attempted to describe, a concurrence of events in the fourth century tended
to give a still greater moral weight to the voice of the Bishop of Rome.
While the other great sees of the Church were vexed with heresy or schism,
his was providentially exempted from both. The same century witnessed
Coecilianus of Carthage, judged and supported by Pope Melchiades, while the
Donatist schism all that century long rent Africa in twain; and St.
Athanasius, of Alexandria, driven from his see, and persecuted by the whole
East, received and justified by Pope Julius; and St. John Chrysostom, too
good by far for a corrupt capital and a degenerate court, in life
protected, and in death restored, by Pope Innocent. We have seen St. Jerome
appeal to Pope Damasus, to know which of three competitors for the
Patriarchal throne of Antioch was the right Bishop. But it is impossible to
describe the confusion and violence which the Arian heresy, and the cognate
heresies concerning the Person of our Lord, wrought throughout the Church
and Empire. In all these the Roman Patriarch was beheld immovable,
supporting, with his whole authority, what turned out to be the orthodox
view. What Mr. Newman asserts is, moreover, entirely in accordance with the
Patriarchal system, as we have attempted to describe it, "that the writers
of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly allow, that
the prerogatives of Rome were derived from apostolic times, and that
because it was the See of St. Peter." I confess that these words set me
upon the search, and that I have found such testimonies in abundance; but
then they are invariably to the Bishop of Rome _as holding the first see,
not as_ Episcopus Episcoporum: _they bear witness to the Patriarchal
system, not to the Papal_. For instance, all lovers of truth would be
obliged to Mr. Newman to point out, in all the works of St. Augustin, a
single passage which is sufficiently distinct and specific to justify the
Papal claims, nay, which does not consider the Pope the first Bishop, and
_no more_. It is little to say I have searched for such in vain. But in a
Western Father, whose extant writings are so voluminous, and whose personal
history is almost a history of the Church during the nearly forty years of
his episcopate, and who continually gives judgment on all matters
concerning the Church's government and constitution, it would seem
impossible but that such a testimony should be found, if a thing so
wondrous as is the Papal Power then existed. On the contrary, St. Augustin,
continually explaining those often cited passages of Scripture, on which
mediaeval and later Roman writers ground the Papal prerogatives, that is,
Thou art Peter, &c., Feed my sheep, &c., says specifically, that Peter
represents the Church. One of these passages we have already quoted. Take
another. "And I say unto thee, because thou hast said to me; thou hast
spoken, now hear; thou hast given a confession, receive a blessing;
therefore, and I say unto thee, that thou art Peter; because I am the Rock,
thou art Peter; for neither from Peter is the Rock, but from the Rock,
Peter; because not from the Christian is Christ, but from Christ the
Christian. And upon this Rock I will build my Church; _not upon Peter,
which thou art, but upon the Rock which thou hast confessed_. But I will
build my Church, _I will build thee, who in this answer representest the
Church_."[35] Again, in a passage which conveys that old view of Cyprian,
that every Bishop's chair is the chair of St. Peter. "For as some things
are said which would seem to belong personally to the Apostle Peter, yet
cannot be clearly understood unless when they are referred to the Church,
which he is admitted, in figure, to have represented, on account of the
Primacy which he held among the disciples,--as is,--I will give to thee the
keys of the kingdom of Heaven;--and if there be any such like."[36] Again:
"For Peter himself, to whom He entrusted His sheep as to another self, He
willed to make one with Himself, that so He might entrust His sheep to him;
that he might be the Head, the other bear the figure of the Body, that is,
the Church; and that, as man and wife, they might be two in one flesh."[37]
Again: "The Lord Jesus chose out His disciples before His Passion, as ye
know, whom He named Apostles. Amongst these, Peter alone almost everywhere
was thought worthy (_meruit_) to represent the whole Church. On account of
that very representing of the whole Church, which he alone bore, he was
thought worthy to hear, I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of
Heaven. _For these keys not one man but the unity of the Church received._
Here, therefore, the eminence of Peter is set forth, because he represented
the very universality and unity of the Church, when it was said to him, I
give to thee what was given to all. For that you may know that the Church
has received the keys of the kingdom of God, hear what in another place the
Lord says to all his Apostles: Receive the Holy Ghost. And presently:
Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to him; whosesoever ye retain,
they are retained. This belongs to the keys concerning which it was said,
What ye loose on earth, shall be loosed in Heaven; and what ye bind on
earth, shall be bound in Heaven. But this He said to Peter. That you may
know that Peter then represented the whole Church, hear what is said to
him,"[38] &c. "For deservedly, after His resurrection, the Lord delivered
His sheep to Peter himself to feed; _for he was not the only one among the
disciples who was thought worthy to feed the Lord's sheep_. But when Christ
speaks to one, unity is commended; and to Peter above all, because Peter is
the first among the Apostles."[39] Again: "As in the Apostles, the number
itself being twelve, that is, four divisions into three,"--(he seems to
mean, that there was a mystical universality betokened in the number four,
as a mystical unity in the number three,)--"and all being asked, Peter
alone answered, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And it is
said to him, I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, _as if
he alone had received the power of binding and loosing; the case really
being, that he singly said that in the name of all, and received this
together with all, as representing unity itself; therefore one in the name
of all, because unity is in all_."[40] This, written at so many different
times, was evidently the view preferred by this great Father;[41] and be it
observed, that while, on the one hand, there is a total silence as to the
local see of Rome, on the other hand, there is in these words a specific
denial of the present Roman doctrine, that all spiritual jurisdiction
throughout the whole Church is derived from the see of Rome _alone_. That
jurisdiction is derived from the see of Rome, and the other Apostolic Sees
in conjunction, is the truth of the Patriarchal system; that it is derived
from the see of Rome, as distinct from them, and without them, is the
exaggeration of the Papal system.
I may remark here, that St. Leo the Great does apply these passages both to
St. Peter personally, as distinct from the other Apostles, and to the Roman
Pontiffs, as his successors, distinct from all other Bishops. St.
Augustin's different application is the more remarkable.
The strongest expressions respecting the power of the Roman see, which I
have been able to find in the works of St. Augustin, are contained not in
his proper works, but in two letters of Pope St. Innocent, written in
answer to the synodical letters of the Council of Milevi,--"who thought fit
likewise to communicate their judgment to the Pope St. Innocent in order to
join the Apostolical authority to their own."[42] Their own words
are,--"What we have done, Sir and Brother, we have thought good to intimate
to your holy charity, that the authority of the Apostolical See may also be
added to what we, in our mediocrity, have ordered, to protect the salvation
of many, and also to correct the perversity of some."[43] They were writing
concerning a point nearly touching the common faith, _i.e._, in
condemnation of Pelagius. The Pope in his answer, praises them,
that--"Guarding, according to the duty of priests, the institutions of the
Fathers, ye resolve that those regulations should not be trodden under
foot, which they with no human but Divine voice decreed: viz., that
whatever was being carried on, although in the most distant and remote
provinces, should not be terminated before it was brought to the knowledge
of this see: by the full authority of which the just sentence should be
confirmed, and that thence all other churches might derive what they should
order; whom they should absolve; whom, as being bemired with ineffaceable
pollution, the stream, that is worthy only of pure bodies, should avoid; so
that as from their parent source all waters should flow, and through the
different regions of the whole world the pure streams of the fountain well
forth uncorrupted."[44] And in like manner to the Bishops of Numidia, at
the same Council. "Ye do, therefore, diligently and becomingly consult the
secrets of the Apostolical honour, (that honour, I mean, on which beside
those things that are without, the care of all the Churches awaits,) as to
what judgment is to be passed on doubtful matters, following in sooth the
direction of the ancient rule, which you know, as well as I, has ever been
observed in the whole world. But this I pass by, for I am sure your
prudence is aware of it: for how could you by your actions have confirmed
this, save as knowing that throughout all provinces answers are ever
emanating as from the Apostolic fountain to inquirers? Especially, so often
as a matter of faith is under inquiry, I conceive that all our brethren and
fellow-Bishops ought not to refer, save to Peter, that is, the source of
their own name and honour, just as your affection hath now referred, for
what may benefit all Churches in common, throughout the whole world. For
the inventors of evils must necessarily become more cautious, when they see
that at the reference of a double synod they have been severed from
ecclesiastical communion by our sentence."[45]
There is certainly an indefiniteness about these expressions, which may be
made to embrace anything; but they do not fairly mean more than that
supervision of the faith which belonged to the office of the first of the
Patriarchs. Moreover, they come from a Pope; in St. Augustin's mouth, they
would have much more force. They show us, besides, what a tendency there
was in the power of the Patriarch continually to increase, as being the
centre of appeal to so many, not only Bishops, but Metropolitans. Nay, at
this very time, within less than a century, a rival power had grown up in
the East, in the See of Constantinople, which, from a simple bishopric,
under the Exarch of Heraclea, threatened to push aside the Patriarchs of
Alexandria and Antioch; and, by virtue of the Imperial residence at, or
near Constantinople, to exercise as great an influence through the whole
East, as Rome did in the West. If this happened where there was no
Apostolic See to build upon, but simply the privileges of the royal city,
how much more in the case of Rome, which stood alone in the West the single
object of common reverence; "since it is well known," says this same Pope
Innocent, "that there were no churches founded by any one, either in Italy,
the Gauls, Spain, Africa, Sicily, or in the adjacent islands, unless by
those whom the Apostle St. Peter, or his successors, had appointed
Bishops."[46] So that the Pope, on the Patriarchal theory, was the common
father of the whole West.
In the latter years of St. Augustin's life, the important question of
appeals from African Bishops to Rome was settled. Apiarius, a priest, had
been excommunicated by his Bishop, and appealed to the Pope. The Bishops of
Africa would not agree to the Pope's claim, that the causes of clergy,
condemned by their own Bishop, should be brought before the neighbouring
Bishops; nor that Bishops should appeal to Rome. The Pope alleged the
Canons of Nicea, (not, be it observed, an inherent power in his see to
judge Bishops;) the Bishops of Africa said they could not find those Canons
in the copies which they had. They agreed, however, to be thus treated,
provisionally, for a short time, till they were better informed of the
decrees of Nicea. It turned out that, by the Canons of Nicea, the Pope
meant those of Sardica, to which the African Bishops refused obedience. The
end of this was, that Pope St. Coelestine restored Apiarius to communion,
and sent him back to Africa, with Faustinus, his Legate. "At his arrival,
the Bishops of Africa assembled a Council, in which Aurelius, of Carthage,
and Valentine, Primate of Numidia, presided. Thirteen more are named, but
the name of St. Augustin does not appear among them. This Council having
examined the affair of Apiarius, found him charged with so many crimes,
that it was impossible for Faustinus to defend him, though he acted the
part rather of an advocate than of a judge, and violated all right in the
opposition he maintained against the whole Council, under pretence of
supporting the privileges of the Church of Rome. For he wanted Apiarius to
be received to the communion of the Bishops of Africa, because the Pope had
restored him to it, believing that he had appealed, though he could not
prove even the fact of his appeal. After a debate of three days, Apiarius
at last, stung with remorse, and moved by God, confessed, on a sudden, all
the crimes of which he had been accused, which were so infamous and
incredible as to draw groans from the whole Council; after which he was for
ever deprived of all ecclesiastical administration.
"The Bishops wrote a synodical letter to Pope Coelestine, in which they
conjure him, for the future, not to receive to his communion those who have
been excommunicated by them; since this was a point ruled by the Nicene
Council. For, they added, if this be forbidden with respect to the minor
Clergy, or Laymen, how much more did the Council intend its observance in
respect to Bishops? Those, therefore, who are interdicted from communion in
their own provinces, ought not to be restored by your Holiness too hastily,
and in opposition to the rules; and you ought to reject the Priests, and
other Clergy, who are so rash as to have recourse to you. For no ordinance
of our fathers has deprived the Church of Africa of this authority, and the
decrees of the Nicene Council have subjected the Bishops themselves to
their respective Metropolitans. _They have ordained with great wisdom and
justice, that all matters should be terminated in the places when they
arise; and did not think that the grace of the Holy Ghost would be wanting
in any province to bestow on its Bishops the knowledge and strength
necessary for their decisions; especially, since whosoever thinks himself
wronged, may appeal to the Council of his province, or even to a General
Council, unless it be imagined that God can inspire a single individual
with justice, and refuse it to an innumerable multitude of assembled
Bishops. And how shall we be able to rely on a sentence passed beyond the
sea, since it will not be possible to send thither the necessary witnesses,
whether from the weakness of sex, or of advanced age, or any other
impediment? For that your Holiness should send any one on your part we can
find ordained by no Council._"
"With regard to what you have sent us by our brother, Faustinus, as being
contained in the Nicene Council, we find nothing of the kind in the more
authentic copies of that Council, which we have received from our brother,
the Bishop of Alexandria, and the venerable Atticus, of Constantinople, and
which we formerly sent to Boniface, your predecessor, of happy memory. For
the rest, whoever desires you to delegate any of your clergy to execute
your orders, we beseech you not to comply, lest it seem that we are
introducing the pride of secular dominion into the Church of Christ, which
ought to exhibit to all men an example of simplicity and humility. For as
to our brother Faustinus, since the wretched Apiarius is cut off from the
Church, we depend confidently on your goodness, that, without violating
brotherly charity, Africa shall be no longer forced to endure him. Such is
the letter of the Council of Africa to Pope St. Coelestine."[47]
I confess it was not without astonishment that I first read this passage of
history; so exactly had the African Bishops, in 426, when the greatest
father of the Church was one of them, anticipated and pleaded the cause of
the English Church, in 1534. It is precisely the same claim made in both
instances, viz. that these two laws should be observed, on which the
stability of the government of the whole Church Catholic rests; as
Thomassin remarks:--first, that the action of the Bishop in his own
diocese, in matters proper to that diocese, should not be interfered with;
secondly, that the action of the Metropolitan with his Suffragans, in
matters belonging to his province, should be left equally free. Who ever
accused the African Bishops, and St. Augustin, of schism, for maintaining a
right which had come down to them from all antiquity, was possessed and
acted on all over the Church, was specifically enacted at the greatest
Ecumenical Council, and recognised in every provincial Council held up to
that time? This was all that the Church of England claimed; she based her
claim on the unvarying practice of the whole Church during, at least, the
first six centuries. We repeat, it is not a case of doubt, of conflicting
testimony, in words elsewhere quoted, "of Popes against Popes, Councils
against Councils, some Fathers against others, the same Fathers against
themselves; a consent of Fathers of one age against a consent of Fathers of
another age, the Church of one age against the Church of another age."[48]
It is the Church of the Martyrs, the Church of the Fathers, of Athanasius,
Basil, Gregory, and Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, and Gregory the
Great, bearing one unbiassed indisputable witness, attested in a hundred
Councils, denied in none, for the Patriarchal system, and against a power
assumed by one Bishop, though the greatest, most venerable, and most
illustrious in his own see, to interfere, dispense with, suspend, or
abrogate, the authority of the Bishop in his Diocese, and of the
Metropolitan in his Council; to exercise singly, by himself, powers which
belong only to an Ecumenical Council, and to annul the enactments of at
least the first four Ecumenical Councils. Had an advocate been instructed
to draw out the abstract case of the English Church, he could not have
described it more exactly than the African Bishops in stating their own.
True, indeed, it is, that the African Bishops were maintaining a right
which not only had never been interrupted, but was universal; while the
English Bishops resumed a power which had been surrendered, not only by
them, but by all the west of Europe, for many hundred years. Accordingly,
the African Bishops did not suffer even a temporary suspension of communion
with Rome, for having both condemned afresh Apiarius, whom the Pope had
restored, and explicitly refused permission to the Pope to interfere in the
ordinary government of their dioceses; while the English Church has ever
since been accused of schism by the rest of the Latin communion. This
decision of the African Bishops, in the year 426, is a proof that the Canon
of the Council of Sardica, conferring, in certain cases, the power of
ordering a cause to be reheard on the Pope, and the most favourable to his
authority of any Canon of an ancient Council, was yet not received even
throughout all the West.
In the year 402, St. Augustin wrote a letter to the Catholics, commonly
called his treatise "on the Unity of the Church." The bearing of this book
on the controversy respecting schism between ourselves and the Roman
Catholics is very remarkable. The Saint refers triumphantly to most express
passages from the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, our Lord's own teaching,
and that of His Apostles, bearing witness to the catholicity of the Church,
an "Ecclesia toto terrarum orbe diffusa." He challenges his adversaries,
the Donatists, to produce a single passage, which either restricted the
Church to the confines of Africa, or declared that it would perish from the
rest of the world, and be restored out of Africa. His test seems decisive
against the Donatists, and against all those who in after times have
restricted the Church to one province, or have declared the Roman Church to
be so corrupt that it is not a part of the true Church. For if it be not,
then the promises of Christ have failed. But while it annihilates the
position of the Donatists, and of the Puritan or Evangelical faction in
these present times, it leaves unassailed that of Andrewes and Ken. St.
Augustin every where appeals to the Church spread throughout the whole
world, as being, by virtue of that fact, the one communion in which alone
there was salvation, and this upon the testimony of the Holy Scriptures
only. "To salvation itself, and eternal life, no one arrives, save he who
has Christ for his head. But no one can have Christ for his head, except he
be in His Body, which is the Church, which like the Head itself we ought to
recognise in the Holy Canonical Scriptures, nor to seek after it in the
various reports, opinions, doings, sayings, and sights of men."[49] But in
the whole book there is not one word about the Roman see, or the necessity
of communion with it, save as it forms part of the one universal Church. It
is not named by itself any more than Alexandria, or Antioch. Any one will
see the force of this fact who has but looked into the writings of late
Roman Catholic authors. He will see how unwearied they are in setting forth
the necessity of the action of the Roman see; how they consider it, and
rightly, the centre of their system; how they are ever crying, "Without the
sovereign pontiff there is no true Christianity."--_De Maistre._ The
contrast in St. Augustin is the more remarkable. The creed of the Council
of Trent says, "I acknowledge one holy, catholic, and apostolic Roman
Church, the mother and mistress of all Churches: and I promise and vow true
obedience to the Roman Pontiff, successor of the blessed Peter, Prince of
the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ." This is distinct and unambiguous:
just as much so is St. Augustin's "orbis terrarum." "For this the whole
world says to them (the Donatists,) an argument most briefly stated, but
most powerful by its truth. The case is, the African Bishops had a contest
between themselves; if they could not arrange between themselves the
dissension which had arisen, so that the wrong side should either be
reduced to concord, or deprived, and they who had the good cause remain in
the communion of the whole world through the bond of unity, there was
certainly this resource left, that the Bishops beyond the sea, where the
largest part of the Catholic Church is spread, should judge concerning the
dissensions of their African colleagues,"[50] &c. No doubt the Bishop of
Rome was one, and the most eminent of these Bishops beyond the sea; but St.
Augustin refers the decision of the Donatist controversy not to him
specially, but to the Bishops generally. This is the very principle, for
which the Eastern Church for a thousand years, and the English Church for
three hundred, have contended against the Church of Rome. I know not
whether what St. Augustin says or what he does not say is strongest against
the present Roman claim; but I think his _silence_ in his book "De Unitate
Ecclesiae" absolutely convincing to any candid mind. Let us hold for an
infallible truth his dogma, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum;" but the Latin
communion is not the "orbis terrarum." In truth, the papal supremacy at
once cut the Church in half; the West, where the Pope's was the only
apostolical see, unanimously held with him; the East, with its four
patriarchs, as unanimously refused his claim, as a new thing which they had
never received. Even De Maistre observes, (Liv. 4. ch. 4,) "It is very
essential to observe that never was there a question about dogmas between
us at the beginning of the great and fatal division."