08 - Summary of Proof given for St Peter's Primacy

CHAPTER VIII.

SUMMARY OF PROOF GIVEN FOR S. PETER’S PRIMACY.

It would now seem to be made clear to all that the controversy on S. Peter’s Primacy relates generally to the question of inequality in the Apostolic college, and specially to the question, whether Christ, the Founder of the Church, set any one of the Apostles, and whom of them in particular, over the rest. For as, on the one hand, there would have been no room for the superior dignity of the Primacy, had all the Apostles been completely equal, and undistinguished in honour and authority from each other; so, on the other hand, it is the nature of the Primacy to be incapable of even being contemplated, save as fixed on some certain definite subject. But to determine the two questions, whether the Apostles stood, or did not stand, on a complete equality, and whether one of them was superior to the rest in honour and dignity, it seemed requisite to examine chiefly four points.

First, the words and the acts of Christ respecting the Apostles.

Secondly, His expressions which seemed to mark the institution of a singular authority.

Thirdly, the mode of writing and speaking usually and constantly employed by the Evangelists and other inspired writers.

Lastly, the history of the Church, from its beginning, from which might be drawn conjectures, or even certain proofs, of the power which either all the Apostles had exercised equally, or one had held above the rest. For should it become plain, from the agreement of these four sources, that a certain one of the Apostles, and that one Simon Peter, had been distinguished from the rest by the acts and words of Christ, and set over the Apostles; had been invariably described by the inspired writers, as the Head and supreme authority; and in the history of the rising Church, been portrayed in a way which could only befit the universal ruler, no difficulty would remain, and there would be arguments abundant to prove that Christ was the author both of the inequality among the Apostles, and of Peter’s Primacy.

Now we seem to have proved absolutely, what we proposed hypothetically. For we have shewn that Christ declared by His whole method of acting, and by solemn words and deeds, that He did not account Peter as one of the rest, but as their Leader, Chief, and Head.

We have shown it to have been the will of Christ to concentrate in Peter the distinctions which belong to Himself, as Supreme Ruler of the Church. For such must be deemed the properties of being the Foundation, the Bearer of the keys, the Holder of universal authority, the Supporter, and lastly, the Chief Shepherd. Of these there is no one which He did not promise to Peter singly, and confer on Peter singly: no one, with which He did not associate Peter, and Peter only, in making him the foundation of His Church, bestowing on him the keys, and universal power of binding and loosing, in setting him over his brethren to confirm them, and over His fold as universal Pastor.

We have shown that the Evangelists place almost the same distinction between the Apostles and Peter, as between Peter and Christ, while still among us. For as they set forth Peter as second after Christ, so do they subject the Apostles to Peter; as the acts and words of Christ occupy the foreground in respect to those of Peter, so do his in respect to those of the Apostles; as Christ, in their histories, is pre-eminent above Peter, so is Peter more conspicuous than the Apostles; and as the Gospels cannot be read without seeing in them Christ as the prototype, so neither can they without seeing that Peter approaches the nearest to Christ.

We have shown that S. Paul spoke of S. Peter in no other way than the Evangelists, and that his pre-eminence is evident in S. Paul’s Epistles, as well as in the Gospels.

Lastly, we have shown that Peter shines as the superior luminary in the history of the rising Church. The lustre of his deeds in the Acts recalls that of Christ in the Gospels. In the Gospels Christ is named by far most frequently; in the Acts no one occurs so often as Peter. The discourses, the acts, the miracles of Christ occupy every page of the Gospels; and in that portion of the Acts which embraces the history of the whole Church, a very large part has reference to the discourses, the acts, and the miracles of Peter. In the Gospels, Christ leads, the Apostles follow; in the Acts, Peter takes the precedence, the Apostles attend him. In the Gospels, Christ teaches, and the Apostles, in silence, consent; in the Acts Peter alone makes speeches, and explains the doctrine of salvation; the Apostles by their silence consent. In the Gospels, Christ provides for the Apostolic college, guards it from injury, defends it when attacked; in the Acts, Peter provides for filling up the place of Judas, determines the conditions of eligibility, enjoins the election, and defends the Apostles before people, rulers, and chief priests, in quality of their head.

Moreover, he alone is pre-eminent in exercising the triple power of authoritative Teacher, Judge, and Legislator. Of authoritative Teacher, not only towards Jews and Gentiles, whom he is the first to join to Christ, so that the same person who was the Church’s rock and foundation, also became its chief architect; but towards the Apostles likewise, who are taught by his ministry, that the time was come for the blessing of redemption to be extended no less to Gentiles than to Jews, and that the burden of legal rites could not be laid on the Gentile converts without tempting God. Of Judge, because, while the Apostles are silent, he is the first to hear the causes of the faithful, to erect a tribunal, to examine the accused, to issue sentence, and to support and confirm it by inflicting excommunication. Of Head and Supreme Legislator, both when he singly visits Christians in all parts, and provides for their needs, or when he uses the prerogative of first voting, and draws with authority the wording of the law to which the rest are to give an unanimous consent. From this compendious enumeration we draw a multifold proof, both of inequality in the Apostolic college, and of Peter’s superiority at once in rank and in real government.

I. For, first, a college cannot be considered equal, out of which Christ chose one, Simon Peter, whom, by His words and His actions, He showed to be set over all. Now Christ’s whole course of speaking and acting, of which the Gospels give us the picture, tends to exhibit Peter as chosen out from the rest, and set over them. Accordingly, neither is the college of the Apostles equal, nor can Peter be accounted as one of the rest.

II. Again, one who has received all in common with the rest, but much besides peculiar to himself, special and distinguishing, must seem to be taken out of the common number. Now such must Peter have been among the Apostles, since Christ granted nothing to them which He denied to Peter, but did grant to Peter many most distinguishing gifts which He gave not to the rest.

III. And, further, it is apparent that the Foundation and the Superstructure, the Bearer of the keys, and those who inhabit the house or city whose keys he bears, the Confirmer, and those whom he is to confirm, the universal Pastor and the sheep committed to his charge, cannot be comprehended under the same order and rank. Now the distinctions expressed by the terms Foundation, Bearer of the keys, Confirmer, and universal Pastor, are Peter’s official insignia in reference to, and over, the Apostles themselves. His distinction from them, therefore, and the inequality of the apostolic college, are plain.

Perhaps this may be put somewhat otherwise even more clearly. And so, IV. Let it first be considered, what is plain in itself, that a distinction carrying pre-eminence depends on distinction in perfection and gifts, and follows in a greater or less degree from the greater or less inequality of these, or in case of their parity exists not at all. Next, be what we hold both of reason and of faith remembered, that "every best gift and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights," that God is the fountain head of all good, and that all gifts whatsoever flow over from Him to His creatures. From both points it follows that the amount of the creature’s dignity and perfection lies in the participation of divine goods, and is greater or less in proportion to the participation and association with divine goods. So, then, the controversy on Peter’s Primacy and the inequality of the Apostolic college, comes ultimately to this: whether Christ, the God-man, associated Peter singly, above all, with Himself, in the possession of those properties on account of which He stands Himself related to the Church as its supreme Ruler. For let it be once evident that Christ did so, and it will of necessity be evident also, not only that Peter was preferred to all, but wherein his leadership and headship consisted. And since we have made the inquiry, there is abundant evidence to prove that Christ really did associate Peter singly in five properties, which, belonging to Himself primarily and chiefly, contain the special cause for which He is the Prince and Supreme Head of the Church.

For, in truth, it is specially due to the properties and distinctions of Foundation, Bearer of the keys, Establisher, Chief Shepherd, and Lord, who has received all authority from the Father, that the Church has an entire dependence on Christ, is subject to Him, and that He enjoys over the Church the right and authority of Supreme Lord and Ruler. But which of these properties did He not choose to communicate to Peter, according to the degree in which they were communicable? He bestowed them all upon Peter, and upon Peter alone, so that Peter also is termed the Foundation, the Bearer of the keys, the Confirmer, the universal Pastor, and the[1] Chief of the whole Church. We see, therefore, a remarkable proof of Peter being distinguished from the rest of the Apostles, and set over them, in his singular and special association with these gifts.

Again, V., to this tends that disposition of divine wisdom which provides that Peter holds in the Church, and among the Apostles, a rank of dignity greatly resembling that which Abraham among the Patriarchs, and Judah among his brethren, received from God. The former of these relations has been exhibited, and shown not to be arbitrarily conceived, but grounded on due proof. The latter will be presently farther touched upon. Now who shall deny Abraham that superiority whereby he was made the Father and Teacher of all the faithful, or strip Judah of the dignity in which he excelled his brethren, and was in many points preferred to them? As little may any one strip Peter of his authority as supreme teacher, and take from him those singular endowments, which make him "the greater one" among his brethren the Apostles.

Especially as, VI., this authority of Peter is clearly confirmed by the mode of writing usual to the Evangelists. For it is monstrous and preposterous to confound with the rest one whom the Evangelists constantly distinguish and prefer to all. For what more could they do to show their purpose to distinguish Peter, select him from the rest, and place him at all times before all the Apostles? We may venture to say that they omitted nothing to this end. And so it is absurd to doubt of Peter’s prerogatives, or set him on the same footing with the rest.

For, indeed, VII., no one would endure it to be denied, from the usual mode of writing of the Evangelists, that Christ was pre-eminent among the Apostles as their Supreme Head, and was removed from them in dignity by an infinite interval. Now though the Evangelists do not give Peter all things, nor in the same degree, yet they do give him much, and in a degree not dissimilar, to distinguish him from the rest, showing him, as in a nearer relation to Christ, so proportionally exalted above the other Apostles. And this proof, VIII., is the more persuasive because S. Paul follows the very same mode of speaking as the Evangelists. For in repeatedly mentioning S. Peter in his epistles, he always gives him the place of honour, and joins him as near as may be with Christ. Who then can doubt that Peter held a certain pre-eminent rank? And the more, IX., because what is read in the Acts, and the view of primitive history therein contained, looks the same way, and seems set forth with the same purpose. For if you compare together the Acts and the Gospels, the mind at once suggests that the position of Prototype which Christ holds in the Gospels, belongs to Peter in the Acts, and that Peter seems distinguished above the rest of the Apostles in the Acts, as Christ is pre-eminent far above all in the Gospels. Now what is the result of so apparent a likeness? What is it fair to deduce from such a bearing in the Evangelical and Apostolical history? Those who are obedient to reasoning, and follow the bright torch of the Scriptures, must confess with us that in this parallelism of both histories, and so of Christ and Peter, is contained a mark and sign, proving that Peter follows next after Christ in dignity and authority. In authority, X., I repeat, and, therefore, that kind of superiority which very far surpasses the limits of precedence and order. For what are the grounds on which we see Peter’s eminence in the Acts, or a resemblance between the Acts, when speaking of Peter, and the Gospels when speaking of Christ? Chiefly these, that Peter is set forth as remarkable, singly, above all, for the use and exercise of the triple power, of Judge, Legislator, and authoritative Teacher. Now, the superiority herein asserted, not merely distinguishes Peter from the rest, but attaches to him a greater authority over the rest.

XI. And, indeed, propose an hypothesis which is necessary to solve a complex and undoubted series of facts: is such an hypothesis thereby made a certainty. At least these are the principles of philosophy, from which the laws of reasoning will not allow us to depart. Now, Peter’s pre-eminence and supremacy are such an hypothesis, without which you can render no sufficient cause of the facts narrated in the first twelve chapters of the Acts. Accordingly, this supremacy of Peter may be considered as proved.

XII. Or to put the argument somewhat differently, thus: As the existence of causes is deduced, à posteriori, from effects, so it is perfectly established, à priori, whenever the series and sum of effects, of which the senses are cognisant, are foretold from it with certainty. We deduce the force of gravity necessarily from its effects, à posteriori, but we likewise determine it to exist, with a judgment no less invariable, à priori, when it is such that we do not merely guess at, but certainly anticipate, its sensible effects. Now Peter’s supremacy is not inaptly compared with this very force of gravity. For it is a characteristic of each to be, in its proper order of things, the source and principle in which effects are involved, which afterwards become apparent, whether in this physical universe, or in the supernatural region of the Church.

Suppose, then, Peter to have held the dignity which we claim for him. What happens in the Acts which might not, nay, which should not, have been anticipated? Is it his being mentioned above all, his speaking in the name of all, his constantly taking the lead, and his eminence, as if he were the head? But it could not be otherwise if he alone received from Christ a higher dignity than all the rest. Is it his discharging the office of supreme Judge, Legislator, Teacher, and Doctor? Is not this just what was to be expected from the rank of Head and universal Pastor? The Primacy, then, the larger authority, and the unshared majesty of Peter, belong to that class of truths which are indubitably believed on the strength of deduction, and rational anticipation.

Having noted, if not all, at least the greater number of those arguments which we have alleged hitherto in favour of our cause, we approach the question which was secondly to be cleared up, what, namely, is the force and nature of that Primacy, which the same arguments prove to belong to Peter. For I know that all Protestants are possessed with the notion that no other pre-eminence should be ascribed to Peter, on scriptural authority, than one limited to a certain precedency of honour and order. That precedency should be granted Peter they are not unwilling to admit, but supremacy, they stoutly maintain, must not and cannot be allowed him. As to which their opinion I consider, that it would be much the shorter way to strip Peter utterly of every prerogative, than to attenuate the distinctions applied to him in Scripture to a sort of shadowy precedency. I consider that nothing is so foreign to truth and the Scriptures, as on their testimony to allow that Peter was distinguished from the rest of the Apostles, but to confine that superiority within the very narrow bounds of honour and order.

For, first, whence do we most evidently and chiefly draw the greater dignity which Peter clearly possessed above the others? We draw it from the endowments separately bestowed upon him, whereby he became the Foundation of the Church, the Supreme Bearer of the keys, the Confirmer of his brethren, and the universal Pastor. But are these names, images, signs, expressing a naked superiority of honour and order, or rather designating an authority of jurisdiction and power? I cannot hesitate to assert either that these forms are most fitted of all to express a singular authority, or that none such exist in language. For, secondly, their force is to ascribe to Peter the main sway, and to mark him as set for the head and leader of all. Who that hears them can, without perverting the natural force of words, or disregarding the laws of interpretation, imagine anything merely honorary, or figure to himself Peter with a mere grant of precedency?

Especially as, thirdly, he is named in Scripture not only the First, but, comparatively, the Greater, and absolutely, the Superior.[2] Now these terms do, of themselves, and far more if you consider the context of the discourse in which they occur, express a singular authority, and one without rival. An authority, fourthly, kindred to that with which Christ, while yet in His mortal life, presided over the Apostolic college, and administered as supreme Head, the company which He had formed. For we can never sufficiently urge a point which, being in itself most true, is of itself abundantly sufficient completely to set at rest the present controversy. It is this, that Peter’s Primacy proceeds from a singular association with those distinctions, in virtue of which Christ is considered the Head and Chief, and Supreme Ruler of the Church. So that the more his Primacy is depressed, the more Christ’s prerogatives and dignity are lowered; nor can he be confined to a precedency of honour and order, without Christ’s superiority being shut within well nigh the same limits.

Besides, fifthly, are tokens wanting in Scripture which disclose the nature of Peter’s Primacy? Are there not effects which unfold the force and quality of the cause from which they spring? Such tokens there are in abundance, and such effects manifold. These are, the care with which Peter guarded the Apostolic college; the authority with which he visited Christians in every part; the singular exercise of judicial power, by which he established Church discipline, and provided for its maintenance; his acts of authoritative teaching; his drawing the form of laws which were to rule the universal Church; and, in short, the wonderful regard with which that Church followed Peter as its Head, and the Steward of all the Lord’s family. What Primacy is it which these tokens set forth? What cause which these effects demonstrate? Is it one limited to a precedency of honour and order? or one pre-eminent by an inherent jurisdiction and authority? It is a point which needs no further words. For if any there be whose minds are not struck by a candid and sincere exposition of facts, you will in vain attempt to persuade them by arguments.

Unless, indeed, sixthly, they allow themselves to be forced out of their prejudice by the Scriptures exhibiting such a Primacy of Peter as compels all others to profess one and the same faith with him, and to maintain one and the same society. For such an obligation could proceed neither from titles of honour, nor from precedency. It demanded a stronger cause—none other, in fact, but that supreme authority by which Peter is made head of all. But we shall feel much more at home in the truth of this deduction, if we enquire a little more deeply into the reasons for selecting one among the rest, namely Peter, and instituting the Primacy. For the purpose, and end proposed in a work, have the force of a negative rule by which we may judge with certainty what ought to be done, or could not be left undone. I know well that it does not follow, if anything has been instituted for a certain purpose, that it ought to be endowed only with those properties which appear necessary for the end to be gained; for it may be much more munificently established than the absolute need required. But at the same time I know that there would be a failure in prudence and wisdom in one who, desiring a certain work for a specific end, did not provide it with everything that could be deemed necessary. Thus the knowledge of the intention and purpose is equivalent, if not to a positive rule, determining all and singular the powers bestowed on any institution, at least to a negative, ascertaining what must be given to it, and what cannot be denied to it.

Now is the purpose for which Christ instituted the Primacy, and honoured Peter with its dignity, unknown, or is it most truly ascertained? The end which moved Christ to make the college of Apostles unequal, and to set Peter as head over it, is it secret, or very conspicuous? There are in all three classes of reasons which enable us to form, not a mere guess, but an ascertained judgment, as to the purpose of Christ in instituting the Primacy. There are typical reasons, drawn from previous shadowings forth of it: there are analogical, derived from relations of resemblance; and there are real, inherent in the testimonies themselves, and the Church’s endowments. Let us briefly exhibit these in order.

I. By, then, that signal agreement wherewith the two dispensations, the old and the new, correspond to each other, the first in outline, and the last as filled up, this rudimental, and that complete, we are plainly instructed that it was Christ’s purpose for Peter, in the new dispensation, to bear the character, whose lineaments had been traced before in Abraham, and to be eminent among the Apostles, for the prerogative which Abraham had possessed among the Patriarchs. Now Abraham’s special prerogative, and pre-eminence, was this, that no one could share either promise, whether carnal or spiritual, which is expressed in Scripture, by "the Blessing," who was not joined with Abraham by a double, that is, a carnal and spiritual, a physical and moral, bond. For to him and to his seed were the promises made, with the condition, that only by conjunction with him, and with his seed, they could flow over to the rest. Since, then, in the new dispensation, Peter was to sustain the character of Abraham in the old, and since the only-begotten Son of the Father, having put on the form of a servant, granted to Peter the prerogative which, in prelude of His future order, He had given to Abraham, it is plain that Simon was chosen, honoured with the name of Cephas, and preferred above all, in order that from him as supreme minister of Christ, and by union with him as visible head, all the members of the Church’s body might enjoy the blessings and fruits of the Christian institution. The deductions from this are easy to see. For two things chiefly follow, specially declarative of the nature of the Primacy, and shewing its intent, to be the cause and efficient principle of that unity by which the Church of Christ is one visible body. First, there follows the duty laid upon all the faithful, of being joined with Peter, if they would not fall from those promises with which Christ has most bountifully enriched His mystical Body, being no other than that which reverences Peter as its visible head. Secondly, there follows Peter’s jurisdiction, in virtue of which he enjoins all to form one communion and society with him, as well as effects, defends, and maintains it. Now, nothing can be stronger than this ordinance of Christ, either to prove a Primacy of supreme jurisdiction, or to unfold its purpose of effecting and maintaining unity. The same is the bearing of another type no less remarkable, and no less adopted to explain the whole matter. For, as Israel, "according to the flesh," was the shadow of the "Israel of God," which was "according to promise:"[3] and as the kingdom of Israel was a type and ensample of the kingdom of heaven, the approach of which Christ proclaimed in these words, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand:" so the twelve sons of Israel, the heads of the Israelitish race, represented and imaged out those Twelve whom Christ chose, made princes in His Church, and endowed with supreme authority to build up that Church’s structure, and enrich it day by day with new accessions of spiritual children. Of this type our Lord’s words are the strongest guarantee: "Amen, I say unto you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His Majesty, you also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." And, again, in the very discourse where He sets forth the future Superior, "I dispose to you, as My Father disposed to Me, a kingdom; that you may eat and drink at My table, in My kingdom; and may sit upon thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."[4] But now, though all the sons of Israel in the former typical kingdom were chiefs, and heads of tribes, yet one of them, that is Judah, had a special prerogative, which the Scriptures set forth, and which was called the right of the first-born. In virtue of this, on the one hand, Judah was esteemed the Lord of his brethren, whom they were to reverence as the parent of the whole family, and on the other, it was only by union with him, and with the seed that was to spring from him, that the other chiefs could promise to themselves the divine blessing. And so the tribe of Judah had a great pre-eminence over the other eleven. It was its prerogative to take the[5] lead: it had received from God the promise of an[6] authority which was not to terminate before the old covenant should be transformed into the new: from it was the seed[6] to be expected, which should be the source of blessing to all nations, prefigured as they were by the twelve tribes; the other tribes were bound[7] to union with it, and to the profession of its religion, on pain of falling into schism, and forfeiting the divine covenant. All this was expressed by Jacob in prophetic inspiration, when he addressed Judah as the head and root of his line: "Judah (praise) art thou, thy brethren shall praise thee: thy hand is on the neck of thine enemies: the sons of thy father shall bow down to thee." It remains, then, to ask, who was to represent Judah’s person in the new kingdom, and on whom Christ bestowed the prerogative, the type and image of which had gone before in Judah. It is most plain that this was Simon Peter, for whom we have, therefore, to claim a double prerogative, the one of being the source and origin, from which no one may be separated without severance from the kingdom and promises of Christ: the other of being the first-born, as betokening excellence, by which he was pre-eminent in the possession of special rights among his brethren, the Apostles. The former prerogative was expressed by the Fathers of Aquileia, when, in the words of S. Ambrose, they stated their belief in S. Peter’s chair, "For thence, as from a fountain head, the rights of venerable communion flow unto[8] all." The latter is confirmed and illustrated by the solemn expressions so often recurring in Christian records, wherein Peter is called, "[9]the Bishop of Bishops," "[10]the Pastor of Pastors," "[11]first prelate of the Apostles," "[12]Patriarch of the whole world," "[13]universal bishop," "[14]father of fathers," "[14]having the dignity of pastoral headship," "[14]the most divine head of all heads, arch-pastor of the Church."

II. To these reasons, which, as we think, may be called typical, succeed the analogical, which prove with equal evidence the purpose of the Primacy as instituted, and its inherent powers. If we ask what are these reasons from analogy, and to what they point, one only answer can be given commended by any show of truth, that the Primacy was instituted in order that the Church of Christ might seem to be moulded after the analogy of one human body, one house, one kingdom, one city, and one fold. But whence the need that so very remarkable and clear an analogy should be obtained by the institution of the Primacy? Doubtless because the Primacy was created as a principle, by whose virtue and efficiency what was various and manifold should be gathered up into unity, because it was to be a head in which all the diverse members of the ecclesiastical body should be joined, the centre of the Church’s circle.

Therefore the reasons drawn from analogy show that the unity of the Church is to be considered the special end for which the Primacy was instituted, and the Primacy itself a principle abundantly provided with all those means by which so admirable a blessing as unity may be first produced and then maintained. And this is confirmed by another analogy, well worthy of close attention. This consists in the double and reciprocal relation in which the universal Church stands to particular Churches, and the institution of the Primacy to the institution of bishops, who, by Christ’s appointment, govern those particular Churches: an agreement which ought to have especial force with those who believe in the divine institution of bishops. For as the whole society of true believers, and the particular congregations of which it is made up, are called in Holy Scripture and the Christian records by one and the same name of the Church, so is there the very closest analogy between the bond which connects the universal Church and that which connects its several parts.

Exactly, then, as it is asserted with great truth of all these particular Churches that they are one house, one city, and one fold, so must this be repeated of the whole Church, since it is set forth in Scripture by no other images, and has no less right to claim the property of unity. Hence S.[15] Chrysostome’s golden saying, "If it is the Church of God, it is united and one, not at Corinth only, but in the whole world. For the Church is a name not of division, but of union and harmony;" and S.[16] Gregory calls it, "The tunic without seam, woven from the top throughout."

Now the same reason which existed for instituting particular bishops to govern and preserve in unity particular flocks, moved Christ to institute an universal Primate, and to set him over the whole fold. If in the former case the best description of a particular Church is that of S. Cyprian, "A people united to its priest, and a flock adhering to its pastor;"[17] in the latter the form of unity, which Christ established in the universal Primate, no less imposes on all, both taught and teachers, the necessity of saying with S. Jerome, "I following none as the first save Christ, am joined in communion with your blessedness, that is, with the chair of Peter. Upon that rock the Church is built, I know. Whoever outside of this house eateth the lamb, is profane. If any one was not in the ark of Noah, he shall perish. I know not Vitalis; I reject Meletius; I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoever gathers not with thee, scatters: that is, he who is not of Christ is of Antichrist."[18]

III. A great accession of evidence will accrue to what we have said if we attentively consider the reasons deduced from the texts containing the institution of the Primacy, and those proceeding from the inherent properties of the Church. To speak of the texts first:

1. Either they carry no meaning with them, or they prove at least this, that Christ, in instituting the Primacy, intended,[19] while exhibiting the whole Church under the usual image of a house and building, to give it a foundation, the bond at once of its strength and unity; and, again, while communicating to one the special gift of unwavering faith, to make him the channel for establishing and[20] confirming all the faithful; to[21] render the fold which he had gathered out of all nations one by the unity of a supreme visible pastor, and to[22] constitute in the Lord’s family, amid so manifold a distinction of officers, one of such eminence as to be the Ruler and the Greater among all. But can we, or ought we, to conclude from this as to the purpose of the Primacy, and as to its constituent force and principle? Assuredly these texts prove directly and categorically that the Primacy was set up as the efficient principle, whereby to mould the Church’s visible unity, and was endowed with all that authority, without which unity could neither have been produced, nor maintained in existence.

2. And in this judgment we shall be confirmed if we investigate the properties of which the Church cannot be deprived, without taking a form and an appearance different from that which it received from Christ. The first which occurs is that identity by which the Church must always be like itself, and cannot be substantially different at its beginning and in its growth; one thing when it had Christ for its visible head, and another when His words had come to pass, "A little while, and now you shall not see Me—because I go to the Father." Now at its first commencement, in the time of our Lord’s mortal life, the Church presented the form of a society governed by the supreme power of one, and deriving its visible unity from one supreme visible head. That it might not subsequently lose this identity, and put on another form, our Lord chose a Primate to be the principle of visible unity, and to have the power of a head over the whole body. And indeed this was necessary to maintain the double character and test of[23] unity and[24] Catholicity, by which the Church is distinguished in Holy Scripture and in the records of Christian antiquity. As to unity, not only are the expressions in the creeds, and the more ample explanation of them in the[25] Fathers, most clear and emphatic, but likewise what is said in the Holy Scriptures of the end for which the Church was founded by Christ. For the[26] grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing those who had[27] changed the truth of God into a lie, and liked not to have God in their knowledge, that[28] denying all these things they might become an acceptable people, and[29] enlightened by Christ, and sanctified in the truth, might by the profession of one faith be[30] one body and one spirit, in the same[31] manner in which the Father and the Son are one, and might be[32] divided by no sects and dissensions, which are manifestly the works of the flesh, not of God, who is not the[33] God of dissension but of peace. For therefore[34] Christ, the only-begotten of the Father, gave His blood for it, to present it to Himself, a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, which would break peace, and disturb the agreement of faith; but that it should be holy and without blemish,[35] immovable through that rock on which it rests, and against which not even the gates of hell shall prevail; wisely ordered as the[36] house of God, in which[37] all hear his voice, who is set over as the[38] ruler, and has received his brethren to be[39] confirmed, and the[40] care of the whole flock;[41] endued with virtue from on high, and strengthened by the[42] Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father; possessing the power of[43] authoritative teaching, which if any[44] hear not, nor obey, they are to be accounted as heathens and publicans, by a judgment which binds both in heaven and on earth. Are there any who do not see that in this description, which sets forth the Church’s pre-ordained end, its proper character and very lineaments, the Primacy itself is included, and exhibited as the principal cause which effects the unity of the whole body? I hardly think that any such can be, so apparent is the bond which ties these several parts together.

Yet perhaps this may be more vividly brought out if we shortly mention the common opinions among Protestants on the Church’s unity. For, omitting those who hold an[45] invisible Church, and so expunge visible unity from its attributes, all the other opinions may be reduced to three.

A. Anglicans, whose belief has been set forth, besides Pearson on the Creed, with more than usual care by Dodwell, (in his Treatise on the Bishop, as the Principle of Unity, and S. Peter’s Primacy among the Apostles as the Exemplar of Unity,) begin by noting that the question of visible unity cannot be determined in the same way as it respects the universal Church, or each particular Church. But why? Because, they say, it was indeed the will of Christ, that each particular Church should have a double unity, inward and outward, but it was not His will that the whole Church, the sum of these particular Churches, should have the same mark and test. Because, it was His will that both unities should characterise the particular Churches, to use a school phrase, separately and distributively, but not the whole body, and the sum of these, taken collectively. Whence they conclude that Bishops were chosen and made, by the command of Christ, to preside over particular Churches, and be in them the source and principle of external unity, but that a Primate was not chosen, to whom the whole Church should be subject, and on whom its external unity should depend. At this argument one is lost in astonishment, how it could have suggested itself to learned men, and gained their assent. For what had they to prove, or how could they assure themselves, or others, as to either of these two points, that external unity was necessary to particular Churches, but not to the whole Church, or that the institution of Bishops, presiding over particular Churches, came from Christ, but not that of the Primate, whose charge was to rule, administer, and maintain in unity the whole Church. Had they texts wherein to trust? But as often as the Bible speaks of the Church’s unity, it means that Church, which is called "the kingdom of God," "the kingdom of Christ," and "the kingdom of heaven," which is termed "the inheritance of the Gentiles," and embraces with a mother’s bosom, and a mother’s love, the whole race of man, from one end of the earth to the other. Had they creeds to cite? But in these unity is attributed to that Church only, which is so termed absolutely, and very often has the epithet of Catholic.

Moreover, is the word Church, in its unrestricted application, of doubtful meaning? On the contrary, it is specially defined as well in the Holy Scriptures,[46] where it expresses of itself the whole society of believers, as in the Fathers, such as Irenæus,[47] Tertullian,[48] Clement[49] of Alexandria, Origen,[50] Hilary,[51] Jerome,[52] and all the rest without exception, who, in using it, express the whole Christian people joined in one sole communion. It is defined also by Councils, as in the Canons of Laodicea,[53] Carthage,[54] and Constantinople,[55] where the Church means the whole assembly of orthodox believers, as distinct from heretics and schismatics. It is defined in the most ancient explanation of the creeds, the unanimous meaning of which Tertullian seems to have rendered in saying: "And, therefore, so many and so great Churches are that first one from the Apostles, whence all come. So all are first, and all Apostolical, while all set forth one unity, while they have interchange of peace, the appellation of brotherhood and the common rights of friendship, privileges regulated by no other principle than the tradition of the same sacrament."[56] Lastly, the very heretics[57] defined this term, who, in order to make themselves understood, could use the word Church in no other sense than to express the universal assembly of the faithful.

After this it is not at all necessary to ask Anglicans afresh if they have ancient Fathers whose authority they can quote. What these thought and believed about the Church’s unity is fully shown by those whom we have quoted, and by the words of Irenæus, "The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, yet as if it were contained in the same house, carefully preserves the rule of faith, and holds it as if she had one soul and one heart, nay, and teaches it with one consent, as if she spoke with one voice. For although different tongues occupy the world, yet the force of tradition is one and the same, nor do the Churches of Germany, Spain, Gaul, the East, Egypt, Libya, and the middle of the world, embrace any other faith. But as there is one and the same sun shining over the whole world, so the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men who desire its knowledge."[58]

What, then, was the motive of Anglicans, in maintaining the unity of particular churches, and the institution of bishops cohering with it, to be necessary, while they denied the necessity of unity in the Church universal, or of a Primate’s institution, to effect universal unity? What induced them to assert incompatibilities, and defend them as a matter of life and death? The evidence of the Scriptures, and the unquestionable belief of all Christian antiquity, extorted from them the acknowledgment that unity was a mark of the Church, and the ascription to Christ of the institution of bishops as necessary for the forming and maintaining unity. But the fixed purpose of defending their schism, and their determination to reject the Primacy, urged them to deny that unity in the whole Church was ordered and provided for by Christ. The result of these affirmatives and negatives was a doctrinal[59] monster of incomparable ugliness, an outrage on the light both of nature and of revelation, as incapable of defence, as abhorrent from reason and from grace.

B. The second Protestant opinion has been set forth at length by[60] Vitringa, and supported with all his ingenuity. It is that of those who distinguish a two-fold unity of the Church, one interior, spiritual, proceeding from union with one and the same invisible Head, Jesus Christ, and completed and perfected by the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit, and the bestowal of heavenly gifts; the other exterior, visible, depending on profession of the same faith, participation of the same sacraments, obedience to the same superiors. Having made this distinction, they proceed to argue for the purpose of proving that while the former unity is universal, and absolutely necessary, the latter is neither universal nor necessary, save hypothetically, (of which hypothesis Vitringa nowhere explains the nature,) and so is capable both of extension and restriction. In a word, they attach simple and absolute necessity and universality to the spiritual and invisible unity, but by no means to the external and visible. But for this what are their authorities? Can they allege the most ancient Fathers in unbroken succession from the Apostles? Nay, they candidly confess that the Fathers thought external and visible unity simply and absolutely necessary, and not those only of the fourth and fifth century, but those of the second and third. Witness Vitringa,[61] who says, "If we consult on this point the doctors of the ancient Christian Church, they seem on all hands to have embraced the view that the communion of believers in holy rites, in the supper of the Lord, and in reciprocal offices of brotherly love, was maintained absolutely, not hypothetically. They supposed, and seem to have persuaded themselves, that all who were joined to the Christian Church by the due rite of baptism after previous preparation, were really regenerated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and so that the Christian Church was an assembly of men, who in far greater part, saving hypocrites, of whom a few might exist in secret, participated in the renewing and sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, to be joined to the Church was much the same as being joined to the heavenly city. To have one’s name on the Church’s books, much the same as to have it in God’s book of life. On the other hand, to be severed from Church communion, or to use Tertullian’s words, "to be deprived of the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, and to be debarred from all brotherly communion," was to risk salvation, and incur the danger of eternal death. That is, they supposed that no one was saved out of the external communion of the Church, which they confounded with the mystical and spiritual communion of the Saints. And again, kindred points to these, and resting on the same principle, that bishops represent the office and person of Jesus Christ Himself in the Christian Church; that those who separated themselves from them when rightly and duly elected, separated themselves at the same time from the communion of Christ Himself. That those who were absolved by the bishops after penance publicly performed according to the canons of ecclesiastical discipline, restored to their rank, and honoured with the kiss of peace, were absolved in the heavenly court by God Himself, and Christ the Judge. Lastly, which was the most[62] audacious of all such hypotheses, that it was all over with the salvation of all who separated themselves in schism from the external communion of the Church and its rites, although hitherto they had neither been tainted with heresy, nor involved in crimes destructive of the Christian[63] profession. It would be easy for me to support at length each one of these particulars by the sentiments and the discipline of the doctors of the primitive Church, were they unknown to the more instructed, or did my purpose allow it. I now only appeal to Cyprian’s letter to Magnus, in the whole of which He supposes and urges the very hypotheses which I have been enumerating; and amongst the rest, speaking of Novatian’s schism, he writes thus distinctly: "But if there is one Church, which is beloved by Christ, and alone is cleansed in His laver, how can he who is not in the Church," (that is, in communion with that particular external assembly which makes a part of the external Catholic Church,) "be loved by Christ, or washed and cleansed in His laver? Wherefore as the Church alone possesses the water of life, and the power of baptizing and washing a man, let him who asserts that any one can be baptized and sanctified with Novatian, first show and teach that Novatian is in the Church, or [64]presides over the Church. For the Church is one, which, being one, cannot be at once within and without. For if it is with Novatian, it was not with Cornelius. But if it was with Cornelius, who succeeded the Bishop Fabian in regular order, and whom the Lord hath glorified with martyrdom over and above the rank of his high priesthood, Novatian is not in the Church."[65] It is the precise thing which we have been stating." But where did Vitringa and the supporters of his doctrine get courage to contradict the whole line of Fathers and their unbroken tradition? You would surely expect from them decisive arguments, and expressions from Holy Writ distinctly laying down no other than a hypothetical necessity of visible and external unity. But you may search in vain all over the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Acts, for any such. Not only is there no mention in them of such a distinction as that invisible unity is absolutely necessary, while external and visible unity is but hypothetically so, but this latter is plainly enjoined and set forth as the note which the mystical body of Christ, the true Church, cannot be without; and its violation is reckoned among those works of the flesh which exclude from the kingdom of God.

How, besides, can that be deemed necessary only under hypothesis, without holding and faithfully maintaining which you cut yourself off from the very fountain of blessing, and transgress and subvert the order appointed by God for attaining salvation? Such an assertion would be senseless. Yet in most of the Protestant confessions,—the Helvetic, art. xiv., the Galliean, art. xvi., the Scotch, art. xxvii., the Belgian, art. xxviii., the Saxon, art. xii., the Bohemian, art. viii., and that of the Remonstrants, art. xxii.,—it is laid down as an indisputable principle, "That the heirs of eternal life are only to be found in the assembly of those called." What then do those who violate outward and visible unity, and withdraw from the outward and visible body of the Church? They stop up the very way which Providence has opened for their obtaining "the inheritance of sons." For indeed Christ is the Saviour, but of His mystical body, which[66] is the Church, which therefore He purchased with His own blood, joined to Himself by that closest bond of being His spouse, enriched with promises,[67] provided with all manner of graces, and most nobly dowered with[68] truth, charity, and the Holy Spirit, to give her at last salvation, and[69]"the weight of eternal glory." But have these things reference to a visible or an invisible Church? To a Church one and coherent, or rent and torn by factions? It is the Church which Christ founded, which He made to be[70] "the light of the world," bound together by[71] manifold external links, ordered to be one with the unity of a house, a family, a city, a kingdom; with that unity wherewith the Father and the Son are one; in which He placed[72] pastors and doctors to bind and to loose, and to watch over the agreement of all the parts; which He founded upon Peter, committed in chief to Peter to rule and to feed it. Such, then, as fall off from one single visible Church are of the condition of those whom the Apostles of the Lord foretold, that "in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses: these are they who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the[73] Spirit:" these tear themselves from their Saviour, lose the fruit purchased by His blood, and fall from the inheritance which the Head obtained for His body and His members.

Therefore the necessity of union with the one single visible Church is as great as the necessity of union with Christ the Head, as the necessity of the remission of sins, "for[74] outside of it they are not remitted: for this Church has specially received the Holy Spirit in earnest, without whom no sins are remitted:" as the necessity of charity, "[75]for it is this very charity which those who are cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church do not possess," whence "[76]whatsoever thing heretics and schismatics receive, the charity which covers a multitude of sins is the gift of Catholic unity and peace:" as great, in fine, as the necessity not to involve oneself "in[77] a horrible crime and sacrilege," "in[78] the greatest of evils," one "by[79] which Christ’s passion is rendered of no effect, and His body is rent," by which[80] the sin is committed of which Christ said, "It shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come:" by which one is estranged "from the sole Catholic Church, which retains the true worship, in which is the fountain of truth, the home of faith, the temple of God, into which if any one enter not, or from which if any one go out, he loses the hope of life and eternal salvation. Let no one flatter himself in the spirit of obstinate contention, for life is at issue, and salvation, which without care and caution will be forfeited."[81] Can any necessity be greater, or less conditional than this? Or what can be more plain than this statement of the simple and absolute necessity of visible unity and outward communion? Where then are we to find the cause which induced so many learned and able Protestants first to imagine this distinction between the necessity of internal and external communion and unity, and then to deceive themselves and others with such a mockery? The real cause was, as I believe, that having denied the institution of the Primacy, and the authority lodged in it for the purpose of forming and maintaining unity, they were without a criterion or proof, in virtue of which, among so many Christian societies divided from and condemning each other, they could safely choose the one with which they were to be joined in communion, and the outward unity of duty and obedience. For they would readily conclude that the unity so often commended in Scripture, and so earnestly enjoined, could not be external, since God, who does not command impossibilities, had instituted no visible sign to mark that company of Christians, which alone among all the rest was the continuation and development of the Church founded by Christ, and built up by the Apostles.

C. From the same source must the third Protestant doctrine on unity be derived. [82]Jurien filled up the sketch of this, which [83]Casaubon, [84]Claude, and [85]Mestrezat had drawn, and it became so popular as not only to infect a large number of Protestants, but to exert a withering influence on certain unstable members of the Catholic body. It teaches that we must believe not only in an internal and spiritual, but in a visible and external unity, for the Scriptures plainly urge its necessity, and Christian tradition fully describes it, so that there is not a truth more patent or established on greater authority; but this unity is restricted within narrow bounds, and confined to the articles called fundamental, though as to how many these are no one defender of the system is agreed with another. For it is sufficient for Christians not to differ in the profession of such articles for them to be deemed members of one and the same Church. Whence they infer that one and the same true Church is made up out of almost all Christian societies, the Roman, the Greek, the Nestorian, the Eutychian, the Waldensian, the Lutheran, the Anglican, and the Calvinist, for their differences, important as they are, offer no hindrance to the unity which Christ enjoined, the Apostles preached, the creeds express, and universal tradition demands. As Bossuet,[86] the brothers Walemburg,[87] Nicole,[88] and even some Protestants have most fully dealt with this portentous opinion, there is no need to urge much against it here. I prefer repeating the question, what occasion the Protestants had to get up so unheard-of a paradox, and a system so absurd? It was twofold: one theoretical, and the other practical. The theoretical was this. The crime of heresy, depicted in Scripture, and Christian antiquity, with colours so dark, had gradually lost its foulness and its magnitude in the minds of Protestants, who had, at length, come to the pass of reckoning religious, as well as civil, liberty, among the unquestionable rights of man. As if, all other human acts being subject to a law, those alone which proceed from the intellect are exempt: as if the difference between right and wrong, which embraces the whole range of man’s life, did not relate to its noblest part, in the acts of the intellect and the reason: as if God had laid down a law of justice, charity, fortitude, and prudence, but entirely omitted a law[89] of faith: as if the will submitted to a law of good, but the mind owned no law of truth: or as if God cared for the boughs and leaves, but took no thought of the root.[90] But what could Protestants do? Having allowed to all full license of thought, and overthrown the authority which ruled the mind, they were forced, while they kept the name of heresy, to give up the thing meant by it, and the effects springing from that thing: they were forced to attenuate to the utmost the crime of heresy, and to reduce to the smallest possible number the articles necessary to be believed by all; they were forced to extend beyond all measure the Church’s limits, while they contracted beyond all measure the range of necessary unity.

Besides the theoretical, there was a practical occasion in those schisms which, not merely in later or in mediæval times, but in the first ages also, rent the Christian society. Jurien and Pfaff appeal to these, pretentiously enumerating those which arose under Popes Victor, Cornelius, Stephen, Urban VI., and Clement VII., and those named from Donatus, Meletius, and Acacius. Then they ask if the true Church of Christ can be thought to consist in one single society perfectly at union with itself. They allege many conjectures against this, but dwell on the argument, that in defect of a visible external test, such an assertion could not be maintained without imposing upon all a most intolerable burden of searching out where is the true doctrine and the legitimate ministerial succession: for it is not until those are found, that, at length, that one single society will be recognised, with which, as the only true Church, unity of Communion is to be kept.

Now, I profess that I do not see how this argument can be met, if the institution of the Primacy, and its proper function to form and maintain unity, be rejected. For, without this, by what visible token among so many Christian societies, divided by intestine dissension, and condemning each other, can you distinguish the one which has the character of the true Church, and the right to exact communion with itself? There is none to be found; and so, either all hope of finding the true Church must be relinquished, or an enquiry must be undertaken into purity of doctrine, and legitimate ministerial succession, on the termination of which the only true Church will at last be found. But as this latter course is to by far the greater number of men impossible, dangerous[91] to all without exception, and most foreign to the Christian temper, the only conclusion remaining, is, that the selection of a Primacy with the power of effecting unity impressed upon it, is most intimately involved and bound up in the visibility and unity of the true Church. And quite as closely is it bound up with that other test of the Church, its Catholicism. We are not to believe Voss and King,[92] in their assertion that this test began to be applied first in the fourth century, for the purpose of distinguishing the genuine company of the orthodox, and the true body of Christ, from heretics and schismatics. For we find the Church distinguished by the epithet of Catholic, not merely in the records of the fourth[93] and fifth[94] century, but in those of the third,[95] and the second,[96] at the beginning of which S. Ignatius wrote, "Follow all of you the bishop, as Jesus Christ the Father; and the body of presbyters, as Apostles. But reverence deacons, as the command of Christ. Without the bishop let nothing of what concerns the Church be done by any one. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is under the bishop, or with his sanction. Where the bishop is, there also let the multitude be; as, where Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church."[97] As, therefore, that cannot be the Church of Christ, which is not Catholic, we ought to investigate the meaning which is given to this word by the consent of all orthodox believers.

Now, two points are signified in it, one of which is its material, the other its formal, or essential, part. Its material part is, that the geographical extension of the true Church be such that its mass be morally[98] universal, absolutely great, and eminently visible, but comparatively with all heretical and schismatical sects, larger and more numerous. Of this material meaning attached to the epithet, Catholic, we find abundant witnesses in all[99] the orthodox writers who defended the cause of the Church against the Donatists, and again, against the Luciferians,[100] and Novatians; and likewise, in those who have explained the creeds,[101] and, as occasion offered, have touched on the force of the term Catholic.[102] But the same first cited witnesses tell us that universal diffusion is not sufficient, and that we require another element to infuse a soul into this universally extended body, and to bring it to unity. For two properties are continually recurring in Christian records, one of which may be called negative, the other affirmative. The force of the former is to expel from the circle of the one true Catholic Church all sects of heretics and Schismatics: of the latter, that this Church consist in one single communion and society, whose members cohere together by hierarchical subordination. But is it true that both these points are so plainly and constantly inculcated? To remove all doubt we will quote the authors who most distinctly assert the one and the other. As to the first, there are [103]Clement of Alexandria, [104]Tertullian, [105]Alexander of Alexandria, [106]Celestine, [107]Leander, the Emperor Justinian;[108]then again the Councils of Nice,[109] Sardica,[110] and the third of [111]Carthage; nay, the heretics[112] themselves; and all these agree in asserting that there is one only ancient Catholic Church, outside of which the divine patience endures and bears with heresies, which are as thorns. Thus in language ecclesiastical and Christian nothing can be considered as more certainly proved than that the epithet of Catholic is distinctive, and shows the communion which rejects from its bosom all heresies and all schisms. It was with great reason, therefore, that[113]Pacian wrote what[114]Cyril of Jerusalem, and[115]Augustine very frequently repeated, "Our people is divided from the heretical name by this appellation, that it is called Catholic."

Moreover this unity, which we have said may be called negative, is necessary indeed to the understanding of the Church as Catholic, but is by no means sufficient to complete the idea of Catholicity. To it therefore must be added the affirmative unity, by which Catholicism is not only divided from heretics and schismatics, but becomes in itself a coherent body with members and articulations. It is to the assertion and maintenance of this unity, which is the soul of Catholicity, and without which it cannot even be conceived, that has reference what we so often read in the monuments of antiquity about the [116]necessity of communion among the members of the Church and the [117]tokens and means of that communion. There are very distinct and innumerable testimonies about it in the ancient Fathers,[118] declaring its necessity, and setting forth its mode of composition and coherence. For to set forth the mode of this is the plain drift of what [119]Irenæus writes in confutation of heretics by the tradition of the Apostolical churches: "For since it would be very long in the compass of our present work to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, taking that Church which is the greatest, the most ancient, and well known to all, founded and established at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, by indicating that tradition which it has from the Apostles, and the faith which it announces to men, which has reached even to us by the succession of bishops, we confound all those, who, in whatsoever manner, either through self-pleasing, or vain glory, or blindness and evil intention, [120]gather otherwise than they ought. For to this church on account of its superior chiefship, it is necessary that every Church should come[121] together, that is, the faithful who are everywhere; for in this Church the tradition which is from the Apostles has been ever preserved by those who are everywhere. ...By this ordination and succession, the tradition and preaching of the truth, which is from the Apostles in the Church, has reached down to us. And this proof is most complete, that it is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved, and handed down in truth, in the Church from the Apostles to the present day." The churches, therefore, which are everywhere diffused, derive that strength and harmony of parts, out of which the whole body of the Catholic Church is made up, from the fact of their agreeing in the unity of faith and preaching with that Church of Peter, which is the greatest, the chief, and the more powerful. It follows that the Primacy of Peter, and the authority inherent in it to effect unity, is that principle which Christ selected, that the Church which He had set up might be Catholic, and bear the note of Catholicity on its brow. And Cyprian would set forth the same mode of communion, when he speaks of the coherence of bishops, by which both the Catholic episcopate is made one, and the Church one and Catholic. For as the several communities draw the unity of the body from the unity of the prelates to whom they are subject; so all prelates, and the communities subject to them, constitute one Catholic episcopate and one Catholic Church, because they cohere with the principal church, the root and matrix, which is the Church of Peter, upon whom the Lord founded the whole building, and whom He instituted to be the fountain and source of Catholic unity.[122]

These words are a clue to understand [123]Tertullian’s meaning, when, already become a Montanist, he called the Catholic Church, whose discipline he was attacking, the Church near to Peter—"Concerning your opinion, I now enquire whence you claim this right to the Church. If because the Lord said to Peter, ’Upon this rock I will build My Church,’ ’to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ or ’whatsoever thou shalt bind or loose on earth, shall be bound or loosed in heaven,’ you, therefore, pretend that the power of binding and loosing is derived to you, that is, to all the Church near to Peter; how do you overthrow and change the manifest intention of the Lord in conferring this on Peter[124] personally, ’Upon thee I will build My Church,’ and ’I will give to thee the keys,’ not to the Church, and ’whatsoever thou bindest or loosest,’ not what they bind or loose." Now he used this mode of speaking because it was customary with Catholics, who were wont to exhibit nearness with Peter as the characteristic of the Church, and the necessary condition for sharing that power, whose plenitude and native source Christ had lodged in Peter. This certain and undoubting judgment of Catholics, Tertullian himself, before his error, had clearly expressed in his book, De Scorpiace, c. x., where he says, "For if you yet think the heaven shut, remember that the Lord here (Matthew 16:19) left its keys to Peter, and through him to the Church." Nearness, then, with Peter, and [125]consanguinity of doctrine thence proceeding, are no less necessary to the Church, that it may be the Catholic Church which Christ founded and built upon Peter, than that it be partaker in those gifts which, again, He Himself granted only to unity, as it is effected in Peter and by Peter.

Now not only the most ancient Fathers, as Irenæus, Tertullian, and Cyprian, but the whole body of them, assign the origin of this to Peter. This they make the vivifying principle of agreement, society and unity, without which the Church can neither be intrinsically Catholic, nor the mind conceive it as such. It is so stated by [126]Pacian, [127]Ambrose, the [128]Fathers of Aquileia, [129] Optatus, [130]Gregory Nazianzen, [131]Jerome, [132]Augustine, [133] Gelasius, [134]Hormisdas, [135]Agatho, [136]Maximus Martyr, and, to shorten the list, by Leo[137] the Great. It is in setting forth the unity of the Catholic episcopate that he writes what ought never to be forgotten by Christian minds: "For the compactness of our unity cannot remain firm, unless the bond of charity weld 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 connection of the whole body which makes one soundness and one beauty; and this connexion, as it requires unanimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord among bishops. For though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an equal jurisdiction; since even among 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 mould, or type, the distinction also between bishops has arisen, and it was provided by a great ordering, that all should not claim to themselves all things, 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."

And, if I do not deceive myself, the direct drift of all this is to answer the question, whether the doctrine of Peter’s Primacy, and its virtue, as the constituent of unity and Catholicity, is contained in the most solemn standard of faith, the creed. For although there are unimpeachable testimonies to prove that the creeds were not published and explained to Catechumens, in order to convey to them a full and complete Christian instruction; and though it be proved further to have been the purpose of the Church’s ancient teachers to omit many points in the creeds which were to be set before the initiated at a more suitable season afterwards, it may nevertheless be said that the most commonly received articles of the creed may be regarded as so many most fruitful germs, from which the remaining doctrines would spontaneously spring. And so, to keep within our present point, what is more plain than that the sum of doctrine concerning Peter’s Primacy, contained in the Bible, illustrated by the Fathers, and defined by Councils, is involved in that article of the creed in which we profess that the Church is one and Catholic? No doubt there nowhere occurs in the creeds, expressed in so many words, mention of Peter, or of the Primacy bestowed on him, or of hierarchical subordination; yet it is most distinctly stated that the Church is one and Catholic. What meaning, then, were the faithful to give to those epithets? What were they to intend in the words, I believe one Catholic Church? What but the meaning of the words themselves, which they received from the Church’s teachers together with the creeds? But they could not form the conception of one Church and that Catholic, without thinking likewise of one Catholic principle of the Church; nor could they assign the dignity of that one Catholic principle to any other but Peter, whom alone they had invariably been taught to have been set over all. For what S.[138] Bernard wrote in mediæval times, "For this purpose the solicitude of all Churches rests on that one Apostolic See, that all may be united under it and in it, and it may be careful in behalf of all to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," must be considered nothing but a repetition of the faith which resounded through the whole world, from the very beginning of the Christian religion.

Unless, therefore, any can be found who prefer asserting either that true believers never understood what they believed, in professing the Church to be one and Catholic, or that they understood this otherwise than it had been universally and constantly explained by the Church’s teachers; it must be admitted, that faith in Peter’s Primacy, and in the power bestowed upon it for the purpose of making the visible kingdom of Christ one and Catholic, is coeval with that profession of the creeds which sets forth the Church as one and as Catholic.[139]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] [Greek: hêgoumenos], Luke 22:26, the very term still given in the East to the head of a religious community; and also, as has been said, that which marks our Lord in the great prophecy of Micah, recorded in Matthew 2:6.

[2] [Greek: Prôtos, meizôn, hêgoumenos]. See ch. 2.

[3] 1 Corinthians 10:18; Galatians 6:16.

[4] Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:29.

[5] See Numbers 2:3-9; Numbers 10:14; Judges 1:1-3; Judges 20:18.

[6] Genesis 49:10; and see John 4:22.

[7] 3 Kings, xii.

[8] S. Ambrose, Ep. 11.

[9] Arnobius Junior in Psalms 138:1-8.

[10] Eucherius of Lyons, hom. in vig. S. Petri.

[11] Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople, on the Transfiguration.

[12] The Archimandrites of Syria to Pope Hormisdas, Mansi 8, 428.

[13] S. Bernard, de Cons. Lib. 2, 100:8.

[14] S. Theodore Studites to Pope Leo III., Lib. 1, Ep. 33.

[15] In 1 Cor. Hom. 1, n. 1.

[16] S. Greg. Naz., Orat. 12, alluding to John 19:23.

[17] S. Cyprian, Ep. 79.

[18] S. Jerome, Ep. 57.

[19] Matthew 16:18.

[20] Luke 22:31-32.

[21] John 21:15.

[22] Luke 22:26.

[23] Unity, John 10:16; John 17:20-23; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31; Ephesians 2:14-22; Ephesians 4:5; 1 Corinthians 1:10.

[24] Catholicity. Luke 24:47; Mark 16:20; Acts 1:8; Acts 9:15; Romans 10:18; Colossians 1:8-23.

[25] For all the fathers hold the doctrine thus expressed by St. Hilary of Poitiers on Psalms 121:1-8, n. 5. "The Church is one body, not mixed up by a confusion of bodies, nor by each of these being united in an indiscriminate heap and shapeless bundle; but we are all one by the unity of faith, by the society of charity, by concord of works and will, by the one gift of the sacrament in all." No notion of the Church’s unity in England, it may be remarked, outside of Catholicism, goes beyond "the indiscriminate heap and shapeless bundle."

[26] Titus 2:11.

[27] Romans 1:25.

[28] Titus 2:14, with 1 Peter 2:25.

[29] John 17:17.

[30] Ephesians 4:4.

[31] John 17:21.

[32] Galatians 5:20, Galatians 5:19.

[33] 1 Corinthians 14:33.

[34] Ephesians 5:27.

[35] Matthew 16:18.

[36] 1 Timothy 3:15.

[37] Matthew 18:17.

[38] Luke 22:26.

[39] Luke 22:31-32.

[40] John 21:15.

[41] Acts 1:4-8.

[42] John 15:26.

[43] Matthew 28:20.

[44] Matthew 18:18.

[45] The first Reformers fell into this grievous error because they had no other way to defend their schism. They may be passed over at present, as in most even of the Protestant confessions visibility is reckoned among the notes of the Church.

[46] 1 Corinthians 6:4; 1 Corinthians 10:32; 1 Corinthians 11:22; 1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 3:10-21; Ephesians 5:23-25, Ephesians 5:27, Ephesians 5:29, Ephesians 5:32; Colossians 1:18-24; 1 Timothy 3:15.

[47] Irenæus, Lib. 1, 100:3, Lib. 3, 100:4.

[48] Tertullian, de Præsc. 100:4.

[49] Clement. Stromat. Lib. 7, 17.

[50] Origen in Cantic, Hom. 3.

[51] Hilary, De Trin. Lib. 7, 100:12.

[52] Jerome, adv. Lucifer.

[53] Concil. Laodic. Can. 9, 10.

[54] Concil. Carthag. 4, Can. 71.

[55] Concil. Constant. 2, Acts 3:1-26.

[56] De Præsc. 100:20.

[57] See in the sixth act of the second Nicene Council the quotations from the iconoclast synod of Constantinople.

[58] Adv. hæreæs, Lib. 1, 100:3.

[59] Even the Puritan Cartwright observed, "if it be necessary to the unity of the Church that an archbishop should preside over other bishops, why not on the same principle should one archbishop preside over the whole Church of God?" Defence of Whitgift.

[60] Sacred observations, Lib. 5, 100:7, on the hypothetical external communion of Christians.

[61] See also the testimony of Mosheim, quoted above p. 197, note.

[62] Thus the universal belief of the Fathers from the beginning is charged with audacity. It is difficult not to be struck with the utter antagonism of feeling which separates Protestants from the whole body of the Fathers. The statements here ascribed, and truly, by Vitringa to them, would be viewed in modern English society, as the very insanity of bigotry.

[63] Because to rend Christ’s mystical body, and to subvert that unity for which He had prayed the Father, was regarded by them as a crime of the deepest dye. In modern England it would be consecrated by the glorious principle of "civil and religious liberty."

[64] The unrestricted expression, "to preside over the Church," used by Cyprian of Novatian, who claimed to be Peter’s successor, contains a clear indication that the fold entrusted to Peter was as wide as the Church itself. It is the same Church in the two clauses, but in the former it must be understood universally.

[65] Ep. 69.

[66] Ephesians 5:23-25.

[67] Ephesians 4:15-17.

[68] John 14:16-26; John 15:26; John 16:7.

[69] 2 Corinthians 4:17.

[70] Matthew 5:14.

[71] Compare Luke 12:8-9, with Matthew 10:32; Mark 8:38; Romans 10:10; and again, Mark 16:15, with Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:41; Acts 8:36; Acts 19:5; 1 Corinthians 12:13; and Matthew 26:28, with Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 10:17; 1 Corinthians 11:21; and Ephesians 4:11, with Acts 20:28; Titus 1:5.

[72] Compare Ephesians 4:11-16, with 1 Corinthians 12:13-31; and Matthew 18:18, with John 20:21; Acts 15:41; Acts 16:4; 2 Corinthians 10:6; 1 Timothy 5:20; Titus 1:13; Titus 2:15.

[73] Jude 1:18; 2 Peter 3:2-3.

[74] Augustin. in Euchirid. 100:63.

[75] Aug. In Tract de Symb. 100:11.

[76] Aug. De Baptismo Cont. Donat. Lib. 3, 100:16.

[77] Aug. Cont. Litt. Petiliani, Lib. 1, 100:21-2, Lib. 2, 100:13-23. Lib. 3, 100:52.

[78] Optat. Lib. 1.

[79] Ambros. de Obitu Satyri fratris, Lib. 1, n. 47.

[80] Idem. de Pœnit. Lib. 2, 4.

[81] Lactant. Div. Institut. Lib. 3, 100:30.

[82] Le vrai Systême de l’Eglise.

[83] Answer to Cardinal Perron.

[84] Defense de la Reforme, p. 200.

[85] Traité de l’Eglise, p. 286.

[86] Bossuet, writings against Jurien.

[87] The brothers Walemburg, Treatise on Necessary and Fundamental Articles.

[88] Nicole, de l’Unité de l’Eglise.

[89] See the recognition of this law, Mark 16:16; Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 12:8-9; Romans 10:10.

[90] Such the Fathers call Faith, terming it, "the beginning and foundation," "the greatest mother of virtues," "the principle of salvation," "the prelude of immortality," "the clear eye of Divine knowledge," "the foundation of all wisdom." See Suicer, art. [Greek: pistis]

[91] After having gone through this search for ten long years, it may be allowed to express how great its danger, and how great too the blessedness of those who are not exposed to it. It is worth the experience of half a life to receive the truth, without personal enquiry, from a competent authority. Protestantism begins its existence by casting away one of the greatest blessings which man can have.

[92] De Symbolo, Diss. 1, 39, and Hist. Symb. Apostol. cap. 6. 16.

[93] Pacian, Ephesians 1:1-23, n. 4. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 18, n. 23. Eusebius on Isa1:32:18. Chrysostome on Colos. hom. 1, n. 2, on 1 Cor. hom. 32, n. 1, Jerome on Matthew 24:26.

[94] Augustine on Psalms 41:1-13, n. 7; Epist. 49, n. 3-52, n. 1, and elsewhere.

[95] Council of Antioch, quoted by Euseb. Hist. Lib. 7, 100:30. Origen on Romans, Lib. 8, n. 1; Cyprian, Epist. 52; Acts of S. Fructuosus, n. 3, and of S. Pionius. n. 9.

[96] Irenæus, Lib. 3, 100:17, and Epistle on martyrdom of S. Polycarp, n. 19.

[97] Epis. to Smyrneans, n. 8.

[98] Augustine, Ep. 52. n. 1, Serm. 238, n. 3.

[99] As Optatus, Lib. 2, Aug. de Unitate Ecc. 100:2. &c.; cont. Cresconium, 50:2, 100:63, Contr. Petilian. 50:2, 100:12-55-58-73; on Psalms 21:1-13; Psalms 47:1-9; Psalms 147:1-20, and on 1 Ep. John, Tract, 1, 2.

[100] Pacian, Ephesians 3:1-21, Jerome cont. Luciferianos.

[101] Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. 18.

[102] Irenæus, Lib. 1, 100:10; Lib. 4, 100:19, Tertullian adv. Judæos, 100:7, Bernard in Cantica, serm. 65.

[103] Clement, Stromat. 50:7, § 15-17.

[104] Tertullian de præsc. 100:30.

[105] Alexander, apud Theodoret. H. E. Lib. 1, 100:4.

[106] Cœlestinus, homil. in laud. eccles.

[107] Leander, Cont. Origenistas in Actis Synodi V.

[108] Justinianus, epist. ad Mennam Constantinopolitanum.

[109] Council of Nice, in the Creed, and Canon 8.

[110] Sardica in letter to all bishops, quoted by Athanasius, Apol. 2.

[111] 22nd Canon of Codex Africanus.

[112] The Nestorian profession of faith, in fifth act of Council of Ephesus.

[113] Pacian, Ephesians 1:1-23.

[114] Cyril, Catech. 18.

[115] Aug. de vera relig. c .6, de utilit. credendi, 100:7.

[116] Pacian, Ephesians 3:1-21, "The Church is a full and solid body, diffused already through the whole world. As a city, I say, whose parts are in unity. Not as you Novatians, an insolent particle, or a gathered wen, separated from the rest of the body."

[117] Such as are [Greek: grammata koinônika], Euseb. H. E. lib. 7, 100:30. [Greek: epistolai koinônikai], Basil. Ep. 190, or [Greek: kanônikai], Ep. 224, letters of peace commendatory, ecclesiastical, &c.

[118] See especially Chrys. Hom. 30 on 1 Cor.

[119] Irenæus, Lib. 3, 100:3.

[120] Compare Jerome’s often-quoted passage, Ep. 15, to Pope Damasus, "Whoso gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, whoso is not of Christ is of antichrist."

[121] For the meaning of "come together," see farther on, 100:40. "God hath placed in the Church Apostles, Prophets, Doctors, and all the rest of the operation of the Spirit, of which all those are not partakers who do not run together to the Church, but defraud themselves of life by an evil intention and a very bad conduct. For where the Church is, there is the Spirit; and where is the Spirit of God, there is the Church and all grace."

[122] See S. Cyprian’s letters, 69, 55, 45, 70, 73. 40. Consider the force of the words, "Peter, upon whom the Church had been built by the Lord, speaking one for all, and answering with the voice of the Church, says, Lord, to whom shall we go?" Ep. 55, on which Fenelon (de sum. Pontif. auct. 100:12) remarks, "What wonder, then, if Pope Hormisdas and other ancient fathers says, "the Roman, that is, the Catholic Church," since Peter was wont to answer with the voice of the Church? What wonder if the body of the Church speaks by mouth of its head?"

[123] De Pudicitia, 100:21.

[124] This Montanist corruption (into which Ambrose on Psalms 38:1-22, n. 37, and Pacian in his three letters to Sempronian, state that the Novatians also fell,) induced some fathers, and especially Augustine, (Enarrat. on Psalms 108:1-13. n. 1, Tract 118 on John, n. 4, and last Tract n. 7) to teach that the keys were bestowed on Peter so far forth as he represented the person of the Church in right of his Primacy. By which mode of speaking they meant this one thing, that the power of the keys, as being necessary to the Church, and instituted for her good, began indeed in Peter, and was communicated to him in a peculiar manner but by no means dropt, or could possibly drop, with him.

[125] Tertull. De Præsc. 100:32.

[126] Pacian, ad Sempronium, Epis. 3, § 11.

[127] Ambrose, de Pœnit. Lib. 1, 100:7, n. 33.

[128] Synodical Epistle, among the letters of Ambrose.

[129] Optatus, de Schism. Donat. Lib. 2, 100:2, and Lib. 7, 100:3.

[130] Gregory, de vita sua, Tom. 2, p. 9.

[131] Jerome, adv. Jovin. Lib. 1, n. 14.

[132] Augustine, in Ps. Cont. partem Donati, cont. Epist. Fundam. 100:4, de utilitate credendi, 100:17, and Epist. 43.

[133] Gelasius, Epis. 14.

[134] Hormisdas, Mansi, Tom. 8, 451, in the conditions on which he readmitted the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Eastern bishops to communion.

[135] Agatho, in a letter to the sixth council, read and accepted at its fourth sitting.

[136] Maximus, Bibl. Patr. Tom. 11, p. 76.

[137] Leo, Epist. 10, 100:1.

[138] Ep. 358, to Pope Celestine.

[139] The above chapter is translated from Passaglia, Pp. 298-336.

CHAPTER IX. THE NATURE, MULTIPLICITY, AND FORCE OF PROOF FOR S. PETER’S PRIMACY.

[1]As the natural end of all proof is to give assurance, every kind of it must be considered a mean to persuade and determine the mind. Not but that there are different kinds, and that in great variety. If we refer these to their respective topics, some are internal and artificial, others external and inartificial; some belong to the philosopher, others to the theologian, the former having their source in nature, the latter in revelation; another sort, again, rests on witnesses, and another on documents. But if we consider their persuasive force, they may be conveniently ranged under the two classes of probable, and certain or demonstrative. But if it be asked what sort of proof we have hitherto used, and drawn out to the best of our ability, we must distinguish between the principal and prevailing proof, and this in form is inartificial, theological, and drawn from the inspired documents; and the proofs occasionally inserted and confirmatory of the principal: these, it will be evident, are sometimes artificial and internal, such as those drawn from analogy, and the harmonious coherence of doctrines, from the unity and Catholicity of the Church, and the institution of bishops to rule particular flocks; and sometimes derived from witnesses, for such we may deem the ancient Fathers, whose importance and force, as testimonies, no prudent mind will reject. To embrace, then, the full extent of our proof, it ranges over all forms and modes, is artificial and inartificial, and rests not only on documents, but on witnesses. Now two things follow from this mixed and manifold character of our proof, of too great importance to be passed over in silence. The first of these is, the standard and criterion of resistance which our proof presents to opponents. For consisting, as it does, of so many elements, confirmed, as it is, by the absolute harmony of so many various parts, that only can be a satisfactory answer, which meets at once every particular proof, and the whole sum of it. For it would be to small purpose to give another sense, with some speciousness, to one or two points, if the great mass of matter and argument remain untouched. The only valid answer would be to reject and deny the Primacy of supreme authority, presenting at the same time a sufficient cause for all those results of which the proof consists. For so long as the institution of the Primacy is necessary to supply a sufficient cause for these results, so long the force of our proof remains untouched, and the institution of the Primacy unquestionable. We can therefore demand of our opponents this alternative, either to acquiesce in our proof, or, rejecting the Primacy, to find, and when they have found to establish, an hypothesis equal to the explanation of all that is contained in our arguments artificial and inartificial, in our documents and our witnesses. The second point is one which all will admit. The proof we have given is such that unless it be deceptive, the institution of the Primacy is demonstrated to be not only true, but also revealed, not only tenable, but matter of faith. For although we have interwoven testimonies and artificial arguments, this was to confirm what was already demonstrated, and to shed fresh light on what was already clear; but the proper source from which we have drawn our proofs, was the documents of the Holy Scriptures themselves. Now what is thence drawn is [2]revealed, and enters into the number of things which, being revealed, are matter of faith.

These two points are clear, but a third may be somewhat less so. Many will ask, what is the force of the proof, its power to persuade, and whether it carry complete certitude, or be defective. Now to this we shall reply, that the proof which we have presented is not only probable, but altogether decisive. It wants nothing to produce the fullest assurance. This is a subject which I have judged fit for special and separate investigation, as due both to myself, my readers, and the cause which I am defending. For it is not a happiness of our nature to catch the whole and the pure truth at a single glance. This requires repeated acts of the mind; we have to make the effort again and again, and only terminate our examination when we have submitted our supposed discovery to reiterated reflection. Thus it is that truth comes out in full light, imposition is detected, the line drawn between doubt and certainty, and every point located in its due place. This enquiry, then, into the proof itself I consider due not only to myself and my readers, but to a cause, which requires the utmost attention as being of the highest importance, and the source of the deepest dissensions; for it is not too much to say that the origin of all those divisions which we see and lament in the Christian name, may be referred to the reception or the denial of this doctrine concerning the Primacy.

Now we shall best reach the subject by first considering the inherent force of the proof in itself, and absolutely, and then comparatively with those arguments to which the most distinguished Protestant sects ascribe a full and complete demonstrative power.

I. First, then, as to the force of proof absolutely. We must reflect that two conditions complete a proof derived from documents; first, the authenticity of the document; secondly, either the immediate and unquestionable evidence of the testimonies quoted from it, or their meaning being rendered certain by argument. If these two conspire, nothing is wanting to produce assurance. Now, as to the documents, whence our proof is derived, no Christian doubts their authenticity; and as to the testimonies drawn from them, part[3] belong to a class of such evidence as to admit of no doubt; and part,[4] being equally clear, and marked in themselves, have had to be defended from false interpretations. Accordingly, our proof is peremptory in both particulars.

Moreover, our proof was not restricted to one or two passages of holy Scripture, but extended over a great series, all tending to support and consolidate the argument. We have set forth, not a naked institution of the Primacy, but multifold foreshadowings and promises of it, its daily operation and notoriety. From its first anticipation we went on to its progressively clearer expression, its promise, its institution, its exercise, and the everywhere diffused knowledge of it in the primitive Church. So far, then, as I see, nothing more can, with reason, be asked, to remove all doubt as to Peter’s prerogative of Primacy; for, when the bestowal of certain privileges can be proved by documents, all question as to their existence is terminated. But here we find in documents, not their bestowal merely, but antecedents and consequences, a beginning, a progress, and a manifold explanation, which stand to the Primacy as signs to the thing signified.

Accordingly, the demonstration which we have given of the Primacy, considered in itself, and absolutely, needs nothing to challenge assent.

For, suppose it disputed whether Cæsar surpassed the other Roman Senators in honour and power. Could it be proved by undoubted records, that he so conducted himself as gradually to smooth his path to the supreme power; that he next gained from the senate and Roman people, the title of Emperor and Prince; that he exercised these powers at home and abroad, and received universal testimony to the dignity he had acquired; in such case the judgment would be unanimous that he was emperor, and head of the Roman Senators. Now, substitute Peter for Cæsar, the Apostles for the Senators; Christ, the Evangelists, Luke and Paul, for the senate and people; and you will see all the proofs enumerated for Cæsar, to square exactly with Peter. For we learn from Scripture the steps by which he rose to the Primacy, the time when he received it, how he exercised it, and the lucid testimonies to it which he received from Christ, the Evangelists, the Apostolic Church, and Paul. Accordingly, his Primacy and supreme authority among the Apostles rests on a proof which gives complete assurance, and challenges assent. It is a consequence deduced, not from a single, but from manifold inference; not merely drawn from results, but foreseen in its causes; declared not merely in the words of institution, but in the very acts of its exercise; supported not only by sundry texts, but by a cloud of conspiring witnesses; proved by an interpretation, not obscure, and far-fetched, but clear and obvious. A thing of such a nature it is folly to deny and temerity to doubt.

But, further, reflect on the other arguments which come in collaterally to support that from the Holy Scriptures. Then it will be found that our proof consists in the harmonious concurrence of these four sources, 1. the authentic scriptural documents distinctly setting forth the promises, the bestowal, the exercise, and the everywhere diffused knowledge of the Primacy:2. witnesses the most ancient, well nigh coeval with the Apostles, of great number, renowned for their holiness, or their martyrdom, excellent in learning, far removed from each other in situation, faithful maintainers of the Apostolic teaching, who, with one mouth, acknowledge the Primacy:3. the analogy of doctrines, for the Church, which we profess to be one, and Catholic, can neither exist, nor even be conceived as such, without the Primacy:4. the facts of Christian history, which are so entwined with the institution of the Primacy, that they cannot be even contemplated without it. For there are no less than fourteen distinct classes of facts in Christian history, all of which bear witness to the Primacy, and which cannot be studied without coming across that power. Such are, 1. the history of heresies, where, in ancient times alone, consider the acts and statutes of Pope Dionysius, in the causes of Paul of Samosata, and Dionysius of Alexandria; of Popes Sylvester and Julius, in the cause of Arius; of Pope Damasus in that of Apollinarius; of Popes Innocent and Zosimus in that of Pelagius; of Pope Celestine in that of Nestorius; and of Pope Leo in that of Eutyches; so that Ferrandus[5] of Carthage wrote in the sixth century, "If you desire to hear aught of truth, ask in the first place the prelate of the Apostolic See, whose sound doctrine is known by the judgment of truth, and grounded on the weight of authority." 2. The history of schisms, which have arisen in the Church, when we consider the unquestionable facts about Novatian, Fortunatus and Felicissimus, the Donatists, and Acacius of Constantinople, so that Bede, in our own country, wrote in the seventh century, commenting on Matthew 16:10, "All believers in the world understand, that whosoever, in any way separate themselves from the unity of the faith, or from the society of Peter, such can neither be absolved from the bonds of their sins, nor enter the threshold of the heavenly kingdom." 3. The history of the liturgy, as the contests about the paschal time, and what Eusebius, in the fifth book of his history, 100:22-5, says about Pope Victor. 4. The history of the summoning, the holding, and the confirming general councils, wherein the Acts of Synods, the letters of the supreme Pontiffs, and the writings of the Fathers, show the entire truth of what is stated by the ancient Greek historians, Socrates and Sozomen,[6] that an ecclesiastical Canon had always been in force, "that the Churches should not pass Canons contrary to the decision of the bishop of Rome," which Pope Pelagius,[7] in the sixth century thus expressed, "the right of calling councils is entrusted by a special power to the Apostolic See, nor do we read that a general council has been valid, which was not assembled or supported by its authority. This is attested by the authority of canons, corroborated by ecclesiastical history, and confirmed by the holy Fathers." And Ferrandus says, "Universal councils, more especially those to which the authority of the Roman Church has been given, hold the place of second authority after the canonical books."[8] 5. The history of ecclesiastical laws, for the regulation of discipline, a summary of which, enacted by the successors of Peter from Victor I. to Gregory II., may be found in Zaccaria’s Antifebronius, Tom. ii., p. 425, and his Antifebronius Vindicatus, Diss. vi., 100:1. 6. The history of judgments, specially the most remarkable in the Church, of which, if we are to believe history, we can only repeat what Pope Gelasius wrote at the end of the fifth century, to the Bishops of Dardania, "We must not omit that the Apostolic See has frequently, to use our Roman phrase, more majorum, even without any council preceding, had the power to absolve those whom a council had unjustly condemned, or to condemn, without any council, those who required condemnation:" and as he wrote to the Greek emperor, Anastasius, "that the authority of the Apostolic See has in all Christian ages been set over the Church universal, is established by the series of the canons of the Fathers, and by manifold tradition."[9] 7. The history of references, which were wont to be made to the chair of Peter, in the greater causes of faith, and in those respecting Catholic unity. Thus, Avitus, bishop of Vienne, A. D. 500, said, "It is a rule of synodical laws, that, in matters relating to the state of the Church, if any doubt arises, we, as obedient members, recur to the priest of the Roman Church, who is the greatest, as to our head."[10] To the same effect is the letter of Pope Innocent I., to S. Victrice, of Rouen, at the beginning of the fifth century, and again, the African Fathers to Pope Theodore; or again, S. Bernard, writing to Pope Innocent II., against the errors of Abelard, "All dangers and scandals emerging in the kingdom of God, specially those which concern faith, must be referred to your Apostolate: for I esteem it fitting that the injuries done to faith should be repaired there in particular, where faith cannot fail. That is the prerogative of this See." 8. The history of appeals, of which a vast number of remarkable instances exist. Take, as the key, the words of Pope Gelasius once more: "It is the canons themselves which have ordered the appeals of the whole Church to be carried to the examination of this See. But from it they have allowed of no appeal in any case; and, therefore, they enjoin that it should judge of the whole Church, but go itself before the judgment of none: nor do they allow of appeal from its sentence, but rather require obedience to its decrees."[11] And Pope Agatho, in the Roman Council, pronouncing on the appeal of our own S. Wilfrid, of York, the contemporary of Bede, A. D. 688, declares that "Wilfrid the bishop, beloved of God, knowing himself unjustly deposed from his bishopric, did not contumaciously resist by means of the secular power, but with humility of mind sought the canonical aid of our founder, blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and declared in his supplication that he would accept what by our mouth, blessed Peter, our founder, whose office we discharge, should determine."[12] 9. The history of the ecclesiastical hierarchy,[13] and of the rights possessed by certain episcopal Sees over others, of which we may take an instance in the grants of Pope Gregory the Great, and his successors, to the See of Canterbury, which alone made it a Primacy. For the bishops of Canterbury had no power whatever over the other bishops of this country, save what they derived from S. Peter’s See. And the documents, and original letters conferring these powers still exist, giving the fullest proof that Pope Pius only did in 1850, what Pope Gregory did in 596. 10. The history of the universal propagation of the Christian religion.[14] 11. The history of those tokens and pledges,[15] such as letters of communion, whereby Catholic unity was exhibited and maintained. 12. The history of Christian archæology,[16] inscriptions, paintings, and other monuments of this kind. 13. The history of the emperors, as, for instance, what Ammianus Marcellinus[17] says of Constantius; the letter of the Emperor Marcian to Pope Leo, entreating him to confirm the council of Chalcedon; that of Galla Placidia, the 130th novel of Justinian, and the remarkable constitution of Valentinian III., A. D. 445. "Since the merit of S. Peter, who is the chief of the episcopal coronet, and the dignity of the Roman city, moreover, the authority of a sacred synod" (that of Sardica, A. D. 347) "have confirmed the Primacy of the Apostolic See, let presumption not endeavour to attempt anything unlawful, contrary to the authority of that See: for, then, at length, the peace of the Church will everywhere be preserved, if the whole (universitas) acknowledge its ruler." And, 14. lastly, the history of codes, in which is contained the legislation of Christian kingdoms, wherein we may refer to the capitulars of the Franks, and the laws of the Lombards.

Now from these concordant proofs thus slightly sketched, it follows that the institution of the Primacy belongs to that class of facts which is most certain, and which is absolutely demonstrated. For would it be possible to find a concurrence of proofs so various in case it had never been instituted? Is it possible to imagine so many various results of a cause which never existed? So many various tokens of reality in a fiction? What are the chances for letters thrown at random forming themselves into an eloquent speech? Or a beautiful portrait coming out from a mere assemblage of colours? Or a whole discourse in an unknown tongue being elegantly rendered by a guess? If these be sheer absurdities, although a few letters have sometimes tumbled at random into a word, or a single clause been decyphered, though in ignorance of the alphabet, then we may be sure that the Primacy, attested by so vast a variety of convergent results, can no more be untrue, than effects can exist without a cause, splendour without light, or vocal harmony without sound. Accordingly an institution established by such a union of proof, carries prisoner the assent. It may indeed be disregarded by a resolution of the will, but can neither be passed by, nor refuted, by a judgment of the reason.

And[18] having on the one hand this vast amount of positive proof, from sources so various, in its behalf, so that without it the whole Christian history of eighteen centuries, in all its manifold blendings with secular history, becomes unintelligible, a snarl which it is impossible to arrange, when we come on the other hand to consider what its opponents allege of positive on their own side, we find nothing. They content themselves with objections to this or that detached point, with historical difficulties, and obscurations of the full proof, such, for instance, as the conduct of S. Cyprian in one controversy, the occasional resistance of a metropolitan, the secular instinct of an imperial government stirring up eastern bishops to revolt, and fostering an Erastian spirit in the Church, the ambition of thoroughly bad men, such as Acacius or Photius, and the like. But what we may fairly ask of opponents, and what we never find the most distant approach to in them is, if, as they say, S. Peter’s Primacy be not legitimate, and instituted by Christ for the government of the Church, what counter system have they, which they can prove by ancient documents, and whereby they can solve the manifold facts of history? In all their arguments against the Primacy they are so absolutely negative, that the grand result, if they were successful, would be to reduce the Church to a heap of ruins, to show that she, who is entrusted with the authoritative teaching of the world, has no internal coherence either of government or doctrine, in fact, no message from God to deliver, and no power to enforce it when delivered. In the arguments of Greeks and Anglicans, Lutherans and Calvinists, and all the Protestant sects, the gates of hell have long ago prevailed against the Church, and the devil has built up at his ease a city of confusion on the rock which Christ chose for her foundation. If we listen to them, never has victory been more complete than that of the evil one over the Son of God: the promised unity he has scattered to the winds: the doctrine of truth he has utterly corrupted: the charity wherewith Christians loved one another he has turned into gall and wormwood. That is, the opponents of S. Peter’s Primacy are one and all simply destructives; they inspire despair, and are the pioneers of infidelity, but are utterly powerless to build up. Ask the Anglican what is the source of spiritual jurisdiction, and the bond of the episcopate which he affects to defend? He makes no reply. All he can say is, it is not S. Peter. Ask the Greek, if bishops and patriarch disagree, and come to opposite judgments on the faith, or to schisms in communion, which party make the Church? He has no solution to offer, save that it is not the party which sides with S. Peter’s successor. Ask the pure Protestant, who maintains the sole authority of the written word, if you disagree about the meaning of Scripture in points which you admit to touch salvation, who is to determine what is the true meaning of the word of God? He has nothing to reply, save that he is sure it is not the Pope. Contrast, then, on the one side, a complete coherent system, fully delineated and set forth in the Bible, attested by the Fathers, corroborated by analogy, and harmonising the history of eighteen hundred years in its infinitely numerous relations, with, on the other side, a mere heap of objections and denials, with shreds of truths held without cohesion, with analogy violated, history thrown into hopeless confusion, and to crown the whole, Holy Scripture incessantly appealed to, yet its plainest declarations recklessly disregarded, and its most consoling promises utterly evacuated. Choose, upon this, between within and without.

II. But such being the argument for the Primacy of itself and absolutely, look at it now in a comparative point of view with other doctrines. Let us ask Anglicans, Lutherans, and Calvinists, respectively, to compare it in order with the proofs with which they, each in behalf of his own sect, defend either the authority of bishops, and their distinction from presbyters, as instituted by Christ, or the real presence of the Lord’s body in the Eucharist, or the divine nature of Christ, and His consubstantiality with the Father. Can they state, upon a comparison of these, that there are more testimonies of Holy Scripture in behalf of these latter doctrines than for the Primacy of Peter? As for the articles of the real presence, and the superiority of bishops, this cannot be asserted with any show of truth, since in behalf of both there are undoubtedly fewer. Certainly there are a great number for the divinity of Christ, yet not much less are those which the same Scriptures contain in support of Peter’s Primacy. So that if the force of proof is to be judged of by the number of texts, that in behalf of the Primacy will either be preferred to the rest, or at least yield to none. But I anticipate the answer that it is not the number of texts which will decide the question, but their perspicuity and evidence, which constitute their force. To meet which objection I shall merely set these several parties against each other. What, then, do Lutherans think of the perspicuity of those texts by which Anglicans maintain the superiority of bishops over presbyters? They are unanimous in thinking them not merely most obscure, but absolutely foreign to the purpose for which they are cited. Just the same is the Calvinist opinion of the Lutheran proofs for the real presence, and the Socinian view of the texts alleged by Calvinists in behalf of Christ’s divinity. Both obstinately refuse to admit that their opponents urge anything decisive. It would be easy to quote instances of this, if it was not notorious. It is, then, no unfair inference that Protestants have no particular reason to boast triumphantly of the perspicuity and evidence of the texts on which they severally rely. But who, they retort, cannot see that the cause of the Primacy, which we defend, is far inferior? For our exposition is opposed not by one or two parties, but by them all in a mass, Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, and all who are not Catholics. The addition is significant, all who are not Catholics, for indeed all these, and these alone, are our opponents. Yet their very name creates the gravest prejudice against them, and shows them to be unworthy of attention. As S. Augustine said, "The Catholic Church is one, to which different heresies give various names, they themselves each possessing their own name, which they dare not refuse. Whence judges unaffected by partiality can form an opinion to whom the name of Catholic, which all aim at, ought to be given."[19] If, then, the name of Catholic is a note of truth, the negation of that name is a test of error and heresy. But no one will imagine that heretics, that is, the enemies of Christ and the Apostles, have a right to be followed in what concerns the doctrine of Christ, and the Apostolic institutions. Thus what Tertullian said is to the point, "Though we had to search still and for ever, yet where are we to search? Is it among heretics, where all is foreign and opposed to our own truth, whom we are not allowed to approach?[20] What servant expects food from a stranger, not to say an enemy of his lord? What soldier takes donative or pay from confederate, not to say from hostile kings, except he be an open deserter and rebel? Even the woman in the Gospel searched for her piece of silver within her own house. Even he who knocked, struck the door of a friend.[21] Even the widow solicited a judge, who was hard indeed, but not her enemy. No one can be built up by the person who destroys him. No one be enlightened by one who shuts him up in darkness. Let us search then in our own, and from our own, and about our own, and only that which can be questioned without harm to the rule of faith."[22] But if we look closer into the matter, we shall find that even in the interpretation of our texts Protestants are not so agreed with each other as uniformly to oppose us. Some of the greatest names amongst them, such as Camero, Grotius, Hammond, Leclerc, Dodwell, Michaelis, Rosenmüller, and Kuinoel, differ from the rest and agree with us in interpreting, "upon this rock I will build My Church," words of great importance in the controversy about the Primacy. So that we were not wrong in stating that Protestants do not entirely agree among each other in their interpretation, nor disagree with ours. But grant that they were one and all opposed to it, it would not prove much. For, first, it could hardly happen otherwise, since the whole Protestant cause is so contained in this matter of the Primacy, that, were they to confess themselves wrong in it, they would pronounce themselves guilty of the most groundless schism. Therefore it is a matter of life and death with them to resist us. Secondly, as they dissent from us, so do they desert that doctrine which the whole Christian body solemnly professed and defined before the sixteenth century in ecumenical councils, that of Florence held in 1439, the second of Lyons in 1274, and the fourth Lateran in 1215. We, then, follow antiquity, and they take up novelty. And so it follows that while we have Protestants against us, we have the earlier Christians for us, whilst Protestants are opposed not only to the present race of Catholics, but to those whose children these are, and whose doctrines they have preserved. For as to the ancient interpretation of these texts take the following proof, contained in a letter of Pope Agatho to the Greek emperor Heraclius, read and approved in the sixth general council, a.d. 680. "The true confession of Peter was revealed by the Father from heaven, for which Peter was pronounced to be blessed by the Lord of all, who likewise by a triple commendation was entrusted with the feeding of the spiritual sheep of the Church by the Redeemer of all Himself; in virtue of whose assistance this his apostolical church hath never turned aside from the path of truth to any error whatsoever; whose authority, as of the Prince of all the Apostles, the whole Catholic Church at all times and the universal councils faithfully embracing, have in all respects followed, and all the venerable Fathers have entertained its apostolic doctrine; through which there have shone the most approved lights of the Church; which while the holy orthodox Fathers have venerated and followed, heretics have pursued with false accusations, and calumnies inspired by hatred. This is the living tradition of Christ’s Apostles, which His Church everywhere holds."[23] We might imagine that Sir Thomas More had these words before his eyes when he answered Luther, "not only all that learned and holy men have collected to the point moves me to give willing obedience to that See, but especially what we have so often witnessed, that not only there never was an enemy to the Christian faith who did not at the same time declare war against that See, but also that there never has been one who professed himself an enemy of that See without shortly after declaring himself signally a capital foe and traitor of Christ and our religion. Another thing, too, has great weight with me, that if, in this manner, the faults of individuals are laid to the charge of their office, all authority will collapse, and the people will be without ruler, law, or order. And if this ever happens, as it seems likely to happen in parts of Germany, at length they will learn to their cost how much more it is to the interest of society to have even bad rulers rather than none."[24]

Protestants, then, have many more opponents than we; to which we may add, thirdly, that we assert and maintain a doctrine which for several ages had no opponents worth mentioning, and which received a general belief and assent. Protestants, on the contrary, no sooner brought their doctrine to light than they roused the whole Catholic Church against them; that very Church, fourthly, from which they had rebelled, in which they had been washed in the laver of regeneration, whose motherly care had enrolled them as Christians, from which they had received the Bible and all other Christian blessings, which, before that fatal schism, alone presented the appearance of the true Church, and was invested with attributes which inspired belief and fostered obedience. For such were antiquity, the hierarchy, unity, the agreement of its members, universality; such, again, the splendour of sanctity and learning; zeal in the guardianship of primeval tradition, hatred of profane novelties; and, lastly, the renown of those heavenly gifts, which cannot fail the true Church of Christ, and were ascribed to no other body. But fifthly, it would be very apposite to compare the Catholic Church with herself, and contrast her state and condition in the nineteenth century with that same state and condition in the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth. Now who, in the fourth century, professed the consubstantiality of the Trinity? Well nigh Catholics alone, while innumerable sects of heretics opposed this doctrine. War to the knife was waged against it by Praxeans, Noetians, Sabellians, Paulianists, Arians, and their worst portion, the Anomæans, Macedonians, and those who then made their appearance, Tritheists. Again, in the fifth and the sixth centuries, who were they who retained the true faith in Christ the God-Man, and His dispensation in taking flesh? Once more the true faith was hardly found outside the Catholics, while the followers of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Diodorus of Tarsus, Nestorius and the Nestorians, Eutyches, and the Eutychean sects at daggers drawn with each other, and in fine, the Monothelites and their sects, who hated one another and the Catholics with equal bitterness, clubbed all their forces together to oppose it. Now do any Protestants venture to infer that in the fourth and following centuries the cause of the Catholic Church was less certain, on account of this mob of hostile sects? I should consider such an insinuation an insult to them. They must accordingly allow my parallel inference, that it is fair to pass the same judgment on the cause of the Primacy now for some centuries defended by the Catholics against the Protestants.

Lastly, to address specially Lutherans and Anglicans. They are well aware that almost all sects are not more opposed to the supremacy of Peter than to the superiority of bishops, and the verity of the Lord’s body in the Eucharist. But are they therefore deterred by the number of their enemies, or do they distrust the goodness of their cause, or doubt the perspicuity of those documents on which they rely for the victory? They can afford to disdain the tricks of their opponents, as well as repulse their attacks. They must, accordingly, agree with us that the assertions or denials of contesting parties ought not to be, and cannot be, the test of a cause’s goodness, and of documentary evidence.

But, then, by what standard are we to go? I reply, by those criteria which are not subject to just exception, and which must be approved by all who seek the truth, and obey the dictate of reason. Now four such criteria in chief I think may be assigned, the two former of which are immediate and internal, the third internal, but somewhat more remote; the fourth, external, but of great weight, and not to be overlooked. To speak of the former first; one of these is verbal, and belongs to the words and phrases of which the text consists; the other real, and regards the meaning of the sentence. Indeed, no other sources of obscurity or of clearness can be imagined than either the words which express the matter, or the matter intended by the words. If both words and matter are plain, and perspicuous, the discourse will be clear, and the language distinct; but if either the matter exceed the power of reason, or the words do not run clear, or both these conspire, the evidence of the meaning will be more or less impaired.

I. Now, to begin with words, I shall not be severe, but allow to Anglicans, Lutherans, and Calvinists, that the texts alleged by each of them in behalf of his own cause consist of words which are either immediately perspicuous, or become mediately clear upon definite principles. But in turn I should ask them repeatedly to consider whether such a perspicuity can be denied to the words of which the texts cited for the Primacy of Peter consist. These words are in general and vulgar use, continually repeated in the Bible, but so connected together that their certain meaning is either immediately evident, or fixed with very little trouble. But are not most of them metaphorical, such as rock, building, keys, binding, loosing, lambs, sheep, feeding? Undoubtedly some are such, yet not that words used in their proper sense are wanting, as when Peter is called the first, the greater, the superior; also when he is charged to confirm his brethren; and what we collect from the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of S. Paul, and the evangelists’ mode of writing. Not, secondly, that it is not evident, from the connection of the discourse, what fixed and established meaning must be given to those metaphorical expressions. Not, thirdly, that the meaning of those formulas is not shown by the exercise of the powers conferred in them. Not, fourthly, that there is any inability, if you remove the metaphor, to express in proper words what the metaphor shadows out. Not, fifthly, as if the literal and immediate sense were therefore wanting; for it is very plain that the metaphorical[25] sense likewise is literal and immediate. And sixthly, not that metaphorical can be considered equivalent to obscure, for obscurity is most opposed to the very genius of metaphor, and such a canon would destroy the perspicuity of human language. For there is no language, ancient or modern, rude or polished, semitic, chamitic, or japhetic, whose metaphorical is not much more copious than its proper vocabulary.

Metaphor, then, and obscurity are very far removed from each other, and there is nothing to prevent a metaphorical expression bearing the plainest sense. For such the sense will be, whenever what is called the foundation of the metaphor is clear, and the series of the discourse indicates the point of likeness, and usage of speech unfolds the force of the metaphor. Now all these conditions, which ensure perspicuity in the metaphor, are found in interpreting the metaphors which contain the singular prerogatives of Peter. For as it is perfectly plain whence the metaphors of foundation, building, keys, binding, loosing, sheep, lambs, shepherd, are drawn, so the context defines the point of similitude, and usage of speech does not allow ignorance of the force of such metaphors. And thus the texts on Peter’s Primacy have a verbal perspicuity which will bear a favourable comparison with those texts, on which Anglicans, Lutherans, and Calvinists rely. For indeed all the difficulties, in the invention of which Protestants have shown their ingenuity, are introduced, put upon the words, not drawn from them. So on the contrary, the haters of the Primacy evidently wince at their clearness.

2. Verbal perspicuity is followed by real, or that which concerns the subject matter. And this, I assert, is far inferior, far more slender, in the above named Protestant controversies, than in this of the Catholics. Indeed, both the controversies, on the real presence and on the divinity of Christ, have a super-intelligible object, so far exceeding the natural power of reason, as to admit of the mind’s conceiving it by analogy, but not by a distinct and proper knowledge. For this is the nature of mysteries, whence it follows in them that neither single words have distinct notions, nor a whole proposition distinct sense. Whereas in the controversy about the Primacy, there is nothing which is not commensurate with reason, and which has not the advantage of proper and distinct notions. For, of revealed truths, some being rational, some beyond reason, and some above reason, the proper character of those which are called beyond reason is, that, if revealed, they are cognizable by reason. Now to such an order of truths the institution of the Primacy belongs. Thus its real evidence, that namely which concerns its subject matter, is much superior to that which the others admit of. But should we grant as much to the controversy in which Anglicans defend the superiority of bishops over presbyters? Grant this, yet still it remains that in this species of real evidence the cause of the Primacy is far superior to that of the real presence, or that of the divinity of Christ. But, in truth, the Anglican doctrine on bishops may be considered from two points of view, either as severed from the Catholic dogma on Peter’s Primacy, or as in connexion and coherence with it. From the latter point of view I should admit it to be so agreeable to reason, that this power calls for it, and rests in it, when once illuminated by faith, so as to know, that is, the purpose of Christ that each particular Church should present the aspect of an united family. But sever this superiority of bishops over presbyters from the dogma of the Primacy, and inveigh as keenly against Peter’s supremacy as you defend their presidency, which is what Anglicans do, and then I could only conclude that this doctrine is plainly contrary to reason instead of agreeing with it. For whence do Anglicans deduce its agreement with reason? Hammond, Pearson, Beveridge, Bingham, and their other greater theologians, tell us that it follows very plainly, because we know that Christ carefully provided for the unity of particular Churches, which, they say, it seems impossible to obtain without the superior power of bishops. It is a good inference; but did Christ show less care for the unity of the whole Church than for that of particular Churches? Who can seriously maintain this? For what is the unity recommended by Christ and so earnestly urged by the Apostles, save that of the whole Church? And when we acknowledge in the creed one Church, do we mean a particular or the universal Church? We mean that which we also acknowledge to be Catholic, and therefore the unity is that of the Catholic Church. And therefore it was Christ’s intention, and His certain will, that not only particular Churches, but the universal body of the Church, should possess the test and the dower of unity. And this Anglican notion, which denies of the universal Church, what it affirms of particular Churches, may suit very well an island, holding itself aloof from the rest of the world, but it is quite incompatible with the radical idea of the kingdom of Christ.

Moreover, if it was necessary for the production and maintenance of unity in particular Churches to set bishops over them, with authority superior to that of presbyters; if reason demands that it being Christ’s will for particular Churches to live in unity, He should likewise have instituted the power which distinguishes bishops from presbyters; can we suppose either that it was not necessary for the production and maintenance of unity in the Catholic Church, to commit its government to an universal superior, or that reason does not equally require, that Christ, who enjoined the Catholic Church to maintain unity, should have instituted the universal Pastor? Nay, as the necessity is not equal on the two sides, but so much stronger on the side of unity in the Catholic Church, as it is more difficult to hold together in one an innumerable than a limited number, men scattered over the globe than men within a narrow region, nations differing in genius, habits, and laws, than those who resemble each other in these; so reason, which for particular Churches requires their respective bishops, much more requires the institution of a universal superior, lest the end should appear to have been devised without the means, and the divine work of Christ be deficient in wisdom. What, then, are Anglicans about in dividing these two doctrines, and contending for the institution of bishops, while they obstinately deny the institution of the Primacy? They strip of its authority the very truth which they defend, and by severing doctrines which derive their consistency from their cohesion, put weapons in the hands of presbyterians to assault and even overthrow the very dogma from which they take their name of episcopalians. Accordingly the evidence derived from the subject matter is much clearer in those texts which are alleged for Peter’s Primacy, than in those by which the superiority of bishops over presbyters, the real presence, and the divine person of Christ, are proved.

Now the force of demonstration derived from documents corresponds to the sum of verbal and real evidence in the texts, being greater or less as this is stronger or weaker. In other words, the force of demonstration belongs to that class of evidence which mathematicians call direct. But both these sorts of evidence exist in the same, or even in a fuller degree, in those texts which concern the Primacy, and set forth its divine institution. Accordingly the force of demonstration for the Primacy is equal or superior to that belonging to the arguments which prove the superiority of bishops, the real presence, and Christ’s divine person. Yet these arguments have such force, that the articles which they prove cannot, in the opinion of Anglicans, Lutherans, and Calvinists, be questioned without incurring the deepest guilt of heresy. We have, then, the same or even a stronger reason to affirm that the Primacy of Peter, resting on the same, or even a stronger, evidence, as revealed, cannot be denied without heresy. And this is a corollary which I would entreat Anglicans, Lutherans, and Calvinists, carefully to consider, and then say whether they are consistent; for then I feel assured they would become discontented with themselves, by reflecting that, in the choice of the articles which they hold, they are not following the clearness of revelation, but party spirit and factious prejudices. What satisfactory answer can they ever return to the Catholic who asks why they, who on equal or less evidence defend the superiority of bishops, deny the Primacy which rests on similar or greater proof? Or why they attack the Primacy, while they defend the real presence, or the divinity of Christ, which are supported by no more evident arguments? And how will they satisfy their own conscience, should this thought ever cross them, "Why do I at one time obey, at another time resist, the same evidence of revelation?" That same faith with which they severally believe the divine appointment of bishops, the real presence, and the consubstantiality of Christ, compels them, if they would maintain consistency, and not repel conviction, to confess the Primacy of Peter. And this argument might be carried much further, if they would reflect how great is the brilliancy of evidence in behalf of the Primacy, compared with sundry other capital Christian doctrines, some or all of which they hold without question: such are the consubstantiality of the Trinity, the unity of Christ’s Person, the propagation of original sin, the eternity of punishment, regeneration in baptism, and gratuitous justification. They will find, on reflection, that they hold these doctrines not because they are proved by stronger scriptural evidence than the Primacy, for quite the reverse is the truth, nor because they are encompassed with less obscurity in their own character, for the subject matter of the Primacy is clear and distinct in comparison with them all, but because the doctrines do not oppose the particular tradition which they have received, and so their minds are not set against them. Let them once come to compare the whole evidence for the Primacy, scriptural, traditional, analogical, and historical, which last alone comprehends the fourteen heads above enumerated, with the same evidence in behalf of any or all of those, and they cannot but admit its great superiority.

3. But we must proceed to the third criterion, which increases not a little the evidence from revelation for the Primacy. For Catholics and Protestants are agreed in considering analogy as one of the best helps in interpretation, and in assigning to it the force of a real parallelism, a proceeding which rests on the necessity of the Scripture presenting one whole and harmonious body of doctrine in its several parts. And in order not to deprive this help of its efficacy, both parties give two conditions for its exercise, the first, that no sense be put upon passages of Scripture contrary to analogy; the second, that no violence be used to the language of Scripture to conform it with analogy, which would be imposing on holy writ the sense wanted from it. These two faults carefully avoided, analogy is of great service, and throws much light upon interpretation.

But, now, is there such a sum of doctrine, so remarkable, and so diffused through all the books of the New Testament, that the texts expressing the gifts and prerogatives of Peter, can be tried by the touchstone of this analogy? Such, indeed, there is, very remarkable, and threefold in character. The first point is found in the texts[26] which regard the divine institution of bishops: the other two in those which show the unity,[27] and the Catholicity[28] of the Church. For what can stand in closer connection with these articles of doctrine, than the appointment of a supreme ruler to discharge over the universal Church the office which every bishop exercises over his own particular Church, and his own portion of the flock? What, again, can be more opposed to them, than the supposition that provision was made, by the institution of bishops, for the parts, but none, by the institution of a supreme pastor, for the whole body, which is to be one and Catholic? Therefore, that exposition of the texts concerning Peter, which exhibits him as ruler of the Church universal, and as made to be the visible cause of that same Catholic unity, so admirably agrees with analogy, that it must be considered unquestionable, unless texts contradictory to it can be produced. But so far is it from the case that texts considered in themselves contradict it, that, on the contrary, they immediately express it of themselves, and can be distorted from it only by violating all the laws of interpretation. Accordingly, that view of the texts about Peter, which establishes his Primacy, is wonderfully confirmed by analogy, and by its harmony with what the Scriptures tell us of the Church, as instituted by Christ.

4. And nothing will be wanting to give full assurance to this confirmation, if we add the fourth or external criterion, that derived from consent of witnesses. I am not going to urge here the divine force and infallible authority of Christian tradition: I shall merely allege what no person of discretion can deny or question. The first point is, that in the actual controversy the testimony of the most ancient witnesses cannot be disregarded: and the second, that it carries the very strongest prejudice in favour of whichever interpretation it supports.

Now here we have to do first, with the interpretation of a series of dogmatic texts; and, secondly, with a point of doctrine, which, being of the utmost moment, could not be unknown to any one. But are these matters on which ancient witnesses, such as the Christian Fathers, and ecclesiastical writers, can be safely past by unheard? If it were a matter of geography, chronology, or archæology, one might allow it, though with regret: but this is out of the question, in a matter of dogmatic texts, and those relating to a most important doctrine. For notorious is the zeal with which the ancient Fathers laboured to preserve and interpret the dogmatic texts of Scripture. We know their care to prevent the introduction of new and false interpretations, and new and false doctrines thence arising. And we know that, together with the Scriptures, they received from the Apostolic teaching the kindred power of interpreting them. For, as Origen remarked, "Since there are many who think that they believe what is of Christ, and some of them believe what is different from those before them, yet, since the preaching of the Church is preserved, as handed down by the order of succession from the Apostles, and to the present day abiding in the Church, that verity alone is to be believed, which in nothing is discordant from the ecclesiastical and Apostolical tradition."[29]

Moreover, can it seem safe to enter upon a track most divergent from that which the Apostles marked out, and the Christian people constantly followed? S. Paul[30] taught us to listen to witnesses, and Christendom, whether assembled in council, or everywhere diffused, was content to depend on them. Most clear is what is said on this point about the Fathers at Nicea[31] and Ephesus,[32] and no less so the words of Leontius[33] of Byzantium, John Cassian,[34] Theodoret,[35] Augustine,[36] Jerome,[37] Epiphanius,[38] Basil,[39] Origen,[40] Tertullian,[41] Clement[42] of Alexandria, and the oldest of all, Irenæus,[43] who says, "The true knowledge is the doctrine of the Apostles, and the ancient state of the Church in the whole world, and the character of the body of Christ, according to the succession of bishops, by which they handed down the Church, which is in every place, which hath reached even to us, being guarded without fiction, with a most full interpretation of the Scriptures, admitting neither addition nor subtraction, and the reading without falsification, and legitimate and diligent exposition according to the Scriptures, without danger, and without blasphemy, and the chief gift of charity, which is more precious than knowledge, more glorious than prophecy, more eminent than all graces." For, as he says elsewhere, "We ought to learn the truth, where the gifts of the Lord are placed; among whom is that succession of the Church, which is from the Apostles, sound and irreproachable conversation, and discourse unadulterated and incorrupt. For these maintain that faith of ours in one God, who made all things: these increase that love towards the Son of God, who has made for our sake so great dispositions: these explain to us the Scriptures without peril."

And, besides, where is the Protestant who does not praise the Hebrew illustrations of Lightfoot, Schoettgen, and Meuschen? or who does not at least make much of the commentaries of Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Jarchi, and others, in the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures? They all see the advantage of approaching such sources of information, and using them for their own purpose. But are we to refuse to the Fathers, and ancient doctors of the Church the deference which we allow to Rabbins and Thalmudists? This is at least a reason for hearing the testimony of the Fathers. And if it be concordant, constant, and universal, it most powerfully recommends that scriptural interpretation, which agrees with it. In this, all Catholics without exception, and the most judicious and learned Protestants, are agreed. In good truth, it would be incredible that an interpretation could be false, which was adopted unanimously by the Fathers of every age and country. And it ought to be as incredible to find any one so conceited, as not to be greatly moved by the witness and consent of Christian antiquity.

One point of enquiry remains, whether the Fathers have given their opinion, and that unanimously, on Peter and the texts, which relate to him. But their words[44] inserted in the foregoing pages entirely terminate this controversy, and show that they were all of the mind expressed by Gregory the Great, in these words, which, it is well to remember, were directed to the supreme civil authority of those days, for he tells the emperor:

"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, Prince of all the Apostles. For to him it is said, ’Peter, lovest thou Me? Feed My sheep.’ To him is said, ’Behold, Satan hath desired to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not; and do thou, one day, in turn, confirm thy brethren.’ To him is said, ’Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church,’ &c. Lo, he hath received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of binding and loosing is given to him, the care and the chiefship of the whole Church is committed to him."[45]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The following chapter is translated from Passaglia, Pp. 339-360.

[2] This is not said as limiting revelation to such points, but to exhibit the scope of the present work, which uses testimony merely as a human, though very important, support of the cause.

[3] The texts relating to the primacy, the Evangelists’ mode of writing, that of S. Luke in the first twelve chapters of the Acts, and that of S. Paul.

[4] The Apostles’ contest about "the greater," the distinction between the founder, and the visible head of the Church, and for false interpretations, the primacy of mere precedency, the perversion of John 21:15-20, the assertion of Apostolic equality, and Gal. i 18-20.

[5] Interroga igitur, si quid veritatis cupis audire, principaliter sedis Apostolicæ antistitem, cujus sana doctrina constat judicio veritatis, et fulcitur munimine auctoritatis. Ferrandus in Epist. ad Severum.

[6] Socrates, Hist. 50:2, 100:8-17. Sozomen, hist. 50:3, 100:10.

[7] In fragm. epist. apud Baluzium, Miscell. Lib. 5, p. 467.

[8] Ferrandus in litteris ad Pelagium.

[9] Mansi. Tom. 8, 54, 34.

[10] Avitus, Epist. 36.

[11] Gelasius, Epist. 4, ad Faustum. Mans1:8, 17.

[12] Mansi. Tom. 11:184.

[13] See Peter Ballerini, de potestate ecclesiastica, cap. 1, § 1-6.

[14] See Mamachi, origines et antiquitates Christianæ, Tom 2.

[15] See Muzzarelli, de auctoritate Rom. Pontificis in Conciliis generalibus, c. v. § 9.

[16] See Mamachi, as above, Tom. v part. 1, 100:2.

[17] Amm. Marcellinus, Lib. 15, 100:7.

[18] The following paragraph, down to "within and without," I have introduced here. It is not in F. Passaglia.

[19] Aug. de utilitate credendi, 100:7, n. 19.

[20] Titus 3:10.

[21] Luke 15:9; Luke 11:5; Luke 18:2.

[22] Tertullian, de Præsc. 100:21.

[23] Mansi, concilia, Tom. 11, 239.

[24] Responsis ad Lutheram, c. x.

[25] Sense, says John, is the connection or mutual relation of notions intended by the author in his words, or, according to others, which is the same thing, the conception of the mind which the author has expressed in words, and wishes to raise in his readers. This sense, whether it springs from the proper or whether from the improper and metaphorical meaning of words, or from allegorical language, is immediate, grammatical, and literal.

[26] Acts 14:22; Acts 20:28; 1 Timothy 5:19-22; 2 Timothy 4:2-5; Titus 1:5; 1 Peter 5:2-3.

[27] Matthew 16:18; Matthew 18:18; John 10:16; Ephesians 5:25; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; John 17:20-26.

[28] Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8; Acts 9:15; Colossians 1:8; 1 Corinthians 1:23; 1 Corinthians 9:20; Romans 10:18.

[29] Origen. preface [Greek: kezi azchôn], n. 2.

[30] 2 Timothy 2:2.

[31] See Athanas. de decritis Nic. Synodi, and also Hist. tripartit. Lib. 2, 2-3.

[32] See Vincent of Lerins. Commonit. 100:32, 3.

[33] Leontius, Contr. Nestorium. Lib. 1.

[34] Cassian, De Incarn. Lib. 1.

[35] Theodoret, in the three dialogues.

[36] Augustine, cont. Cresconium, 1, 100:32-3.

[37] Jerome, Ep. 126, and dialog. adv. Luciferianos.

[38] Epiphanius. bæres. 61, 75, 78.

[39] Basil, cont. Eunomium, Lib. 1; de Spiritu S. 100:29.

[40] Origen in Matt. Tract. 29.

[41] Tertullian, throughout the book De Prescriptionibus.

[42] Clement, Stromatum, Lib. 7.

[43] Irenæus, Lib. 4, 100:63 and 45.

[44] It may be allowable also to refer to the fifth section of the work mentioned in the preface, "The See of S. Peter," &c.

[45] S. Greg. Ep. Lib. 5, 20.