, I have endeavoured to
delineate, from the Fathers and from Councils, what the true Primacy of
the Roman See is. What is now required from us to admit as terms of
communion is—"That the ordinary jurisdiction of Bishops descends
immediately from the Pope;" "the government of the Church is monarchical,
therefore all authority resides in one, and from him is derived unto the
rest;" "there is a great difference between the succession to Peter and
that to the rest of the Apostles; for the Roman Pontiff properly succeeds
Peter not as Apostle, but as ordinary Pastor of the whole Church; and
therefore the Roman Pontiff has jurisdiction from Him from whom Peter had
it: but Bishops do not properly succeed the Apostles, as the Apostles
were not ordinary, but extraordinary, and, as it were, delegated Pastors,
to whom there is no succession. Bishops, however, are said to succeed the
Apostles, not properly in that manner in which one Bishop succeeds
another, and one king another, but in another way, which is two-fold.
First, in respect of the holy Order of the Episcopate; secondly, from a
certain resemblance and proportion: that is, as when Christ lived on
earth, the twelve Apostles were the first under Christ, then the
seventy-two Disciples: so now the Bishops are first under the Roman
Pontiff, after them Priests, then Deacons, &c. But it is proved that
Bishops succeed to the Apostles so, and not otherwise; for they have no
part of the true Apostolic authority. Apostles could preach in the whole
world, and found Churches ... this cannot Bishops." ... "Bishops succeed
to the Apostles in the same manner as Priests to the seventy-two
Disciples."<a name="NtA149" href="#Nt149"><sup>[149]</sup></a> Again:
"But, if the Supreme Pontiff be compared with the rest of the Bishops, he
is deservedly said to possess the plenitude of power, because the rest
have fixed regions over which they preside, and also a fixed power; but
he is set over the whole Christian world, and possesses, in its
completeness and plenitude, that power which Christ left on earth for the
good of the Church."<a name="NtA150" href="#Nt150"><sup>[150]</sup></a>
He proceeds to prove this by those passages of Scripture:—'Thou art
Peter,' &c.; 'Feed my sheep,' &c.; which we have seen St.
Augustin explaining as said to St. Peter in the person of the Church,
while he expressly denies that they are said to him merely as an
individual. "These keys not one man but the unity of the Church
received:" "he was not the only one among the Disciples who was thought
worthy to feed the Lord's sheep," &c. What Bellarmine here says, is,
assuredly, both the true Roman view, and moreover <i>absolutely necessary
to justify that Church in the attitude she assumes and the measures she
authorizes towards other parts of the Church. And if it be the ancient
Catholic doctrine, it does justify her</i>. That it is <i>not</i> the
ancient doctrine, I think I have already shown; but let us hear what
Bossuet says of it. "One objection of theirs remains to be explained,
that Bishops borrow their power and jurisdiction from the Roman Pontiff,
and therefore, although united with him in an Ecumenical Council, can do
nothing against the root and source of their own authority, but are only
present as his Counsellors; and that the force of the decree, as well in
matters of faith as in other matters, lies in the power of the Roman
Pontiff. Which fiction falls of itself to the ground, even from this,
that it was unheard of in the early ages, and began to be introduced into
theology in the thirteenth century; that is, after men preferred
generally to act upon philosophical reasonings, and those very bad,
before consulting the Fathers.<a name="NtA151"
href="#Nt151"><sup>[151]</sup></a></p>
<p>"But to this innovation is opposed, first, what is related in the Acts
of the Apostles respecting that Council of Apostles, which the letter of
St. Cœlestine to the Council of Ephesus, and the proceedings of the
fifth Ecumenical Council, proved to be as it were repeated and
represented in all other Councils. But if any one says that, in this
Council, the Apostles were not set by Christ to be true judges, but to be
the counsellors of Peter, he is too ridiculous.<a name="NtA152"
href="#Nt152"><sup>[152]</sup></a></p>
<p>"Secondly, is opposed that fact which we have proved, that the decrees
and judgments of Roman Pontiffs <i>de fide</i> were suspended by the
convocation of an Ecumenical Council, were reconsidered by its authority,
and were only approved and confirmed after examination made and judgment
given. Which things undoubtedly prove that they sat there not as
counsellors of the Pope, but as judges of Papal decrees.</p>
<p>"And they must indeed be legitimately called together, that they may
not meet tumultuously; but, when once called together, they judge by the
authority of the Holy Spirit, not of the Pope: they pronounce anathemas,
not by authority of the Pope, but of Christ; and we have seen this so
often pressed upon us by the Acts, that we are weary of repeating it.</p>
<p>"Add to this that expression of the first Council of Arles to St.
Sylvester: 'Had you judged together with us, our assembly had exulted
with greater joy:' and in the very heading of the Council to the same
Sylvester: 'What we have decreed with common consent, we signify to your
charity.' Relying then on this authority of their Priesthood, they judge
concerning most important matters; that is, the observation of the Lord's
passover, that it may be kept on one day all over the world: concerning
the non-iteration of Baptism, and the discipline of the Churches.
Instances of this kind occur everywhere. But it is a known fact, that
even by particular Councils, where the Pope presided, his decrees, even
when present, were examined and confirmed by consent; the Fathers equally
with him judged, decreed, defined, and we have seen this a thousand times
written on the Acts.</p>
<p>"But in a matter so clear, they have only one thing to object drawn
out of antiquity, the saying of St. Innocent, 'that Peter is the author
of the Episcopal name and honour.'<a name="NtA153"
href="#Nt153"><sup>[153]</sup></a> And again,<a name="NtA154"
href="#Nt154"><sup>[154]</sup></a> 'whence the Episcopate itself and all
the authority of that name sprung.' And of St. Leo,<a name="NtA155"
href="#Nt155"><sup>[155]</sup></a> 'If he willed that anything should be
enjoyed by the other heads (that is, the Apostles) in common with him
(Peter), he never gave save through Peter whatever he denied not to the
rest.' And elsewhere also, 'that Christ granted to the rest of the
Apostles the ministry of preaching on this condition, that he poured into
them, as into the whole body, his gifts from Peter, as from the head.'<a
name="NtA156" href="#Nt156"><sup>[156]</sup></a> Whence also came that
expression of Optatus of Milevi: 'For the good of unity, the blessed
Peter was thought worthy to be preferred to all the Apostles, and alone
received the keys of the kingdom of heaven to be imparted to the rest,'<a
name="NtA157" href="#Nt157"><sup>[157]</sup></a>—and that of
Gregory of Nyssa, 'Through Peter He gave to the Bishops the keys of
heavenly honours.'<a name="NtA158" href="#Nt158"><sup>[158]</sup></a> And
that of St. Cæsarius of Arles to Pope Symmachus: 'As from the person of
the blessed Apostle Peter the Episcopate takes its beginning, so is it
necessary that by suitable rules of discipline your Holiness should
plainly show to every Church what they ought to observe.'<a name="NtA159"
href="#Nt159"><sup>[159]</sup></a></p>
<p>"If they push these and such like expressions to the utmost, they will
come to assert that the Apostles were appointed by Peter, not by Christ,
or by Christ through Peter, but not by Him immediately and in person: as
if any other but Christ called the Apostles, sent them, and endued them
with heavenly power by the infusion of His Spirit; and Peter and not
Christ said: 'Go ye, teach, preach, baptize, receive, and, as My Father
sent me, even so send I you.'</p>
<p>"I am aware that John of Turrecremata, and a few others, thinking that
the words now quoted of St. Leo and others cannot be defended by them
sufficiently, unless the Apostles also received their jurisdiction from
St. Peter, have been hurried away even into this folly, against the most
manifest truth of the Gospel. Which fiction Bellarmine himself has
confuted.</p>
<p>"But this being the greatest absurdity, it will appear that what
follows is the teaching of the Fathers quoted.</p>
<p>"First; the episcopal authority and jurisdiction is contained in the
keys, and in the power of binding and loosing, which is clear of
itself.</p>
<p>"Secondly; it is evident from the Gospel History that Peter was the
first in whom that power was shown forth and appointed. For, although
Christ said to all the Apostles, 'Receive the Holy Ghost,' (John xx. 22,)
and 'whatsoever ye bind,' &c., 'whatsoever ye loose,' &c. (Matt,
xviii. 18); yet, what He said to Peter had gone before, 'I will give to
thee the keys,' &c. (Matt. xvi. 19).</p>
<p>"Thirdly; both these two, that is, both what was said to Peter and
what was said to the Apostles, proceed equally from Christ: for He who
said to Peter, 'I will give to thee,' and 'Whatsoever thou shalt bind,'
said also to the Apostles, 'Receive ye,' and 'Whatsoever ye shall
bind.'</p>
<p>"Fourthly; that is therefore true which Optatus says of Peter: 'For
the good of unity, he alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven,
to be imparted to the rest.' For, in truth, these which were given to
Peter in the 16th Matt. were to be imparted afterwards to the Apostles,
Matt. 18th, and John 20th, but to be imparted not by Peter, but by
Christ, as is clear.</p>
<p>"Fifthly; that also is true which Cæsarius says, 'The Episcopate takes
its beginning from Peter:' he being the first in whom, through the
ministry of binding and loosing, the Episcopal power was shown forth,
begun, entrusted.'</p>
<p>"Sixthly; hence, also, is true what Innocent says,—'that the
Episcopate, and all the authority of that name, sprung from Peter,'
because he, first of all, was appointed or set forth as Bishop.</p>
<p>"Seventhly; for this cause, Peter is called by the same Innocent the
author of the Episcopate; not that he instituted it,—not that the
Apostles received the power of binding and loosing from him,—for
the Scriptures everywhere exclaim against this; but that from him was
made the beginning of establishing that power among men, and of
appointing or marking out the Episcopate.</p>
<p>"Eighthly; to make this clearer, and that it may be easily perceived
what means that expression, 'through Peter,' which we read in Leo, we
must review the tradition of the ancient Church, drawn from the
Scriptures themselves.</p>
<p>"It is plain, then, that when the Lord asked the Apostles, 'Whom say
men that I, the Son of Man, am?' Peter, the chief of all, answered in the
person of all, 'Thou art the Christ:' and afterwards Christ said to
Peter, thus representing them, 'I will give to thee,'—'Whatsoever
thou shalt bind:' by which it appears that in these words, not Peter
only, but in Peter, their chief, and answering for all, all the Apostles
and their successors were endued with the Episcopal power and
jurisdiction.</p>
<p>"All which Augustin includes when he writes, 'All being asked, Peter
alone answered, Thou art Christ, and to him is said, I will give to thee,
&c., as if he alone received the power of binding and loosing, the
case really being, that he said that singly for all, and received this
together with all, as representing unity.'<a name="NtA160"
href="#Nt160"><sup>[160]</sup></a> Than which nothing can be
clearer."</p>
<p>He then quotes passages from St. Cyprian and St. Augustin, which I
have already brought; adding, "In Peter, therefore, singly, Cyprian
acknowledges that all Bishops were instituted, and not without reason;
the Episcopate, as he everywhere attests, being one in the whole world,
was instituted in one. And this was done to establish 'the origin of
unity beginning from one,' as he says.</p>
<p>"But most of all does Augustin set forth and inculcate the common
tradition. For, not content with having said that once in the place above
mentioned, he is very full in setting forth this view of that doctrine.
Hence he says, 'In Peter was the sacrament of the Church;'" and other
passages I have already quoted. "Whence, everywhere in his books against
the Donatists, he says, 'The keys are given to Unity.'</p>
<p>"The sum, then, is this. The Apostles and Pastors of Churches being
both one and many,—one, in ecclesiastical communion, as they feed
one flock; many, being distributed through the whole world, and having
allotted to them each their own part of the one flock; therefore, power
was given to them by a two-fold ratification of Christ: first, that they
may be one, in Peter their chief, bearing the figure and the person of
unity, to which has reference that saying in the singular number, 'I will
give to thee,' and 'Whatsoever thou shall bind,' &c.: secondly, that
they may be many, to which that has reference in the plural number,
'Receive ye,' and 'Whatsoever ye shall bind:' but both, personally and
immediately from Christ; since He who said, 'I will give to thee,' as to
one, also said, 'Receive ye,' as to many: nevertheless, that saying came
first, in which power is given to all, in that they are one: because
Christ willed that unity, most of all, should be recommended in His
Church.</p>
<p>"By this all is made clear; not only Bishops, but also Apostles, have
received the keys and the power from Christ, in Peter, and, in their
manner, through Peter, who, in the name of all, received that for all, as
bearing the figure and the person of all."</p>
<p>He then shows that this tradition had gone down even to his own times:
"This holy and apostolic doctrine of the Episcopal jurisdiction and power
proceeding immediately from, and instituted by, Christ, the Gallic Church
hath most zealously retained." "Therefore,<a name="NtA161"
href="#Nt161"><sup>[161]</sup></a> that very late invention, that Bishops
receive their jurisdiction from the Pope, and are, as it were, vicars of
him, ought to be banished from Christian schools, as unheard of for
twelve centuries."</p>
<p>It is precisely "this very late invention" which is urged against the
Church of England. Unless this be true, her position in itself, supposing
her to be clear of heresy, with which, at present, I have nothing to do,
is impregnable.</p>
<p>Such is the most Catholic interpretation by which Bossuet sets in
harmony with the teaching of all antiquity a few expressions, which are
all that I have been able to find that are even capable of being forced
into accordance with the present Papal system, and which, as soon as they
are so forced, contradict the whole history of Councils, and the whole
life of the most illustrious Fathers.</p>
<p>Now there is no doubt that Bellarmine's doctrine is the true logical
development of the Papal Theory; it alone has consistency and
completeness; it alone is the adequate expression of that prodigious
power which was allowed to enthrone itself in the Church during the
middle ages; it would fain account for it and justify it. Grant but its
postulate, that the Pope is the sole vicar of Christ, and all which it
requires must follow. On the other hand, that school which ranks Bossuet
at its head, and which sought to limit, in some degree, by the Canons the
power of the Roman Pontiff, and maintained that Bishops were, <i>jure
divino</i>, successors of the Apostles, in a real, not in a fictitious
sense, however well-founded in what it maintained on the one side, was
certainly inconsistent. It gave either too much or too little to the
Roman See;—too much, if its own declarations about the succession
of Bishops and the authority of General Councils be true, and founded in
antiquity, as we believe; too little, if the Pope be indeed the only
Vicar of Christ on earth, and the supreme Ruler of His Church; for then
these maxims put their partisans very nearly into the position of rebels,
and, in truth, brought the Gallican Church to the brink of a schism, in
1682. However this may be, that school is extinct; the ultramontane
theory alone has now life and vigour in the Roman Church. It seems to
absorb into itself all earnest and self-denying minds, while the other is
left to that treacherous conservatism which would use the Church of
Christ as a system of police, for the security of worldly interests. What
the ultramontane theory is, we see from Bellarmine. It proclaims that the
government of the Church is a monarchy, concentrating in one person all
the powers bestowed by Christ upon the Apostles. In this the student of
history is bound to declare that it stands in point-blank contradiction
to the decrees of General Councils, to the sentiments of the Fathers, and
the whole practice of the Church for the first six hundred years; for
much longer indeed than this, but this is enough. Well may Bossuet ask,
"if the infallible authority of the Roman Pontiff is of force by itself
before the consent of the Church,—to what purpose was it that
Bishops should be summoned from the farthest regions of the earth, at the
cost of such fatigues and expense, and Churches be deprived of their
Pastors, if the whole power resided in the Roman Pontiff? If what he
believed or taught was immediately the supreme and irrevocable law, why
did he not himself pronounce sentence? Or if he pronounced it, why are
Bishops called together and wearied out, to do again what is already
done, and to pass a judgment on the supreme judgment of the Church? Would
not this be fruitless? But all Christians have imbibed with their faith
the conviction, that, in important dissensions, the whole Church ought to
be convoked and heard. All therefore understand that the certain,
deliberate, and complete declaration of the truth is seated not in the
Pope alone, but in the Church spread everywhere."<a name="NtA162"
href="#Nt162"><sup>[162]</sup></a> "This too is certain, that when
General Councils have been holden, the sentence of the Roman Pontiff has
generally preceded them; for undoubtedly Celestine, Leo, Agatho, Gregory
the Second, Adrian the First, had pronounced sentence, when the third,
fourth, sixth, seventh Councils were held. What was desired therefore
was, not a Council for the Pontiff about to give judgment, but, after he
had given judgment, the force of a certain and insuperable
authority."</p>
<p>In fact, on this theory, as we have seen above, St. Cyprian, St.
Firmilian, St. Hilary of Arles, the African Bishops in 426, the Fathers
of Chalcedon in 451, in passing their famous 28th Canon, the Fathers of
Ephesus in 431, in passing their 8th, the Fathers of Constantinople in
381, in passing their 2d and 3d Canons, and in the synodal letter
addressed to the Pope and the Western Bishops, the Fathers of Nicea, in
passing their 6th, nay, all ancient Councils whatever, in all their form
and mode of proceeding, were the most audacious of rebels. But what are
we to say about the language of St. Gregory? Did he then betray those
rights of St. Peter, which he held dearer than his life? When he wrote to
Eulogius of Alexandria, "If your Holiness calls me Universal Pope, you
deny that you are yourself what you admit me to be—universal. But
this God forbid:" are we to receive Thomassin's explanation, that he
meant, as Patriarch, he was not universal, but, as Pope, he was, all the
time? or when he says to the same, "in rank you are my brother, in
character my father," was Eulogius at the same time, as Bellarmine will
have it, merely his deputy? "In the beginning, Peter set up the Patriarch
of Alexandria, and of Antioch, who, receiving authority from the Pontiff
(of Rome), presided over almost all Asia and Africa, and could create
Archbishops, who could afterwards create Bishops."<a name="NtA163"
href="#Nt163"><sup>[163]</sup></a> And this, it appears, is the key which
is to be applied to the whole history of the early Church. Those Bishops,
Metropolitans, Exarchs, and Patriarchs, throughout the East, who had such
a conviction of the Apostolic authority residing in themselves as
governors of the Church, who showed it in every Council in which they
sat, who expressed it so freely in their writings and letters: St.
Augustin, again, in the West, himself a host, who speaks of a cause
decided by the Roman Pontiff being reheard, of "the wholesome authority
of General Councils," who assents to St. Cyprian's proposition, that
"every Bishop can no more be judged by another, than he himself can judge
another," with the single limitation, "certainly, I imagine, in those
questions which have not yet been thoroughly and completely settled;"
who, in a question of disputed succession, which more than any other
required such a tribunal as the Papal, had it existed, appeals not to the
authority of the Roman See, but to the testimony of the whole Church
spread everywhere, not mentioning that See pre-eminently; or when he does
mention "the See of Peter, in which Anastasius now sits," mentioning
likewise "the See of James, in which John now sits:"—all these were
nothing more, at the same time, than the Pope's delegates, and received
through him their jurisdiction.</p>
<p>Can a claim be true which is driven to shifts such as this for its
maintenance? Or can the truth of Christianity and the unity of the Church
rest upon a falsehood? Is infidelity itself in such "a hopeful
position,"<a name="NtA164" href="#Nt164"><sup>[164]</sup></a> as regards
Christianity, that it is really come to this, that we must either receive
a plain and manifest usurpation, or be cast out of the house and kingdom
of God? That we must reject the witness and history of the first six
hundred years of the Church's life on the one hand, or be plunged into
the abyss of infidelity on the other? If it be true that the Pope is
Monarch of the Church, which is the present Papal theory, the Church of
England is in schism. If it be not true, she is at least clear of that
fatal mark. All that is required for her position is the maintenance of
that Nicene Constitution which we have heard St. Leo solemnly declare was
to last to the end of the world, viz. that every province of the Church
be governed by its own Bishops under its own Metropolitan. And who then
but will desire that the successor of St. Peter should hold St. Peter's
place? Will the Patriarch of Constantinople, or the Archbishop of Moscow,
or the Primate of Canterbury, so much as think of assuming it? Be this
our answer when we are accused of not really holding that article of the
Creed "one Catholic and Apostolic Church." Let the Bishop of Rome require
of us that honour and power which he possessed at the Synod of Chalcedon,
<i>that, and not a totally different one under the same name</i>, and we
shall be in schism when we do not yield it. At present we have no farther
separated from him than to fall back on the constitution of the Church of
the Martyrs and the Fathers.</p>
<p>But, it may be said, is the Catholic Church unanimous on the one hand,
and the Anglican communion, restricted to one small province, left alone
in her protest on the other? Did not she, whom they would call "the
already decrepit rebel of three hundred years," submit from 596 to 1534
to that very authority which she now denies? It would be quite beyond my
present limits to trace, as I had first purposed, the Roman Bishop's
power from that point at which it stood when St. Gregory sent our Apostle
Augustin into England, to that point which it had reached in the
thirteenth century, and which it strove to maintain in the sixteenth. I
can only now very briefly point out a few of the steps in that most
wonderful rise. The two centuries, then, which succeeded St. Gregory,
were even more favourable to this growth than those which went before.
While the confusion and violence of secular governments by the breaking
in and settlement of the various northern tribes were greater than
ever,—while the ecclesiastical constitution was all that yet held
together the scattered portions of the shattered Western empire—the
single Apostolical See of the West, whose Bishop was in constant
correspondence with the spiritual rulers of these various countries,
whose voice was ever and anon heard striving to win and soften into mercy
and justice those temporal rulers, would be, as it were, "a light shining
in a dark place." The Bishops, everywhere miserably afflicted by their
own sovereigns, found a stay and support in one beyond the reach of the
feudal lord's violence. The benefit they thus derived from the Roman
Patriarch was so great, that they would be disposed to overlook the
gradual change which was ensuing in the relation between themselves and
him, the deference which was deepening into subjection. Or, if here and
there, what Leo would have called "a presumptuous spirit," such as
Hincmar of Rheims, or our own Grossetête, in after times, set himself
against the stream, it would all be in vain. However good his cause might
be, if he did not yield, he would be beaten down like St. Hilary of
Arles. Moreover, as the great heresy of Mahomet invaded and hemmed in
three of the Patriarchal Sees of the East, their counterpoise to the
originally great influence of the Roman See was removed. Political
separation from the East, and the difficulty of communication, would of
themselves greatly tend to this result. To this must be added the great
increase of power which the house of Charlemagne, for their own political
purposes, bestowed on the Roman See; it was worth while building up a
popedom for an imperial crown. De Maistre says, "The Popes reign since
the ninth century at least."<a name="NtA165"
href="#Nt165"><sup>[165]</sup></a> But it is a somewhat naïve confession,
"The French had the singular honour, one of which they have not been at
all sufficiently proud, of having set up, humanly, the Catholic Church in
the world, by raising its august head to the rank indispensably due to
his divine functions; and without which he would only have been a
Patriarch of Constantinople, miserable puppet of Christian sultans, and
Musulman autocrats." Just, too, when it was most difficult to detect
imposture, and to refer to the acts of ancient Councils, that singular
counterfeit of the false decretals made its appearance, which so
wonderfully helped the Roman Patriarchs in consolidating the manifold
structure of their authority. This, indeed, assailed the Bishops of the
West by their most reverential feelings, and added to the force of a
great present authority, almost always beneficially exercised, the weight
of what seemed an Apostolical tradition. Besides these causes, the Popes
found in the several monastic orders throughout Europe the most unceasing
and energetic pioneers of their power. From the very first there appears
to have existed a desire to exchange the present superintendence of the
local Bishop for the distant authority of the Pope. The great orders,
indeed, were themselves so many suspensions of the Episcopal system. With
reason do the statues of their founders adorn the nave of St. Peter's,
not only as witnesses of the Church's exuberant life, but as those whose
hands, more than any others, have helped to rear that colossal central
power, of which that fane is the visible symbol. Thus the Papal structure
was so gradually built upon the Patriarchal, that no one age could
accurately mark where the one ended and the other began, but all may see
the finished work. It requires no microscopic eye to distinguish the
authority of St. Leo or St. Gregory from that of St. Innocent the Third.
The poet spake of a phantom what is true of a great reality:—</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="i8">"Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo,</p>
<p>Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>That power, for which the heroic and saintly Hildebrand died in
exile,<a name="NtA166" href="#Nt166"><sup>[166]</sup></a> if exile there
could be to him who received the heathen for his inheritance, and the
utmost parts of the earth for his possession; for which our own St.
Anselm, forced against his will to the Primacy, stood unquailing in the
path of the Red King, most furious, if not the worst, of that savage
race, whose demon wrath seemed to justify the fable of their origin; for
which St. Bernard, the last of the Fathers in age, but equal to the first
in glory, wrote and laboured, and wore himself out with vigils, and
wrought miracles; for which our own St. Thomas shed that noble blood,
which sanctifies yet our primatial Church, an earnest of restoration and
freedom to come; that power, for which St. Francis, the spouse of holy
poverty, so long neglected since her First Husband ascended up on high,
and St. Dominic—</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="i16">l' amoroso drudo</p>
<p>Della fede Cristiana, il santo atleta,</p>
<p>Benigno a' suoi, ed a' nemici crudo;<a name="NtA167" href="#Nt167"><sup>[167]</sup></a></p>
</div>
</div>
<p>and one greater yet, the warrior saint, Ignatius, raised their myriads
of every age and of both sexes, armed in that triple mail of poverty,
chastity, and obedience, "of whom the world was not worthy;"—that
power, to which have borne witness so many saintly Bishops, poor in the
midst of poverty, and humble in the exercise of more than royal
power,—so many scholars, marvellously learned,—so many,
prodigal of labour and blood, who are now counted among the noble army of
martyrs,—so many holy women, who have hidden themselves under the
robe of the first of all saints, and followed the Virgin of virgins in
their degree;—that power is, indeed, the most wondrous creation
which history can record, and one to which I am not ashamed to confess
that I should bow with unmingled reverence, had not truth a yet stronger
claim upon me, and did not the voice of the early Church, its Fathers,
Councils, and Martyrs, sound distinctly in my ears another language.
Still, human and divine, ambition and Providence, are so mingled there,
that I would not utter a word more than truth requires. I should even be
compelled to give up the strongest individual conviction, acknowledging
the weakness and liability to err of any private judgment; acknowledging,
moreover, that a single province of the Church, if opposed to all the
rest, is certain to be in error, were it not that, besides the voice of
antiquity, we have witnesses the most legitimate, the most time-honoured,
the most unswerving in their testimony,—witnesses who take away
from our opponents their proudest claim,—nay, a claim which, if
real, would be irresistible,—that of being, by themselves, the
Catholic Church.</p>
<p>Let it never, then, be forgotten, that any argument which would prove
the Church of England to be in schism would condemn likewise the Eastern
and Russian Church. It is not the Catholic Church against a revolted
province, as our adversaries would have us believe; it is the one
Patriarch of the West, with his Bishops, against the four Patriarchs of
the East, with theirs, and that great and, as yet, unbroken phalanx of
the North, which Constantinople won to the faith of old, and which now
promises to beat back the tide of heresy and infidelity from the
beleaguered Sees of the East. On this point of schism, at least, they
bear witness with us. The causes, adverted to above, which were so
influential in exalting the great fabric of Roman power in the West, did
not act upon the East,—nay, acted in the inverse direction. The See
of Constantinople still remains where the Council of Chalcedon placed it,
where the Emperor Justinian recognised it to be, the second See of the
world: and it has ever since refused to admit that Rome was <i>first</i>
in any sense in which itself was not <i>second</i>. This may serve to set
in a clear light the vast difference between the legitimate power of the
First See, and the claim to give jurisdiction to all Bishops. The
systems, of which these are expressions, are in truth antagonistic.
Constantinople maintains still that constitution of the whole Church
which St. Gregory accused its Bishops of undermining. The evil which he
foresaw has come from his own successors: "the cause of Almighty God, the
cause of the Universal Church," the privileges and rights of Bishops and
Priests, as against one "Universal Pope," are borne witness to now, as
they have ever been, by the immutable East. Here, at least, are no
sympathies with the heresiarchs of the sixteenth century: the Synod of
Bethlehem has anathematised Luther and Calvin as decidedly as the Council
of Trent. Here was no Henry the Eighth fixing his supremacy on a
reluctant Church by the axe, the gibbet, the stake, and laws of premunire
and forfeiture: no State using that Church as a cat's-paw for three
hundred years, and ready now to offer it up a holocaust to the demon of
liberalism. Here is the ancient Patriarchal system, the thrones of
Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, subsisting still.
Here is the same body of doctrine, the same seven sacraments, the same
Real Presence, the same mighty sacramental and sacerdotal system, which
Latitudinarian and Evangelical, statesman and heretic, dread while they
hate, as being indeed the visible presence of Christ in a fallen
world,—the residence of a spiritual power which controls and
torments the worldling, while it disproves and falsifies the heretic.
Here is all that the Roman Catholic claims as tokens of the truth for
himself: but there is one thing more, the same protest that we make
against the monarchical, as distinct from the patriarchal, power, the
same appeal back to early Councils, and the unambiguous voice of those
who cannot be silenced or corrupted, the Fathers of the Church. In the
Fathers of the undivided Church, the East and the North and the West, so
long severed, meet: we are not alone, who have with us, on the very point
which divides us from our Mother Church, the still unbroken line of
successors from St. Athanasius and St. Chrysostom. There is no break in
the descent or in the doctrine of the Eastern Churches. There is the same
dogmatic, the same hierarchical fabric, subsisting now as when St.
Gregory addressed Anastasius of Antioch, and Eulogius of Alexandria. It
may suit the purposes of unfair Roman controversialists to brand them as
schismatics, and overcome, by calling them a name, their own most
formidable opponents: but history cannot be so overcome. They have
<i>never</i> admitted the Papal sway, any more than the Fathers who
passed the 28th Canon of Chalcedon: they have, indeed, admitted the Roman
<i>Primacy</i>, as those same Fathers admitted it; for the very system,
for which they are witnesses, is not complete without the Bishop of Rome
stands at the head of it: the <i>due</i> honour of Rome is involved in
the due honour of Constantinople; and, we may add, the due honour of
Canterbury: the same temper, the same persons, who reject the one, hate
the other. What we say they never have admitted is, that which has really
worked the disunion of the Universal Church, as St. Gregory foretold it
would, the doctrine which is the centre of the present Papal system,
which alone makes all its parts cohere, and justifies all its acts, and
triumphs over all appeal to argument, and all testimonies of antiquity,
viz., that, "the Pope is set over the whole Christian world, and
possesses in its completeness and plenitude that power which Christ left
on earth for the good of the Church."<a name="NtA168"
href="#Nt168"><sup>[168]</sup></a> They have never for a moment admitted
that the Bishops of the Universal Church were the Pope's delegates, and
received their jurisdiction from him. <i>We</i> fight, it must be
admitted, at some disadvantage with our opponents. The long subjection
which our Church yielded to Rome, the manifold obligations under which we
lie to her, the complete unsettling of the ecclesiastical and doctrinal
system in the sixteenth century, the horrible vices of those who effected
the change, the connection with those whose doctrine has now worked
itself out into Socinianism, infidelity, and anarchy, the inability we
have ever since been under of shaking ourselves completely clear of them,
the thoroughly unsatisfactory position of the state towards us, as a
Church, at present,—all these things are against us,—all
these things tell on the mind which really lives and dwells on antiquity,
and looks to the pure Apostolic Church. Still, though they weaken, they
do not overcome our cause. But from all these objections the witness of
the Eastern Churches is free. They were never subject to Rome, but to
their own Patriarchs; they derived not their Christianity from her: the
Priesthood, and the pure unbloody sacrifice, and the power to bind and to
loose, remain undisputed among them: the Eastern mind cannot conceive a
Church without them. They have received no reformation from those whose
lives were a scandal to all Christian men: they are not mixed up with the
Lutheran or Calvinistic heresy: nor has Erastianism eaten out their life.
Yet, if we are schismatics, so are they, and on the same ground. Moreover
the Roman Church has again and again treated with them as parts of the
true Church. It is only in comparatively modern times, that as the hope
of re-union became fainter, the line of denying their being members of
the One Body has been taken up. I have seen even so late as the time of
Clement the Eighth a letter of that Pope to the Czar, in which he treats
him as already belonging to the Church. Moreover the Eastern Church has
put forth the best and most convincing sign of Catholicity, <i>life</i>:
to her, <i>since her separation from Rome</i>, and to this particular
attention must be claimed, is due the most remarkable conversion of a
great nation to the Faith which has taken place in the last eight hundred
years—Russia with her Bishops, her clergy, her monasteries, her
convents, her Christian people, her ancient discipline, her completely
organised Church system, her whole country won from Paganism by the
preaching of Monks and Missionary Bishops, is a witness to the Greek
Church (which who shall gainsay?) that she is a true member of the One
Body. The Patriarch of Constantinople exercised that charge which the
Council of Chalcedon gave him, and ordained Bishops among the barbarians,
and the Spirit of God blessed their labours, and the whole North became
his spiritual offspring. Rome cannot show, since she has been divided
from the East, a conversion on so large a scale, so complete, so
permanent. And on that great mass she has hitherto made no impression. It
is a complete refutation of her claim to be <i>by herself</i> Catholic,
that there exists out of her communion a Body of Apostolic descent and
government, with the same doctrinal system as her own, with the ascetic
principle as strongly developed, with the same claim to
miracles,—with all, in fact, which characterises a Church; a Body,
moreover, so large, that, supposing the non-existence of the Roman
Communion, the promises of God in Scripture to His Church might be
supposed to be fulfilled in that Body.<a name="NtA169"
href="#Nt169"><sup>[169]</sup></a> And this Body, like ourselves, denies
that particular Roman claim, for which Rome would have us and them to be
schismatic. And it has denied it not merely for three hundred years, but
from the time that it has been advanced. Truly all that was deficient on
our side seems made up by the Greek Church. And this living and
continuous witness of a thousand years is to be added to that most
decisive and unambiguous voice of the whole undivided ancient Church.</p>
<p>I have, throughout these remarks, considered the Church of Christ to
be what, at the Councils of Nicea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, she so
manifestly appeared, one organic whole; a Body, with One Head, and many
members; as St. Gregory says, Peter, and Paul, and Andrew, and John; a
kingdom with One Sovereign, and rulers, an Apostolic College appointed by
that Head, with a direct commission from Himself. I believe that no other
idea about the Church prevailed up to St. Gregory's time. It follows that
all so-called national churches, unless they be subordinate to the law of
this kingdom, are so many infringements of the great primary law of
unity, in that they set up a member instead of the Body. St. Paul, in the
12th chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, has clearly set forth
such, and no less, to be the unity of Christ's Body. Certainly it is a
difficulty, that we must admit this essential law to be at present
broken. But I do not think it fair to argue against a provisional and
temporary state, such as that of the Church of England is confessed to
be—which, too, has been forced upon her—as if it were a
normal state, one that we have chosen, a theory of unity that we put
forth over against the ancient theory, or the present Roman one. Nay,
thousands and ten thousands feel, the whole rising mind of the Church
feels, that we are torn "from Faith's ancient home," that we groan within
ourselves, waiting until God in his good time restore a visible unity to
His Church, till the East and the West and the South be one again in the
mind of Christ. Who but must view it as a token of that future blessing,
that public prayers have been offered up in France and Italy for such a
consummation? Let us begin to pray for each other, and we must end by
being one. Let <i>us</i>, too, pray that the clouds of error and
prejudice, the intense blind jealousy on one side, the cruel and
disingenuous temper on the other, may be subdued by the Spirit of God,
who in some great and blessed Pentecost shall draw long alienated hearts
together, and mould them into a union closer than has ever been, against
an attack the last and most terrible of the foretold enemy, the tokens of
whose coming are at hand.</p>
<p>But the Roman Catholic, who seems to escape this difficulty, and
points to his communion as one organic whole, falls into another. Grant
that it is one, but it is at the expense of ceasing to be Catholic: it
has lost all the East and the North, and part of the West. Thus, in this
choice between difficulties, it seems the least to suppose that the unity
of Christendom may be for a time suspended, during which the several
parts of Christ's Body retain communion with the one Head, and thence
derive life, though active communion with each other is suspended. A less
difficulty, I say, than to cut off, not merely our own Church, but the
seventy millions of the Eastern Church, having a complete inward identity
with the Roman, from the covenant of salvation, merely because that
intercommunion is prevented by a claim to spiritual monarchy, which was
unknown in the best ages of the Church, and has been resisted ever since
it was set up. If this view be true, we should expect that the several
parts, though living, would yet be languishing, and far from that healthy
vigour which they ought to possess; that the Great Head would give
manifold warnings of the injury done to His Body. Now, it is very
remarkable that the circumstances, no less of the Latin than of the
Eastern and the Anglican Church, exactly agree to this expectation. I
need not speak on this point of the second and third; but I cannot help
thinking that they who have suffered themselves to be driven by fearful
scandals out of our bosom, who have brooded over acknowledged but
unrelieved wants, till the duty of patient long-suffering has been
forgotten, close their eyes to the state of France, Spain, and Italy,
under what they have now learnt to call <i>by itself</i> the "Catholic"
Church. Yet are there tokens abroad which men of less spiritual
discernment might lay to heart. Does the "obscene rout" of Ronge and
Czerski, bursting forth from the bosom of the Roman Church, awake no
misgiving? Fearful, when viewed by Scripture and antiquity, as the state
of England is, (an argument which is now being used against our communion
with such effect on tender and loving minds,) he must be bold who would
venture to say that the relation of the French Church to the French
nation in the last century, or its relation even now, greatly as the
present French Church is to be admired and sympathised with, does not
offer as much ground for fearful apprehension, as much reason to dread,
lest the terms on which victory is promised to the Church over the world
have been essentially broken. I fear there is no doubt that two-thirds of
the French capital are not <i>Christian</i>, in any sense of the word;
and probably the proportion is as great in the larger towns. How did this
state of things arise? How has nearly the whole intellect of that country
become infidel? From the French Revolution, it will be answered. But how
could that great Satanical outburst have ever taken place, had the Church
of Christ, free from corruption, as those who have left us believe, and
throned in the possession of sixteen hundred years, with its numberless
religious houses, its unmarried clergy, and great episcopate, been
discharging its functions, I do not say aright, but with any moderate
efficiency? Surely the acts of the States General were as bad as those of
Henry the Eighth; yet its members were Catholics, in full communion with
the Roman See. Surely the ecclesiastical legislation of Napoleon was as
uncatholic as that of a House of Commons; yet it was sanctioned by
Concordat with the Pope. But if manifold corruptions did not unchurch the
Gallican communion in the last century,—if the mass of a great
nation, which the Church once completely possessed, but has now
surrendered to active unbelief, does not invalidate her claim to be a
pure communion at present, why are such things alleged as so fatal a mark
against us? God forbid that one should mention such things without the
deepest sorrow; but when our troubles, and difficulties, and relations
with the state, and the alienated hearts of our people, and the absence
of external discipline and inward guidance, and the misery of our
divisions, are alleged to prove that we are out of the pale of the
Church, these things ought to be weighed on the other side. There ought
not to be different measures on different sides of the Channel. I forbear
to speak of the state of Spain, Portugal, and much of Italy; but I
imagine that the worst deeds of the Reformation were at least paralleled
by what the Church has had to endure there from the hands of her own
children. I believe that our own most sad corruptions have, too, their
counterpart among Churches in communion with the Apostolic See.</p>
<p>But to conclude. As our defence against the charge of Schism rests
upon the witness of the ancient Church, thus fully corroborated by the
Eastern Communion, so our whole safety lies in maintaining the clear
indubitable doctrine of that Church. I have avoided the whole question of
<i>doctrine</i> in these remarks, both as leading me into a wider field
than that which I am obliged to traverse so cursorily at present, and as
distinct from the question of Schism, though very closely connected with
it. No one can deny that it is not sufficient for our safety to repel one
single charge: but this charge was the most pressing, the most specious,
and one which requires to be disposed of before the mind can with
equanimity enter upon any other. My conclusion is, that upon the
strictest Church principles,—in other words, upon those principles
which all Christendom, in its undivided state, recognised for six hundred
years, which may be seen in the Canons and Decrees of Ecumenical
Councils, our present position is tenable at least till the convocation
of a really Ecumenical Council. The Church of England has never rejected
the communion of the Western, and still less that of the Eastern Church:
neither has the Eastern Church pronounced against her. She has only
exercised the right of being governed by her own Bishops and
Metropolitans. There is, indeed, much peril of her being forced from
this, her true position,—a peril lately pointed out by the author
of "The real Danger of the Church of England." I need say little where he
has said so much, in language so well-timed, so moderate, and from a
position which cannot be misrepresented. I will only add, that I cannot
conceive any course which would so thoroughly quench the awakened hopes
of the Church's most faithful children, as that her rulers, which I am
loth even to imagine, at a crisis like the present, should seek support,
not in the rock of the ancient Church, in which Andrewes, Laud, and Ken,
took refuge of old,—not in the unbroken tradition of the East and
West, by which, if at all, the Church of Christ must be
restored,—not in that great system which first subdued and then
impregnated with fresh life the old Roman Empire, delaying a fall which
nothing could avert, and which lastly built up out of these misshapen
ruins all the Christian polities of Europe,—not in that
time-honoured and universal fabric of doctrine to which our own
Prayer-book bears witness, but in the wild, inconsistent, treacherous
sympathies of a Protestantism, which the history of three hundred years
in many various countries has proved to be dead to the heart's core.
Farewell, indeed, to any true defence of the Church of England, any hope
of her being built up once more to an Apostolical beauty and glory, of
recovering her lost discipline and intercommunion with Christendom, if
she is by any act of her rulers, or any decree of her own, to be mixed up
with the followers of Luther, Calvin, or Zuingle: with those who have
neither love, nor unity, nor dogmatic truth, nor sacraments, nor a
visible Church among themselves: who, never consistent but in the depth
of error, and the secret instinct of heresy, deny regeneration in
Baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation and Orders, and
the power of the keys in absolution, and the Lord's Body in the
Eucharist. That is the way of death: who is so mad as to enter on it?
When Protestantism lies throughout Europe and America a great disjointed
mass, in all the putridity of dissolution,</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, <i>cui lumen ademptum</i>,"</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>judicially blinded, so that it cannot perceive Christ dwelling in his
Church, while she grows to the measure of the stature of the perfect man,
and making her members and ministers His organs—who would think of
joining to it a living Church? Have we gone through so much experience in
vain? Have we seen it develop into Socinianism at Geneva, and utter
unbelief in Germany, and a host of sects in England and America, whose
name is Legion, and who seem to be agreed in nothing else but in the
denial of sacramental grace, and visible unity; and all this at the last
hour, in the very turning point of our destiny, to seek alliance with
those who have no other point of union but common resistance to the
tabernacle of God among men? A persuasion that nothing short of the very
existence of the Church of England is at stake, that one step into the
wrong will fix her character and her prospects for ever, compels one to
say that certain acts and tendencies of late have struck dismay into
those who desire above all things to love and respect their spiritual
mother. If the Jerusalem Bishopric, promoted, (at the instance of a
foreign minister, not in communion with our Church,<a name="NtA170"
href="#Nt170"><sup>[170]</sup></a> and who has recorded in the strongest
terms his objection to <i>her</i> apostolical episcopacy,) by two Bishops
on their private responsibility, without any authority from the Church of
which they are indeed most honoured, but only individual rulers, be the
commencement of a course of amalgamation with the Lutheran or Calvinistic
heresy, who that values the authority of the ancient undivided Church,
will not feel his allegiance to our own branch fearfully shaken? The time
for silence is past. There is such a thing as "propter vitam vivendi
perdere causas." It must be said publicly that such a course will lead
infallibly to a schism, which will bury the Church of England in its
ruins. If she is to become a mere lurking-place for omnigenous
latitudinarianism; if first principles of the faith, such as baptismal
regeneration, and priestly absolution, may be indifferently held or
denied within her pale,—though, if not God's very truths, they are
most fearful blasphemies,—the sooner she is swept away the better.
There is no mean between her being "a wall daubed with untempered
mortar," or the city of the living God. I speak as one who has every
thing commonly valuable to man depending on this decision; moreover, as a
Priest in that communion, whose constitution, violently suspended by an
enemy for one hundred and thirty years, yet requires that every one of
her acts, which bind her as a whole, should be assented to by her
Priesthood in representation, as well as by her Episcopacy. If the grace
of the sacraments may be publicly denied by ministers of the Church, nay,
by a Bishop ex cathedrâ, with impunity, in direct violation of the most
solemn forms to which they have sworn obedience, while the assertion of
Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist draws down censure on the most
devoted head, the communion which endures such iniquity requires the
constant uninterrupted intercession of her worthier children, that she be
not finally forsaken of God, and perish at the first attack of
antichrist.</p>
<p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
<hr class="full" />
<h3>R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.</h3>
<p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
<hr class="full" />
<h2>NOTES</h2>
<div class="note">
<p><a name="Nt1" href="#NtA1">[1]</a> Bellarmin. de Rom. Pont. Lib. iv.
25; iv. 24; i. 9.</p>
<p><a name="Nt2" href="#NtA2">[2]</a> De Maistre, du Pape. Liv. i. ch.
i.</p>
<p><a name="Nt3" href="#NtA3">[3]</a> S. Cyprian de Unit. Ecc. 12.</p>
<p><a name="Nt4" href="#NtA4">[4]</a> "Development," &c. p. 22.</p>
<p><a name="Nt5" href="#NtA5">[5]</a> Thomassin, Part i. lib. i. ch. 4.
De l'ancienne discipline de l'Eglise.</p>
<p><a name="Nt6" href="#NtA6">[6]</a> St. Cypr. de Unit. 4. Oxford
Tr.</p>
<p><a name="Nt7" href="#NtA7">[7]</a> Quoted by Thomassin, <i>ut
sup.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt8" href="#NtA8">[8]</a> Ibid.</p>
<p><a name="Nt9" href="#NtA9">[9]</a> S. Aug. Tom. v. 706, B.</p>
<p><a name="Nt10" href="#NtA10">[10]</a> S. Chrys. Tom. ii. 594, B.</p>
<p><a name="Nt11" href="#NtA11">[11]</a> St. Jerome, tom. ii. 279,
Vallarsi.</p>
<p><a name="Nt12" href="#NtA12">[12]</a> Development, p. 279.</p>
<p><a name="Nt13" href="#NtA13">[13]</a> The words in italics are left
out by Mr. N.</p>
<p><a name="Nt14" href="#NtA14">[14]</a> Thomassin, Part i. liv. i. ch.
iii.</p>
<p><a name="Nt15" href="#NtA15">[15]</a> Of a passage in this letter, De
Maistre says (Du Pape, liv. i. ch. 6): "Resuming the order of the most
marked testimonies which present themselves to me on the general
question, I find, first, St. Cyprian declare, in the middle of the third
century, that heresies and schisms only existed in the Church because all
eyes were not turned towards the Priest of God, towards the Pontiff who
judges in the Church <i>in the place of Jesus Christ</i>." A pretty
strong testimony, indeed, and one which would go far to convince me of
the fact. Pity it is, that when one refers to the original, one finds
that St. Cyprian is actually speaking of himself, and of the consequences
of any where setting up in a see a schismatical Bishop against the true
one. After this, who will trust De Maistre's facts without testing them?
The truth is, he had taken the quotation at second hand, and never looked
to see to whom it was applied. It suited the Pope so admirably that it
must have been meant for him. But I recommend no one to change their
faith upon the authority of quotations which they do not test.</p>
<p><a name="Nt16" href="#NtA16">[16]</a> Epist. 67. De Marciano
Arelatensi.</p>
<p><a name="Nt17" href="#NtA17">[17]</a> S. Cyp. Ep. 29.</p>
<p><a name="Nt18" href="#NtA18">[18]</a> Ep. 73.</p>
<p><a name="Nt19" href="#NtA19">[19]</a> Ep. 74.</p>
<p><a name="Nt20" href="#NtA20">[20]</a> De Unit. Ecc. Oxf. Tr.</p>
<p><a name="Nt21" href="#NtA21">[21]</a> Op. St. Cypr. p. 329. ed.
Baluz.</p>
<p><a name="Nt22" href="#NtA22">[22]</a> Tom. ix. p. 110.</p>
<p><a name="Nt23" href="#NtA23">[23]</a> S. Cyp. Ep. 75.</p>
<p><a name="Nt24" href="#NtA24">[24]</a> Liv. VII. sec. 32.</p>
<p><a name="Nt25" href="#NtA25">[25]</a> Tom. ix. 97. G.</p>
<p><a name="Nt26" href="#NtA26">[26]</a> Tom. ii. 96. F.</p>
<p><a name="Nt27" href="#NtA27">[27]</a> Tom. ii. 299. C.</p>
<p><a name="Nt28" href="#NtA28">[28]</a> Fleury, liv. vii. 23.</p>
<p><a name="Nt29" href="#NtA29">[29]</a> Ep. 68. S. Cypriani.</p>
<p><a name="Nt30" href="#NtA30">[30]</a> Liv. i. ch. 2, sect. 5.</p>
<p><a name="Nt31" href="#NtA31">[31]</a> Liv. i. ch. 3, sect. 8.</p>
<p><a name="Nt32" href="#NtA32">[32]</a> Fleury, Liv. xii. xxix. Conc.
Sard. Can. 3, 4, 7.</p>
<p><a name="Nt33" href="#NtA33">[33]</a> Thomassin, Part I. liv. i. ch.
40. sect. 2.</p>
<p><a name="Nt34" href="#NtA34">[34]</a> Idem, ut supra.</p>
<p><a name="Nt35" href="#NtA35">[35]</a> St. Aug. Tom. V. 1097. B.</p>
<p><a name="Nt36" href="#NtA36">[36]</a> Tom. IV. 1215. E.</p>
<p><a name="Nt37" href="#NtA37">[37]</a> Tom. V. 240. F.</p>
<p><a name="Nt38" href="#NtA38">[38]</a> Tom. V. 1194. E.</p>
<p><a name="Nt39" href="#NtA39">[39]</a> Tom. V. 1195. E.</p>
<p><a name="Nt40" href="#NtA40">[40]</a> Tom. III. Part ii. 800. G.</p>
<p><a name="Nt41" href="#NtA41">[41]</a> He allows that Peter <i>may</i>
be called the rock. Tom. i. 32, E.</p>
<p><a name="Nt42" href="#NtA42">[42]</a> Fleury 23, 30. Oxf. Tr.</p>
<p><a name="Nt43" href="#NtA43">[43]</a> St. Aug. Tom. II. 618. B.</p>
<p><a name="Nt44" href="#NtA44">[44]</a> St. Aug. Tom. ii. 635. F.</p>
<p><a name="Nt45" href="#NtA45">[45]</a> Tom. ii. 639. B.</p>
<p><a name="Nt46" href="#NtA46">[46]</a> Quoted by Fleury, 23, 32. Oxford
Tr.</p>
<p><a name="Nt47" href="#NtA47">[47]</a> Fleury, Liv. 24, 35. Oxf. Tr.
See the original: Codex Eccl. Afric. 138.</p>
<p><a name="Nt48" href="#NtA48">[48]</a> Chillingworth, quoted by Mr.
Newman, "Developement," p. 4.</p>
<p><a name="Nt49" href="#NtA49">[49]</a> Tom. ix. 372. F.</p>
<p><a name="Nt50" href="#NtA50">[50]</a> Tom. ix. 340. A.</p>
<p><a name="Nt51" href="#NtA51">[51]</a> Tom. v. 1199. D. 1202. F.</p>
<p><a name="Nt52" href="#NtA52">[52]</a> Def. Cleri. Gall. Pars ii. lib.
xii. ch. 5.</p>
<p><a name="Nt53" href="#NtA53">[53]</a> Def. Cleri. Gall. Pars ii. lib.
xii. ch. 7.</p>
<p><a name="Nt54" href="#NtA54">[54]</a> Ibid. lib. xiii. ch. 19.</p>
<p><a name="Nt55" href="#NtA55">[55]</a> St. Chrys. Tom. ix. 757. A.</p>
<p><a name="Nt56" href="#NtA56">[56]</a> Lacordaire, Sur le Saint
Siège.</p>
<p><a name="Nt57" href="#NtA57">[57]</a> St. Aug. Tom. x. 412. B. quoted
in Fleury, Oxf. Tr. 3. 93.</p>
<p><a name="Nt58" href="#NtA58">[58]</a> Def. Clerc. Gall. Pars ii. lib.
xii. c. 10.</p>
<p><a name="Nt59" href="#NtA59">[59]</a> Fleury, 25-47. Oxf. Trans.</p>
<p><a name="Nt60" href="#NtA60">[60]</a> Ut sup. ch. 14.</p>
<p><a name="Nt61" href="#NtA61">[61]</a> Du Pape, Liv. i. ch. 2.</p>
<p><a name="Nt62" href="#NtA62">[62]</a> Id. Liv. i. ch. 4.</p>
<p><a name="Nt63" href="#NtA63">[63]</a> Hammond's Translation.</p>
<p><a name="Nt64" href="#NtA64">[64]</a> Tillemont, tom. xv. p. 72.</p>
<p><a name="Nt65" href="#NtA65">[65]</a> Tillemont, tom. xv. p. 81.</p>
<p><a name="Nt66" href="#NtA66">[66]</a> Tillemont, tom. xv. p. 83.</p>
<p><a name="Nt67" href="#NtA67">[67]</a> Tillemont, tom. xv. p. 89.</p>
<p><a name="Nt68" href="#NtA68">[68]</a> St. Leo. Ep. 40.</p>
<p><a name="Nt69" href="#NtA69">[69]</a> St. Leo. Ep. 10. Edit. Ball.</p>
<p><a name="Nt70" href="#NtA70">[70]</a> Ib. Ep. 65.</p>
<p><a name="Nt71" href="#NtA71">[71]</a> Ep. 10.</p>
<p><a name="Nt72" href="#NtA72">[72]</a> St. Leo. Ep. 14, cap. i. xi.</p>
<p><a name="Nt73" href="#NtA73">[73]</a> S. Leon. Ep 6, cap. 2.</p>
<p><a name="Nt74" href="#NtA74">[74]</a> St. Jerome, Ep. 146.
Vallarsi.</p>
<p><a name="Nt75" href="#NtA75">[75]</a> Theodoret, Ep. in Epist. S.
Leonis, 52.</p>
<p><a name="Nt76" href="#NtA76">[76]</a> Mansi, 6, 817, quoted by
Gieseler, tom. i. part ii. p. 192.</p>
<p><a name="Nt77" href="#NtA77">[77]</a> Isidorus, Hisp. Etymol. 7, 12,
quoted by Gieseler, ut sup. p. 406.</p>
<p><a name="Nt78" href="#NtA78">[78]</a> Gieseler, tom. i. part ii. pp.
191, 192.</p>
<p><a name="Nt79" href="#NtA79">[79]</a> Gieseler, tom. i. part ii. p.
205.</p>
<p><a name="Nt80" href="#NtA80">[80]</a> Theodoret. Hist. Eccl. lib. v.
ch. 9.</p>
<p><a name="Nt81" href="#NtA81">[81]</a> Observe this Council so called
by the Greeks before it was received by the West.</p>
<p><a name="Nt82" href="#NtA82">[82]</a> It must be remembered that
Diocese, in the language of this time, means the several provinces
comprehended in a Patriarchate. It was the civil term.</p>
<p><a name="Nt83" href="#NtA83">[83]</a> S. Bas. M. Ep. 239.</p>
<p><a name="Nt84" href="#NtA84">[84]</a> Gieseler, tom. i. part ii. p.
202.</p>
<p><a name="Nt85" href="#NtA85">[85]</a> Sozomen, Hist. iii. ch. 8.</p>
<p><a name="Nt86" href="#NtA86">[86]</a> Ibid. Hist. iii. ch. 10.</p>
<p><a name="Nt87" href="#NtA87">[87]</a> Socrates, Hist. ii. ch. 17.</p>
<p><a name="Nt88" href="#NtA88">[88]</a> Bossuet, Sermon sur l'Unité de
l'Eglise.</p>
<p><a name="Nt89" href="#NtA89">[89]</a> Bossuet, Def. Cleri Gall. Pars
ii. lib. xii. ch, 15, 16, 17.</p>
<p><a name="Nt90" href="#NtA90">[90]</a> S. Leon. Ep. 120.</p>
<p><a name="Nt91" href="#NtA91">[91]</a> Ib. c. 4.</p>
<p><a name="Nt92" href="#NtA92">[92]</a> S. Leon. Ep. 102.</p>
<p><a name="Nt93" href="#NtA93">[93]</a> Ch. 18, ibid.</p>
<p><a name="Nt94" href="#NtA94">[94]</a> Fleury, Liv. xxviii. 29. Oxf.
Tr.</p>
<p><a name="Nt95" href="#NtA95">[95]</a> Theod. lib. v. ch. 28, quoted by
Tillemont.</p>
<p><a name="Nt96" href="#NtA96">[96]</a> Tillemont, tom. xv. p. 711.</p>
<p><a name="Nt97" href="#NtA97">[97]</a> The sittings are variously
counted.</p>
<p><a name="Nt98" href="#NtA98">[98]</a> Fleury, liv. xxviii. xxx. Oxf.
Tr.</p>
<p><a name="Nt99" href="#NtA99">[99]</a> Tillemont, tom. xv. p. 707.</p>
<p><a name="Nt100" href="#NtA100">[100]</a> S. Leon. Ep. 104, cap. 3.</p>
<p><a name="Nt101" href="#NtA101">[101]</a> S. Leon. Ep. 105.</p>
<p><a name="Nt102" href="#NtA102">[102]</a> Ep. 106, cap. 4.</p>
<p><a name="Nt103" href="#NtA103">[103]</a> Ep. 105, cap. 2.</p>
<p><a name="Nt104" href="#NtA104">[104]</a> Ep. 106, cap. 2-5.</p>
<p><a name="Nt105" href="#NtA105">[105]</a> Ep. 107.</p>
<p><a name="Nt106" href="#NtA106">[106]</a> Ep. 105, cap. 3.</p>
<p><a name="Nt107" href="#NtA107">[107]</a> Tillemont, tom. xv. p.
731.</p>
<p><a name="Nt108" href="#NtA108">[108]</a> S. Leon. Ep. 107.</p>
<p><a name="Nt109" href="#NtA109">[109]</a> S. Greg. Ep. lib. iii.
10.</p>
<p><a name="Nt110" href="#NtA110">[110]</a> On Development, p. 307.</p>
<p><a name="Nt111" href="#NtA111">[111]</a> Fleury, liv. xxxii. 54.</p>
<p><a name="Nt112" href="#NtA112">[112]</a> Gieseler, vol. i. part. ii.
p. 192.</p>
<p><a name="Nt113" href="#NtA113">[113]</a> Nov. i. 1-7, quoted by
Gieseler.</p>
<p><a name="Nt114" href="#NtA114">[114]</a> Fleury, liv. xxxiii. 4, 5,
6.</p>
<p><a name="Nt115" href="#NtA115">[115]</a> Nov. vi. Epilogus.</p>
<p><a name="Nt116" href="#NtA116">[116]</a> Nov. cxxiii. c. 3.</p>
<p><a name="Nt117" href="#NtA117">[117]</a> Ad Valerianum, Mansi, ix.
732.</p>
<p><a name="Nt118" href="#NtA118">[118]</a> Contra litt. Petiliani, ii.
51, all quoted by Gieseler.</p>
<p><a name="Nt119" href="#NtA119">[119]</a> Bossuet, Def. Cleri Gall.
pars ii. lib. xii. cap. 19.</p>
<p><a name="Nt120" href="#NtA120">[120]</a> Fleury, liv. xxxiii. 52.</p>
<p><a name="Nt121" href="#NtA121">[121]</a> Bossuet, <i>ut sup.</i></p>
<p><a name="Nt122" href="#NtA122">[122]</a> Du Pape, liv. i. ch. 3.</p>
<p><a name="Nt123" href="#NtA123">[123]</a> Fleury, Liv. xxxiii. 52.</p>
<p><a name="Nt124" href="#NtA124">[124]</a> Sozomen, lib. iii. ch.
11.</p>
<p><a name="Nt125" href="#NtA125">[125]</a> Tom. i. part ii. 410.</p>
<p><a name="Nt126" href="#NtA126">[126]</a> Def. Cleri Gall. pars ii.
lib. xii. cap. 29.</p>
<p><a name="Nt127" href="#NtA127">[127]</a> Id. cap. 31.</p>
<p><a name="Nt128" href="#NtA128">[128]</a> Du Pape, liv. iii. ch. 7.</p>
<p><a name="Nt129" href="#NtA129">[129]</a> S. Greg. Ep. lib. ii. 52.</p>
<p><a name="Nt130" href="#NtA130">[130]</a> Lib. ix. 59, Gieseler.</p>
<p><a name="Nt131" href="#NtA131">[131]</a> Lib. xi. 37, Gieseler.</p>
<p><a name="Nt132" href="#NtA132">[132]</a> Gieseler, tom. i. part ii.
401.</p>
<p><a name="Nt133" href="#NtA133">[133]</a> Liv. xxxiv. 60.</p>
<p><a name="Nt134" href="#NtA134">[134]</a> Liv. xxxv. 19.</p>
<p><a name="Nt135" href="#NtA135">[135]</a> Ep. S. Greg. lib. v. 43.</p>
<p><a name="Nt136" href="#NtA136">[136]</a> Lib. ix. 68.</p>
<p><a name="Nt137" href="#NtA137">[137]</a> Lib. v. 19.</p>
<p><a name="Nt138" href="#NtA138">[138]</a> Lib. vii. 33.</p>
<p><a name="Nt139" href="#NtA139">[139]</a> Lib. v. Ep. 20.</p>
<p><a name="Nt140" href="#NtA140">[140]</a> Lib. vii. 27.</p>
<p><a name="Nt141" href="#NtA141">[141]</a> I cannot but consider St.
Gregory's words to contain one of the most remarkable prophecies to be
found in history; for this assuming the title and exercising the power of
universal Pope has actually led not only to the concentration of all
executive power in the Roman See, but to the conviction, among its
warmest partisans, that the whole existence of the Church depends on the
single See of Rome. Take the following from De Maistre: "Christianity
rests entirely upon the Sovereign Pontiff."—"Without the Sovereign
Pontiff the whole edifice of Christianity is undermined, and only waits,
for a complete falling in, the development of certain circumstances which
shall be put in their full light."—"What remains incontestable is,
that if the Bishops, assembled without the Pope, may call themselves the
Church, and claim any other power but that of certifying the person of
the Pope in those infinitely rare moments when it might be doubtful,
unity exists no longer, and the visible Church disappears."—"The
Sovereign Pontiff is the necessary, only, and exclusive foundation of
Christianity. To him belong the promises, with him disappears unity, that
is, the Church."—"The supremacy of the Pope being the capital dogma
without which Christianity cannot subsist, all the Churches, which reject
this dogma, the importance of which they conceal from themselves, are
agreed even without knowing it: all the rest is but accessory, and thence
comes their affinity, of which they know not the cause."—Du Pape,
Discours Préliminaire; Liv. i. ch. 13; Liv. iv. ch. 5. Could we have any
stronger witness to the antagonism between the Papal and Patriarchal or
Episcopal System? Or can any words be spoken more opposed in tone than
these to the writings of Fathers and decrees of ancient Councils? Or are
they who say such things wise defenders of the Church or promoters of
unity?</p>
<p><a name="Nt142" href="#NtA142">[142]</a> Lib. viii. 30.</p>
<p><a name="Nt143" href="#NtA143">[143]</a> Part i. liv. i. ch. 11.</p>
<p><a name="Nt144" href="#NtA144">[144]</a> Mansi, vi. 1006. 1012, quoted
by Gieseler.</p>
<p><a name="Nt145" href="#NtA145">[145]</a> Lib. v. 18.</p>
<p><a name="Nt146" href="#NtA146">[146]</a> Proph. Office, p. 221.
Development, p. 10.</p>
<p><a name="Nt147" href="#NtA147">[147]</a> Sect. 13. March 28, 681,
translated in Landon's Councils.</p>
<p><a name="Nt148" href="#NtA148">[148]</a> Bossuet, Def. Cler. Gall.
pars ii. lib. xii. cap. 34.</p>
<p><a name="Nt149" href="#NtA149">[149]</a> Bellarmin de Pont. Rom. lib.
iv. cap. 24, 25.</p>
<p><a name="Nt150" href="#NtA150">[150]</a> Bellarmin de Pont. Rom. lib.
i. cap. 9.</p>
<p><a name="Nt151" href="#NtA151">[151]</a> Def. Cleri. Gall. pars ii.
lib. xiii. cap. 11.</p>
<p><a name="Nt152" href="#NtA152">[152]</a> Bossuet is very moderate. St.
Chrysostom says, (on Acts, Hom. 33,) "James was Bishop in Jerusalem, and
so speaks last;" and presently, "There was no pride in the Church, but
much good order. And see, after Peter, Paul speaketh, and no one rebukes
him: James waits and starts not out of his place, for <i>he was entrusted
with the government</i>." What would St. Chrysostom say to Bellarmine's
doctrine?</p>
<p><a name="Nt153" href="#NtA153">[153]</a> Ep. S. Innoc.; in Op. S. Aug.
tom. ii. 618; see above, p. 59.</p>
<p><a name="Nt154" href="#NtA154">[154]</a> Ibid, quoted above, p.
60.</p>
<p><a name="Nt155" href="#NtA155">[155]</a> St. Leo. Serm. in Anniver.
Assumpt. quoted above.</p>
<p><a name="Nt156" href="#NtA156">[156]</a> Ep. 10.</p>
<p><a name="Nt157" href="#NtA157">[157]</a> Optat. l. ix. contra
Parmen.</p>
<p><a name="Nt158" href="#NtA158">[158]</a> Greg. Nyss. T. 2. 746.</p>
<p><a name="Nt159" href="#NtA159">[159]</a> Cæsar. Arel. Epist. ad
Symm.</p>
<p><a name="Nt160" href="#NtA160">[160]</a> Quoted above, p. 58.</p>
<p><a name="Nt161" href="#NtA161">[161]</a> Cap. xiv. lib. xiii. pars
2.</p>
<p><a name="Nt162" href="#NtA162">[162]</a> Bossuet, Def. &c. Pars
ii. lib. xiii. cap. 20.</p>
<p><a name="Nt163" href="#NtA163">[163]</a> De Rom. Pont. lib. iv. cap.
26.</p>
<p><a name="Nt164" href="#NtA164">[164]</a> Developement, p. 28.</p>
<p><a name="Nt165" href="#NtA165">[165]</a> Du Pape, liv. ii. ch. 6; and
Discourse Préliminaire.</p>
<p><a name="Nt166" href="#NtA166">[166]</a> See the account of his death
in Bowden's Life.</p>
<p><a name="Nt167" href="#NtA167">[167]</a> Dante, Paradiso, xii. 55.</p>
<p><a name="Nt168" href="#NtA168">[168]</a> Bellarmine, quoted above.</p>
<p><a name="Nt169" href="#NtA169">[169]</a> I owe this observation to a
friend who has had great opportunities of judging about the state of the
Russian Church.</p>
<p><a name="Nt170" href="#NtA170">[170]</a> "Introduction to Die Zukunft
Kirche. The work advocates the introduction of Episcopacy into the German
Church, but not the Apostolical Episcopacy of the English Church, which
M. Bunsen condemns in terms as strong as any which have been used by any
opponent of the Bishopric. 'If ever and at any time the Episcopate, in
the sense of Anglicanism, should be raised into a distinctive mark of
Churchdom among us, not constitutionally and nationally (?) it would, in
my opinion, be striking the death-blow to the innermost germ of life in
the Church.' He will exert every energy, and shed the last drop of his
blood in order to preserve the Church of the German nation against such
an Episcopacy,"—<i>English Churchman</i>, April 30, 1846. There are
solemn words, which have found an echo in many hearts, "May that measure
utterly fail, and come to nought, and be as though it had never
been!"</p>
</div>
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