Nay, it appears, the cause of the Donatists, after being decided by Pope Melchiades, was reheard, and that, not by a plenary Council, but by other Bishops of the West, deputed by Constantine. "Know,"[27]says St. Augustin, "that your first ancestors carried the cause of Cœcilianus before the Emperor Constantine. Demand this of us, let us prove it to you, and if we prove it not, do with us what you can. But because Constantine dared not to judge in the cause of a Bishop, he delegated the discussion and terminating of it to Bishops. This took place in the city of Rome under the presidency of Melchiades, Bishop of that Church, with many of his colleagues. They having pronounced Cœcilianus innocent, and condemned Donatus, who had made the schism at Carthage, your party again went to the Emperor, and murmured against the judgment of the Bishops in which they had been beaten. For how can the guilty party praise the judge by whose sentence he has been beaten? Yet a second time the most indulgent Emperor assigned other Bishops as judges, at Arles, in Gaul, and from them your party appealed to the Emperor himself, until he too heard the cause, and pronounced Cœcilianus innocent, and them false accusers." Did he who wrote these words mean to censure Constantine for granting a second hearing after the judgment of Pope Melchiades?
"Basilides," says Mr. Newman, "deposed in Spain, betakes himself to Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen." This, however, is only half the case. It comes to the knowledge of St. Cyprian that he has done so. Let us take Fleury's account.[28]"As Basilides and Martial still endeavoured to force themselves back upon their sees, Felix and Sabinus, their legitimate successors, went to Carthage with letters from the Churches of Leon, Asturia, and Merida, and from another Felix, Bishop of Sarragossa, known in Africa as attached to the faith, and a defender of the truth. These letters were read in a Council of thirty-six Bishops, at the head of whom was St. Cyprian, who answered in the name of all by a letter addressed to the Priest Felix, and to the faithful people of Leon and Asturia, and to the Deacon Lœlius, with the people of Merida." In this letter he says, "Wherefore,[29]according to Divine tradition, and Apostolic observance, that is to be kept and observed, which is observed by us also, and generally throughout all the provinces, that in order rightly to celebrate ordinations, the nearest Bishops of the same province should meet together with that people for whom the head is ordained, and the Bishop should be chosen in the presence of the people, which is most fully acquainted with the life of every one, and has observed the conduct of each individual from his conversation. And this we see was observed by you in the ordination of our colleague Sabinus, so that, according to the suffrage of the whole brotherhood, and the judgment of the Bishops, who were either present, or had sent you letters about him, the Episcopate was conferred upon him, and hands laid upon him in the place of Basilides. Nor can it invalidate a rightful ordination, that Basilides, after the detection of his crimes and the laying bare his conscience even by his own confession, going to Rome deceived our colleague Stephen, who was far removed and ignorant of the thing as it was really done, that he might make interest for an unjust restoration to that Episcopate from which he had been rightfully deposed. It comes to this, that the crimes of Basilides have been rather doubled than wiped away, since to his former sins, the crime of deceit and circumvention has been added.Nor should he be so much blamed, who through negligence was overreached, as the other execrated, who fraudulently deceived. But if Basilides could overreach men, God he cannot," &c. If the appeal of Basilides to Stephen proves the Roman Primacy, what does the subsequent appeal of the people of Leon, Asturia, and Merida, to Carthage, prove? And if the restoration of Basilides by Stephen, proves that he possessed that power, what does the subsequent pronouncing of that restoration void by Cyprian and his brother Bishops, without even first acquainting Stephen, prove?
In truth, all the acts of St. Cyprian's Episcopate, of which we have given several in illustration, are an indisputable assurance to the candid mind that he treated the Roman Pontiff simply as his brother,—his elder brother, indeed,—holding the first see in Christendom, but, individually, as liable to err as himself. And it is equally clear that St. Augustin, a hundred and forty years later, did not censure him for this. What we have seen, is this. In the matter of Fortunatus and Felicissimus, Cyprian rejects with vehement indignation their appeal to Rome: in the case of Marcian of Arles, he writes as an equal to Pope Stephen, almost enjoining him what to do: in the question of rebaptizing heretics, he disregards St. Stephen's judgment, and the anathema which accompanies it; and how strong St. Firmilian's language is we need not repeat, who declares that St. Stephen's excommunication only cut off himself: in the case of Basilides, he deposes afresh one whom Stephen had restored.
Such are the illustrations afforded by the preceding century to what we have stated was the unquestioned constitution of the Catholic Church at the time of the Council of Nicea; viz. that while the three great Sees of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch exercised a powerful but entirely paternal influence on their colleagues, that of Rome having the undoubted primacy, not derived from the gift of Councils, or the rank of the imperial city, but from immemorial tradition as the See of St. Peter; yet, at the same time, the fullness of the priesthood, and with it all power to govern the Church, were acknowledged to reside in the whole Episcopal Body. "The Bishop," says Thomassin, quoting with approbation a Greek writer, as representing the doctrine of the early Fathers, and of the universal Church since, "is the complete image in the Church on earth of Him who in the holy Trinity alone bears the name of Father, as being the first principle without principle, and the fruitful source of the other Persons, and of all the divine perfections.... The Bishop communicates the Priesthood, as He who is without principle in the Godhead, and is therefore called Father."[30]The Apostolic Canons, and those of the Council of Nicea, are the legislative acts bearing witness to this order of things: the conduct and words of St. Cyprian, St. Firmilian, and St. Augustin, which we have instanced, and an innumerable multitude of other cases, exhibit it in full life and vigour; while, on the other side, there is absolutely nothing to allege.
The history of the Church during the three hundred years following the Nicene Council is but a development of this constitution. The problem was, how to combine in the harmonious action of One organized Body those Apostolical powers which resided in the Bishops generally. The Patriarchal system was the result. As the Church increased in extent, her rulers would increase in number. This multiplication, which would tend so much to augment the centrifugal force, was met by increased energy in the centripetal: the power of the Patriarchs, and specially of the Bishop of Rome, grew. It is impossible, in my present limits, to follow this out, but I propose to give a few specimens, as before, in illustration.
In so vast a system of interlaced and concurrent powers as the Church of Christ presented, differences would continually arise; and in so profound a subject-matter as the Christian revelation, heresies would be continually starting up: to arrange the former, and to expel or subjugate the latter, the Bishops, says Thomassin, having already more than once appealed to the Christian Emperors for the calling of great Councils, saw the danger of suffering the Imperial authority to intervene in ecclesiastical causes, and sought to establish a new jurisprudence on this head.[31]"The Council of Antioch (A.D.341), and that of Sardica (A.D.347), which were held almost at the same time,—the one in the East, the other in the West,—set about this in a very different manner, aiming, however, at the same end. The Council of Antioch ordered that Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, who should have been condemned by a provincial Council, might recur to a larger Council of Bishops; but that if they carried their complaints before the Emperor they could never be reestablished in their dignity." "One must in good faith admit, that this regulation had much conformity with what had been practised in the first ages of obscurity and persecution, for it was in the same way that extraordinary Councils had been held, such as were those of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, Bishop of that great city. It was the Metropolitans and Bishops of the neighbourhood who assembled with those of the Province where the flame of a great dissension had been kindled. The Council of Sardica, urged by the same desire to break through the custom which was introducing itself, of having recourse to the Emperor for judgment of spiritual causes of the Church, bethought itself of another means, which was not less conformable to the practice of the preceding centuries, and which had, beside that, much foundation in the Holy Scriptures. For Jesus Christ, having given the Primacy, and the rank of Head, to St. Peter, above the other Apostles, and having given successors as well to the Apostles, to wit, all the Bishops, as to St. Peter, to wit, the Roman Pontiffs; moreover, having willed that His Church should remain for ever one by the union of all Bishops with their Head, it is manifest, that if the Bishops of a province could not agree in their Provincial Council, and if the Bishops of several provinces had disputes between each other, the most natural way to finish these differences was to introduce the authority of the Head, and of him whom Jesus Christ has established as the centre of unity of His universal Church."
Accordingly, at the Council of Sardica, attended by St. Athanasius, then in exile, and about a hundred Western Bishops, after the secession of the Eastern or Arian portion, Hosius proposed, "If two Bishops of the same province have a disagreement, neither of the two shall take for arbitrator a Bishop of another province: if a Bishop, having been condemned, feels so assured of his right, that he is willing to be judged anew in a Council,let us honour, if you think it good, the memory of the Apostle St. Peter: let those who have examined the cause, write to Julius, Bishop of Rome; if he thinks proper to order a fresh trial, let him name judges; if he does not think that there is reason to renew the matter, let what he orders be kept to. The Council approved this proposition. The Bishop Gaudentius added, that, during this appeal, no Bishop should be ordained in place of him who had been deposed, until the Bishop of Rome had judged his cause."[32]
"To make the preceding Canon clearer, Hosius said, 'When a Bishop, deposed by the Council of the province, shall have appealed and had recourse to the Bishop of Rome, if he judge proper that the matter be examined afresh, he shall write to the Bishops of the neighbouring province to be the judges of it; and if the deposed Bishop persuade the Bishop of Rome to send a priest from his own person, he shall be able to do it, and to send commissioners to judge by his authority, together with the Bishops; but if he believes that the Bishops are sufficient to settle the matter, he will do what his wisdom suggests to him.' The judgment which Pope Julius, together with the Council of Rome, had given in favour of Athanasius and the other persecuted Bishops, seems to have given cause to this Canon, and we have seen that this Pope complained that they had judged St. Athanasius without writing to him about it."
Such is the modest commencement of that power of hearing episcopal causes on appeal, which has been the instrument of obtaining the wonderful authority concentrated by a long series of ages in the see of Rome. However conformable to the practice of preceding centuries, as Thomassin says, this may have been, this power is here certainlygrantedby the Council,not considered as inherent in the see of Rome. And this one fact is fatal to the present claim of the supremacy. To use De Maistre's favourite analogy, it is as though the States General or Parliament conferred his royal powers on the Sovereign who convoked them, and whose assent alone made their enactments law. Accordingly, like the whole course of proceedings in these early Councils, it is incompatible with the notion of the Pope being the monarch in the Church. We may safely say, history offers not a more wonderful contrast in a power bearing the same name, than that here conferred on Pope Julius in 347, and that exercised by Pope Pius the Seventh in 1802. On the bursting out of the French revolution, out of a hundred and thirty-six Bishops more than a hundred and thirty remained faithful to God and the Church: some offered the testimony of their blood; the rest became confessors in all lands for Christ's sake, in poverty, contempt, and banishment. After ten years, the civil governor, who had lately professed himself a Mahometan, proposes to the Pope to re-establish the Church, but on condition of himself nominating to the sees, and those not the ancient sees of the country, but a selection from them, to the number of eighty. Thereupon the Pope requires those eighty Bishops and Confessors who still survived, and whom he acknowledged to be not only blameless, but martyrs for the name of Christ, to resign into his hands their episcopal powers. Of his own single authority he abolishes the ancient sees of the eldest daughter of the Western Church, constitutes that number of new sees which the civil power permits, and treats as schismatics those few Bishops who disobey his requisition. I do not presume to express any blame of Pope Pius; I simply mention a fact. But it seems to me, certainly, that those who would entirely recognise the power and precedence exercised by Pope Julius, are not necessarily schismatics because they refuse to admit a power not merely greater in degree, but different in kind, and to set the High Priesthood of the Church beneath the feet of one, though it be the First of her Pontiffs.
The restrictions under which, according to the Council of Sardica, the Pope could cause a matter to be reheard, are specific. Much larger power is assigned in the fourth General Council, that of Chalcedon, to the see of Constantinople, in the ninth Canon, which says, "If any Bishop or Clergyman has a controversy against the Bishop of the province himself (i.e.the Metropolitan), let him have recourse to the Exarch of the diocese, or to the throne of the Imperial city of Constantinople, and plead his cause before him."
But, between these two Councils of Nicea,A.D.325, and Chalcedon, 451, the whole Patriarchal system of the Church had sprung up, and covered the provinces of the Roman Empire with as it were a finely reticulated net. The system may be said to be built on two principles, recognised and enforced in the Apostolic Canons, and consistently carried out, from the Bishop of the poorest country town up to the primatial see of Rome. These principles are, "the authority of the Metropolitan over his Bishops in important and extraordinary affairs, and the supreme authority of Bishops in the ordinary government of their particular bishoprics. With this distinction, that the Metropolitan even cannot arrange important and extraordinary affairs but with the counsel of his suffragans, whilst every Bishop conducts all the common and ordinary affairs of his Diocese without being obliged to take the advice of his Metropolitan."[33]This latter principle, it will be seen, expresses the essential equality and unity of the High Priesthood vested in Bishops by descent from the Apostles, to which St. Cyprian bears such constant witness, so that it may be said to be the one spirit which animates all his government: while the former, leaving this quite inviolate, builds together the whole Church in one vast living structure. For as the Bishops of the province have their Metropolitan, and their spring and autumn Councils under him, so the Metropolitan stands in a like relation to his Exarch, or Patriarch; and of the five great Patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, who are found at the Council of Chalcedon to preside over the Church Catholic, that of Rome has the unquestioned primacy, and is seen at the centre, sustaining and animating the whole. "The most important of all the powers of Metropolitans, Exarchs, and Patriarchs, was the election of Bishops, the confirmation and consecration of Bishops elected. For all the other degrees of authority were founded on this one, which rendered the Metropolitan the Father, Master, and Judge of all his suffragans."[34]"And so that famous Canon of the Council of Nicea, (the 6th,) which seems in appearance only to confirm the ancient right of the three first Metropolitans of the world to ordain the Bishops of all the provinces of their dependence, establishes in effect all the rights and all the powers of the Metropolitans, because it establishes the foundation on which they all rest. 'If any one be made a Bishop contrary to the sentence of his Metropolitan, the great Synod declares that he should not be a Bishop.' Nothing is juster than to found the right of a holy and paternal rule on the right of generation. For by ordination the Bishops engender not children indeed, but Fathers, to the Church." This system continued unimpaired in the whole Church, at least to the time of St. Gregory the Great. It offers, I think, an unanswerable refutation to what must be considered the strongest argument of the Roman Catholics for the Supremacy, that there could be no unity in the Church without it, as a living organized body; history says, therewasunity, with five co-ordinate Patriarchs, and an Episcopate twice as numerous as that of the present Latin Communion. In the Latin Church itself, this system was only gradually overshadowed by another system which sprang from the excessive development of one of its parts; in the Greek and Russian Church, it continues down to this day; whatever ecclesiastical constitution we still have ourselves, is a part of this system. And by reference to, and under cover of this, which if not strictly of Divine right, as is the High Priesthood of Bishops, approaches very nearly indeed to it, and was the effluence of the Spirit of God ruling and guiding the Church of the Fathers, we must justify ourselves from the damning blot of schism. We cannot, dare not, do this upon principles such as "the right of private judgment"—"The Bible alone is the religion of Protestants,"—and the like, which lead directly, and by most certain consequence, to dissent, heresy, and anarchy. God forbid that they who profess to be members of the One holy Catholic Church should, urged by any unhappiness of their provisional and strange position, take up Satanic and Antichristian arms. No! if we may not hope for that system under which Augustin and Chrysostom laboured and witnessed, we will have nothing to do with those who destroy dogmatic faith altogether, and break up the visible unity of the Church of Christ into a multitude of atoms.Quot homines, tot voluntates.We cannot so relapse into worse than a second heathenism, and with the unity of Pentecost offered us, deliberately choose the confusion of Babel.
But over and above his natural eminence in the Church, which I have attempted to describe, a concurrence of events in the fourth century tended to give a still greater moral weight to the voice of the Bishop of Rome. While the other great sees of the Church were vexed with heresy or schism, his was providentially exempted from both. The same century witnessed Cœcilianus of Carthage, judged and supported by Pope Melchiades, while the Donatist schism all that century long rent Africa in twain; and St. Athanasius, of Alexandria, driven from his see, and persecuted by the whole East, received and justified by Pope Julius; and St. John Chrysostom, too good by far for a corrupt capital and a degenerate court, in life protected, and in death restored, by Pope Innocent. We have seen St. Jerome appeal to Pope Damasus, to know which of three competitors for the Patriarchal throne of Antioch was the right Bishop. But it is impossible to describe the confusion and violence which the Arian heresy, and the cognate heresies concerning the Person of our Lord, wrought throughout the Church and Empire. In all these the Roman Patriarch was beheld immovable, supporting, with his whole authority, what turned out to be the orthodox view. What Mr. Newman asserts is, moreover, entirely in accordance with the Patriarchal system, as we have attempted to describe it, "that the writers of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly allow, that the prerogatives of Rome were derived from apostolic times, and that because it was the See of St. Peter." I confess that these words set me upon the search, and that I have found such testimonies in abundance; but then they are invariably to the Bishop of Romeas holding the first see, not asEpiscopus 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, andno 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 mediæval and later Roman writers ground the Papal prerogatives, that is, Thou art Peter, &c., Feed my sheep, &c., says specifically, that Peter represents the Church. One of these passages we have already quoted. Take another. "And I say unto thee, because thou hast said to me; thou hast spoken, now hear; thou hast given a confession, receive a blessing; therefore, and I say unto thee, that thou art Peter; because I am the Rock, thou art Peter; for neither from Peter is the Rock, but from the Rock, Peter; because not from the Christian is Christ, but from Christ the Christian. And upon this Rock I will build my Church;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 Romealone. 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. Cœlestine restored Apiarius to communion, and sent him back to Africa, with Faustinus, his Legate. "At his arrival, the Bishops of Africa assembled a Council, in which Aurelius, of Carthage, and Valentine, Primate of Numidia, presided. Thirteen more are named, but the name of St. Augustin does not appear among them. This Council having examined the affair of Apiarius, found him charged with so many crimes, that it was impossible for Faustinus to defend him, though he acted the part rather of an advocate than of a judge, and violated all right in the opposition he maintained against the whole Council, under pretence of supporting the privileges of the Church of Rome. For he wanted Apiarius to be received to the communion of the Bishops of Africa, because the Pope had restored him to it, believing that he had appealed, though he could not prove even the fact of his appeal. After a debate of three days, Apiarius at last, stung with remorse, and moved by God, confessed, on a sudden, all the crimes of which he had been accused, which were so infamous and incredible as to draw groans from the whole Council; after which he was for ever deprived of all ecclesiastical administration.
"The Bishops wrote a synodical letter to Pope Cœlestine, in which they conjure him, for the future, not to receive to his communion those who have been excommunicated by them; since this was a point ruled by the Nicene Council. For, they added, if this be forbidden with respect to the minor Clergy, or Laymen, how much more did the Council intend its observance in respect to Bishops? Those, therefore, who are interdicted from communion in their own provinces, ought not to be restored by your Holiness too hastily, and in opposition to the rules; and you ought to reject the Priests, and other Clergy, who are so rash as to have recourse to you. For no ordinance of our fathers has deprived the Church of Africa of this authority, and the decrees of the Nicene Council have subjected the Bishops themselves to their respective Metropolitans.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. Cœlestine."[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 hissilencein his book "De Unitate Ecclesiæ" absolutely convincing to any candid mind. Let us hold for an infallible truth his dogma, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum;" but the Latin communion is not the "orbis terrarum." In truth, the papal supremacy at once cut the Church in half; the West, where the Pope's was the only apostolical see, unanimously held with him; the East, with its four patriarchs, as unanimously refused his claim, as a new thing which they had never received. Even De Maistre observes, (Liv. 4. ch. 4,) "It is very essential to observe that never was there a question about dogmas between us at the beginning of the great and fatal division."
Again, St. Augustin has five sermons on the day of the Apostles Peter and Paul; he enlarges, as we might expect, on their labours and martyrdom; on the wonderful change of life which grace produced in them, the one thrice denying, and then thrice loving; the other, a blasphemer and persecutor, and then in labours more abundant than all. He speaks of their being joined in their death, the first apostle and the last, in the service and witness of Him, who is the First and the Last; of their bodies, with those of other martyrs, lying at Rome. But not one allusion is there in all these to the Roman Pontiff; not a word as to his being the heir of a power not committed to the other Apostles. On the contrary, on the very occasion of St. Peter's festival, he does say, "What was commended to Peter,—what was enjoined to Peter, not Peter alone, but also the other Apostles heard, held, preserved, and most of all the partner of his death and of his day, the Apostle Paul. They heard that, and transmitted it for our hearing: we feed you, we are fed together with you." "Therefore hath the Lord commended his sheep to us, because he commended them to Peter."[51]Thus Peter's commission is viewed not as excluding, but including that of all the rest; not as distinguished from, but typical of, theirs. Yet at this very time Roman Catholics would have us believe that the successor of Peter communicated to all Bishops their power to feed the Lord's flock; and that such a wonderful power and commission is passedsub silentioby the Fathers.
The very same principles which the Great Voice of the Western Church proclaims in Africa, St. Vincent of Lerins repeats from Gaul. Take the summary of his famous Commonitorium by Alban Butler. "He layeth down this rule, or fundamental principle, in which he found, by a diligent inquiry, all Catholic pastors and the ancient Fathers to agree, that such doctrine is truly catholic as hath been believed in all places, at all times, and by all the faithful. By this test of universality, antiquity, and consent, he saith all controverted points in belief must be tried. He sheweth, that whilst Novatian, Photinus, Sabellius, Donatus, Arius, Eunomius, Jovinian, Pelagius, Cœlestius, and Nestorius expound the Divine oracles different ways, to avoid the perplexity of errors we must interpret the Holy Scriptures by the tradition of the Catholic Church, as the clue to conduct us in the truth. For this tradition, derived from the Apostles, manifesteth the true meaning of the Holy Scripture, and all novelty in faith is a certain mark of heresy; and in religion nothing is more to be dreaded than itching ears after new teachers. He saith, 'They who have made bold with one article of faith, will proceed on to others; and what will be the consequence of this reforming of religion, but only that these refiners will never have done, till they have reformed it quite away?' He elegantly expatiates on the Divine charge given to the Church, to maintain inviolable the sacred depositum of faith. He takes notice that heretics quote the Sacred Writings at every word, and that in the works of Paulus Samosatenus, Priscillian, Eunomius, Jovinian, and other like pests of Christendom, almost every page is painted and laid on thick with Scripture texts, which Tertullian also remarks. But in this, saith St. Vincent, heretics are like those poisoners or quacks, who put off their destructive potions under inscriptions of good drugs, and under the title of infallible cures. They imitate the father of lies, who quoted Scripture against the Son of God, when he tempted Him. The Saint adds, that if a doubt arise in interpreting the meaning of the Scriptures in any point of faith, we must summon in the holy Fathers, who have lived and died in the faith and communion of the Catholic Church, and by this test we shall prove the false doctrine to be novel. For that only must we look upon as indubitably certain and unalterable, which all, or the major part of these Fathers have delivered, like the harmonious consent of a general council. But if any one among them, be he ever so holy, ever so learned, holds any thing besides, or in opposition to the rest, that is to be placed in the rank of singular and private opinions, and never to be looked upon as the public, general, authoritative doctrine of the Church. After a point has been decided in a general council, the definition is irrefragable. These general principles, by which all heresies are easily confounded, St. Vincent explains with equal elegance and perspicuity." "The same rules are laid down by Tertullian in his book of Prescriptions, by St. Irenæus, and other Fathers."—Lives of the Saints, May. 24.
But not a word is there here of the authority of the See of Rome deciding of itself what is, and what is not, error; or of its Communion of itself being a touchstone of what is, and what is not, the Catholic Church. These are necessary parts of the Papal Supremacy; instead of which St. Vincent holds universal consent.
Now let us hear Bossuet speaking of St. Vincent's rule. "These things then are understood not by this or by that Doctor, but by all Catholics with one voice, that the authority of the Church Catholic agreeing is most certain, irrefragable, and perspicuous. Christians must rest on that agreement, as a most firm and divine foundation; from whom nothing else is required but that in the Apostles' Creed, that believing in the Holy Spirit they also believe the holy Catholic Church; and claim for her the most certain authority and judgment of the Holy Spirit, by which they are led captive to obedience. Which entirely proves that this indefectible power both lies and is believed to lie in consent itself; and this clear and manifest voice dwells altogether in the agreement of the Churches; in which we see clearly, on the testimony of the same Vincent of Lerins, that not a part of the Church, but universality itself, is heard: For we follow," saith he, "the whole in this way, if we confess that to be the one true faith which the whole Church throughout the world confesses." And a little after, "What doth the Catholic Christian, if any part hath cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to that pestilent and corrupted member?[52]
"Thence floweth unto General Councils that certain and invincible authority which we recognise in them. For it is on no other principle that Unity and Consent have force in Councils, or in the assembled Church, than because they have equal force in the Church spread through the whole world. For the Council itself hath force, because it represents the whole Church; nor is the Church assembled in order that Unity and Consent may have force, but it is therefore assembled, that the Unity which in itself has force in the Church, everywhere spread abroad, may be more clearly demonstrated in the same Church assembled, by Bishops, the Doctors of the Churches, as being the proper witnesses thereunto.
"Hence, therefore, is perceived a double method of recognising Catholic truth; the first, from the consent of the Church everywhere spread abroad; the second, from the consent of the Church united in Ecumenical or General Councils; both which methods I must set forth in detail, to show more clearly that this infallible and irresistible authority resides in the whole body of the Church."
He then proceeds to show that the type or form of all Ecumenical Councils was taken from the first Council held at Jerusalem by the Apostles. He notes these particulars: First, there was a great dissension, the cause of it: then, that the chief Church, in which Peter sat, was then at Jerusalem; whence it became a maxim, that Councils should not be regularly held without Peter and his Successors and the First Church in which he sits. Thirdly, it was as universal as could be. Fourthly, all were assembled together. Fifthly, the question was stated, next deliberated on, lastly decided by common sentence; which all became rules for future Councils. Sixthly, the discussion is thus stated in the Acts, "when there had been much disputing." Seventhly, the deliberation is opened by Peter, whence it became a custom that the President of the Council should first give sentence. Eighthly, Paul and Barnabas give their testimony, in confirmation of Peter's sentence; and James expressly begins with Peter's words—"Simon hath declared," whence the custom that the rest give their voice at the instance of the President. "They do not, however, so proceed as if they were altogether bound by the authority of the first sentence, but themselves give judgment; and James says, 'I give sentence.' Then he proposes what additions seemed good to the principal question, and gives sentence also concerning them." Tenthly, "The decree was then drawn up in the common name, and adding the authority of the Holy Spirit, 'It seemed good unto us being assembled with one accord,' and 'It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us;' there then lies the force, 'to the Holy Ghost and to us:' not, what seemed good to Peter precisely, but, to us; and led by the Spirit, not Peter alone, but the unity itself of the holy Council. Whence, too, Christ said that concerning the Spirit whom he was about to send: 'But when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall teach you all truth:' you, saith He, the Pastors of the Churches, and the Masters of the rest. Hence, the Spirit is always added to the Church and the holy congregation. 'I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Church, the Catholic Church:' and with reason therefore, and carefully was the maxim which we have mentioned laid down of old by our Doctors: 'The strength of Councils resides not in the Roman Pontiff alone, but chiefly in the Holy Spirit and in the Catholic Church.'
"Eleventhly: when the matter had been judged by common sentence, nothing was afterwards reconsidered, nor any new dissension left to any one; but the decree was carried to the Churches, and the people are taught to keep the decrees which were decreed, in the Greek 'judged,' by the Apostles and Elders which were at Jerusalem.
"This we Catholics urge with common consent against heretics who decline the commands and authority of Councils: which would have no force, unless together with the authority we also prove the form, and place the force itself of the decree, not in Peter alone, but in Unity, and in the Consent of the Apostles and the Pastors of the Church."[53]
In another place he says, 'In ecclesiastical acts we do indeed find that the Catholic Church is affirmed by Chief Pontiffs and Councils to be represented by Ecumenical Synods, which contain all its virtue and power, which we are wont to mean by the word "represent." But this we do not read of the Roman Pontiff, as affirmed either by the Pontiffs themselves, or by Ecumenical Councils, or any where in Ecclesiastical Acts.[54]
I have been unable to find any testimony of St. Chrysostom to the transmission of St. Peter's primacy over the whole Church to the Bishop of Rome. He has, however, a passage about Rome which is worth transcribing; for sometimes, as we have just seen, as much is proved by what isnotsaid, as by whatissaid. Speaking then of St. Paul, he writes:—"Rather if we listen to him here, we shall surely see him there; if not standing near him, yet we shall see him surely shining near to the King's throne, where the Cherubim ascribe glory, where the Seraphim spread their wings. There with Peter shall we behold Paul—him that is the leader and director of the choir of the saints,—and shall enjoy his true love. For if, being here, he so loved men, that having the choice "to depart and be with Christ," he chose to be here, much more there will he show warmer affection. Rome likewise for this do I love, although having reason otherwise to praise her, both for her size, and her antiquity, and her beauty, and her multitude, and her power, and her wealth, and her victories in war. But passing by all these things, for this I count her blessed; because, when alive, he (Paul) wrote to them, and loved them so much, and went and conversed with them, and there finished his life. Wherefore the city is on that account more remarkable than for all other things together, and like a great and strong body, it has two shining eyes, the bodies of these saints. Not so bright is the heaven when the sun sends forth his beams, as is the city of the Romans sending forth everywhere over the world these two lights. Thence shall Paul, thence shall Peter, be caught up. Think, and tremble, what a sight shall Rome behold, when Paul suddenly riseth from that resting-place with Peter, and is carried up to meet the Lord. What a rose doth Rome offer to Christ! with what two garlands is that city crowned! with what golden fetters is she girdled; what fountains does she possess! Therefore do I admire that city; not for the multitude of its gold, nor for its columns, nor for its other splendours, but for these the pillars of the Church."[55]Had St. Chrysostom felt like a Roman Catholic could he have stopped there? Loving Rome for possessing the blessed and priceless bodies of the two Apostles, could he have failed to mention the sovereignty of the universal Church, which together with his body Peter had left enshrined at Rome? Would it not have seemed to him by far the greatest marvel at Rome, as it has to a late eloquent partisan, that Providence has placed "in the middle of the world, to be there the chief of a religion without its like, and of a society spread everywhere, a man without defence, an old man who will be the more threatened, the more the increase of the Church in the world shall augment the jealousy of princes, and the hatred of his enemies."[56]"This vicar of God, this supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church, this Father of kings and of nations, this successor of the fisherman Peter, he lives, he raises among men his brow, charged with a triple crown, and the sacred weight of eighteen centuries; the ambassadors of nations are at his court: he sends forth his ministers to every creature, and even to places which have not yet a name. When from the windows of his palace he gazes abroad, his sight discovers the most illustrious horizon in the world, the earth trodden by the Romans, the city they had built with the spoils of the universe, the centre of things under their two principal forms, matter and spirit: where all nations have passed; all glories have come: all cultivated imaginations have at least made a pilgrimage from far: Rome, the tomb of Martyrs and Apostles, the home of all recollections. And when the Pontiff stretches forth his arms to bless it, together with the world which is inseparable from it, he can bear a witness to himself which no sovereign shall ever bear, that he has neither built nor conquered, nor received his city, but that he is its inmost and enduring life, that he is in it like the blood in the heart of man, and that right can go no further than this, a continuous generation which would make the parricide a suicide." Such feelings as these are what any Churchman must habitually entertain, who looks on the Roman Pontiff as at once the governing power and the life of the Church. Could, then, St. Chrysostom have beheld in Rome the Church's heart, whence her life-blood courses over the whole body, and have seen no reason to love her for that? or have stated that she was more remarkable for possessing even the bodies of the blessed Apostles than for all other things together? What Roman Catholic would so speak now? The power of the Roman Pontiff in the Latin Communion is actually such, that Lacordaire's words respecting the city of Rome apply to the whole Church; to destroy that power would be to destroy the Church herself; the parricide would be a suicide. But how can this dogma be imposed upon us as necessary to salvation, if St. Augustin, St. Chrysostom, and the Church of their day knew it not? or let it be shown us, how any men who did know it, could either have written as they write, or have been silent as they are silent.
We may sum up St. Augustin's view of the relation of the Roman Pontiff to his brother Bishops in his own beautiful words to Pope Boniface: "To sit on our watch-towers and guard the flock belongs in common to all of us who have episcopal functions, although the hill on which you stand is more conspicuous than the rest."[57]My object in these remarks throughout has been to show, that a denial of either of these truths is a violation of the Church's divine constitution. The Papacy has greatly obscured the essential equality of Bishops; its opponents have avenged themselves by explaining away the unquestionable Primacy of St. Peter, and its important action on the whole Church.
What this Primacy was, and how it was exercised at a most important crisis of the Church, I will now endeavour to show. Five years after the decision of the African Bishops about appeals, the third Ecumenical Council assembled at Ephesus,—and here, as in other cases, I prefer that another should speak, and he the most illustrious Prelate of France in modern times.[58]"In the third general Council of Ephesus, and in those which follow, our whole argument will appear in clearer light, its Acts being in our hands; and there existing very many judgments of Roman Pontiffson matters of faith, set forth with the whole authority of their see, which were afterwards re-considered in general Councils, and only approved after examination, than which nothing can be more opposed to the opinion of infallibility. And as to the Council of Ephesus, the thing is clear. The innovation of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, is known; how, by denying to the Virgin Mary the title of 'Mother of God,' he divided into two the person of Christ. Pope St. Cœlestine, watchful, according to his office, over the affairs of the Church, had charged the blessed Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, to send him a certain report of the doctrine of Nestorius, already in bad repute. Cyril declares this in his letter to Nestorius; and so he writes to Cœlestine all the doctrines of Nestorius, and sets forth his own: he sends him two letters from himself to Nestorius, who likewise, by his own letters and explanations, endeavoured to draw Cœlestine to his side. Thus the holy Pontiff, having been most fully informed by letters from both sides, is thus inquired of by Cyril. 'We have not confidently abstained from communion with him (Nestorius) before informing you of this; condescend, therefore, to unfold your judgment, that we may clearly know whether we ought to communicate with him who cherishes such erroneous doctrine.'" And he adds, that his judgment should be written to the other Bishops also, "that all with one mind may hold firm in one sentence." Here is the Apostolic See manifestly consulted by so great a man, presiding over the second, or at least the third, Patriarchal See, and its judgment awaited; and nothing remained but that Cœlestine, being duly consulted, should perform his Apostolic office. But how he did this, the acts themselves will speak out.
"And first, he approves of Cyril's letters and doctrine; for he writes to him thus: 'We perceive that you hold and maintain all that we hold and maintain:' and to Nestorius, 'We have approved, and do approve, the faith of the Prelate of the Church of Alexandria:' and he threatens him with extremities, "If you preach not that which Cyril preaches.' Nothing could be said more marked. Nor does he only approve Cyril's doctrine, but disapproves, too, the perverse dogma of Nestorius: 'We have seen,' he says, 'your letters containing open blasphemy;' and that distinctly, because he was unwilling to call the Blessed Virgin 'Mother of God:' and he decrees that he should be deprived of the episcopate and communion, unless, within ten days from the date of the announcing of the sentence, he openly rejects this faithless innovation, which endeavours to separate what Scripture joineth together, that is, the Person of Christ. Here is the doctrine of Nestorius expressly disapproved, and a sentence of the Roman Pontiff on a matter of faith most clearly pronounced under threat of deposition and excommunication: then, that nothing be wanting, the holy Pope commits his authority to Cyril to carry into execution that sentence, 'associating,' he saith to Cyril, 'the authority of our See, and using our person, place, and power:' so to Nestorius himself; so to the Clergy of Constantinople; so to John of Antioch, then the Bishop of the third or fourth Patriarchal See; so to Juvenal, Bishop of the Holy City, whom the Council of Nice had ordered to be especially honoured: so he writes to the other Bishops also, that the sentence given may be duly and in order made known to all. Cyril proceeds to execute his office, and performs all that he had been commanded. He promulgates and executes the decrees of Cœlestine; declares to Nestorius, that after thetendays prescribed and set forth by Cœlestine, he would have no portion, intercourse, or place with the Priesthood. Nothing evidently is wanting to the Apostolical authority being most fully exercised; but whether the sentence put forward with such authority, after a great dissension had arisen and mention been made of an Ecumenical Council, was held to be final, the succeeding acts will demonstrate.
"We have often said—we shall often say—that it is the constitution of the Church only in extraordinary cases and dissensions to recur, of necessity, to an Ecumenical Council. But in the usual order even the most important questions on the faith, when they arise, are terminated by the consent of the Church being added to the decree of the Roman Pontiff. This is clearly manifest from the cause of Nestorius. We confess plainly that the sentence of Cœlestine would have been sufficient, as Cyril hoped, to repress the new heresy, had not great commotions arisen, and the matter seemed of such a nature as to be referred to an Ecumenical Council. But Nestorius, Bishop of the royal city, possessed such influence, had deceived men's minds with such an appearance of piety, had gained so many Bishops, and enjoyed such favour with the younger Theodosius and the great men, that he could easily throw everything into commotion; and thus there was need of an Ecumenical Council, the question being most important, and the person of the highest dignity; because many Bishops, amongst these almost all of the East, that is, of the province of Antioch, and the Patriarch John himself, were ill disposed to Cyril, and seemed to favour Nestorius; because men's feelings were divided, and the whole empire of the East seemed to fluctuate between Cyril and Nestorius. Such was the need of an Ecumenical Council.
"To this must be added the prayers of the pious and orthodox; here were most pious monks, who had suffered much from Nestorius for the orthodox faith, and the expression, 'Mother of God,' supplicating the Emperor 'for a sacred and Ecumenical Council to assemble, by the presence of which he should unite the most holy Church, bring back the people to one, and restore to their place the Priests who preached the pure faith, before that impious doctrine (of Nestorius) crept wider.' And again, 'We have asked you to call together an Ecumenical Council, which can most fully consolidate and restore the tottering.' Here, after the judgment of the Roman Pontiff, a firm and complete settling of the tottering state of things is sought for by the pious in an Ecumenical Council.
"The Emperor, moved by these and other reasons, wrote to Cyril,—'It is our will that the holy doctrine be discussed and examined in a sacred Synod, and that be ratified which appeareth agreeable to the right faith, whether the wrong party be pardoned by the Fathers or no.'
"Here we see three things: first, after the judgment of St. Cœlestine, another is still required, that of the Council; secondly, that these two things would rest with the Fathers, to judge of doctrine and of persons; thirdly, that the judgment of the Council would be decisive and final."
"He adds, 'those who everywhere preside over the priesthood, and through whom we ourselves are and shall be professing the truth, must be judges of this matter; on whose faith we rest.' See in whose judgment is the final and irreversible authority.
"Both the Emperor affirmed, and the Bishops confessed, that this was done according to the Ecclesiastical Canons. And so all, and Cœlestine himself, prepared themselves for the Council. Cyril does no more, though named by Cœlestine to execute the pontifical decree. Nestorius remained in his original rank; the sentence of the universal Council is awaited; and the Emperor had expressly decreed, 'that before the assembling and common sentence of the most holy Council, no change should be made in any matter at all, on any private authority.' Rightly, and in order; for this was demanded by the majesty of an universal Council. Wherefore, both Cyril obeyed and the Bishops rested. And it was established, that although the sentence of the Roman Pontiff on matters of faith, and on persons judged for violation of the faith, had been passed and promulged, all was suspended, while the authority of the universal Council was awaited. This we have seen acted on by the Emperor, acquiesced in by the Bishops and the Pope himself. The succeeding acts will declare that it was approved in the Ecumenical Council itself.
"Having gone over what preceded the Council, we review the acts of the Council itself, and begin with the first course of proceeding. After, therefore, the Bishops and Nestorius himself were come to Ephesus, the universal Council began, Cyril being president, and representing Cœlestine, as being appointed by the Pontiff himself to execute his sentence. In the first course of proceeding this was done. First, the above-mentioned letter of the Emperor was read, that an Ecumenical Council should be held, and all proceedings in the mean time be suspended: this letter, I say, was read, and placed on the acts, and it was approved by the Fathers, that all the decrees of Cœlestine in the matter of Nestorius had been suspended until the holy Council should give its sentence. You will ask if it was the will of the Council merely that the Emperor should be allowed to prohibit, in the interim, effect being given to the sentence of the Apostolic See. Not so, according to the acts; but rather, by the intervention of a General Council's authority, (the convocation of which, according to the discipline of those times, was left to the Emperor,) the Council itself understood that all proceedings were of course suspended, and depended on the sentence of the Council. Wherefore, though the decree of the Pontiff had been promulged and notified, and the ten days had long been past, Nestorius was held by the Council itself to be a Bishop, and called by the name of Most Religious Bishop, and by that name, too, thrice cited and summoned to take his seat with the other Bishops in the holy Council; for this expression, to take his seat, is distinctly written; and it is added, in order to answer to what was charged against him. For it was their full purpose that he should recognise, in whatever way, the Ecumenical Council, as he would then afterwards be, beyond doubt, answerable to it; but he refused to come, and chose to have his doors besieged with an armed force, that no one might approach him.
"Thereupon, as the Emperor commanded, and the Canons required, the rule of faith was set forth, and the Nicene Creed read, as the standard to which all should be referred, and then the letters of Cyril and Nestorius were examined in order. The letter of Cyril was first brought before the judgment of the Council. That letter, I mean, concerning the faith, to Nestorius, so expressly approved by Pope Cœlestine, of which he had declared to Cyril, 'We see that you hold and maintain all that we hold and maintain;' which, by the decree against Nestorius, published to all churches, he had approved, and, wished to be considered as a canonical monition against Nestorius: that letter, I repeat, was examined, at the proposition of Cyril himself, in these words: 'I am persuaded that I have in nothing departed from the orthodox faith, or the Nicene Creed; wherefore I beseech your Holiness to set forth openly whether I have written this correctly, blamelessly, and in accordance with that holy Council.'
"And are there those who say that questions concerning the faith, once judged by the Roman Pontiff on his Apostolical authority, are examined in general Councils, in order to understand their contents, but not to decide on their substance, as being still a matter of question? Let them hear Cyril, the President of the Council; let them attend to what he proposes for the inquiry of the Council: and though he were conscious of no error in himself, yet, not to trust himself, he asked for the sentence of the Council in these words: 'whether he had written correctly and blamelessly, or not.' This Cyril, the chief of the Council, proposes for their consideration. Who ever even heard it whispered, that after a final and irreversible judgment of the Church on a matter of faith, any such inquiry or question was made? It was never so done, for that would be to doubt about the faith itself, when declared and discussed. But this was done after the judgment of Pope Cœlestine: neither Cyril, nor any one else, thought of any other course: that, therefore, was not a final and irreversible judgment.