apostles of Christ, so it incorruptibly remains to the end, according to the promise of our Lord and Saviour Himself, which He declared to the prince of His apostles, as in the Gospel, saying: 'Peter, Peter, lo! Satan hath sought to sift you as one sifteth wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith may not fail: and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren.' Let, then, your serene clemency consider that the Lord and Saviour of all, whose gift faith is, and who promised that the faith of Peter should not fail, charged him to confirm his brethren; and it is notorious to all that the Apostolic Pontiffs, my predecessors, have always done so intrepidly."* It would seem as if all this was expressly directed to repel any charge likely to be made against Honorius, and the applause which followed the reading of the letter: "PETER HAS SPOKEN THROUGH AGATHO;" might imply the assent of the Council to the statement: yet the records of the proceedings present censures on the memory of Honorius, which force us to believe that the Fathers there assembled, considered him to have been guilty, if not of culpable connivance, at least of untimely dissimulation, equivalent to abetting error. Without disrespect to their authority they may be supposed to have been mistaken in a matter of fact, merely personal, namely the spirit and intention with which the letters were written. : It is not necessary to insist more particularly on this vindication of an individual Pontiff. I have not undertaken to prove, what indeed no Catholic divine maintains, that the Pope may not, by the artifices of heretics, be betrayed into measures prejudicial to the faith, neither have I deemed it necessary to maintain what I am deeply convinced of, that the Providence of God will never suffer him to propound error in a solemn doctrinal definition directed to the Universal Church. My object in reciting so many passages from ancient documents, which shew that the Popes from the earliest ages have been the most conspicuous defenders of the faith, is to prove the eminence of their station, and the authoritative Primacy which they exercised. It is not merely in the eleventh century that language occurs like that which was addressed by St. Bernard to Pope Innocent II. "It is right that all dangers and scandals which arise in the kingdom of God should be reported to your Apostleship, especially such as regard faith: for I think it proper that the wounds inflicted on faith should be healed where faith cannot fail.”† In the fifth century Pope Hilarus was addressed by the bishops of the province of Tarragona, in language scarcely less strong. The occasion Conc. Coustant. III. Act. III. Col. 1081. Coll. Hard. t. III. of their writing was a personal or disciplinary affair, but they availed themselves of it to express their desire to profit by the authoritative instruction of the Holy See: "Even were there," say they, "no necessity of ecclesiastical discipline, we should seek to benefit by the privilege of your See, since the extraordinary preaching of the most blessed Peter, who received the keys of the kingdom, after the resurrection of the Saviour, shone forth for the enlightening of all: the principality of whose Vicar, as it is eminent, so is it to be feared and loved by all. Wherefore adoring profoundly in you God whom you serve without reproach, we have recourse to the faith which was praised by the mouth of the apostle, and we seek a reply from a quarter whence nothing is ordained erroneously, nothing presumptuously, but all with pontifical deliberation."* * Ep. Tarrac. ep. t. II. conc. Hard. col. 787. CHAPTER X. GOVERNING POWER. We have seen abundant evidence of the most eminent exercise of the Primacy by the Roman Bishop in the maintenance of faith. The same documents prove that he was regarded as the Governor of the Universal Church, and that his instructions were sought after by bishops throughout the world, and his orders were every where respected. It is impossible to mistake the tone of the letters which have come down to us marked with the impress of authority. We have, indeed, but few out of the many that must have been written during the three first centuries, but these suffice to shew that power was claimed, exercised and admitted, such as denotes a general governor of the whole Church. The fury of the persecutor often consigned to the flames the archives of the principal Church together with the sacred books, without being able to destroy all the monuments of the exercise of this sacred authority and from the time that freedom was granted to the Church, the evidences are numerous, and most unequivocal. : The words of our Lord to Peter denote the most ample power, the government of His kingdom, without any restriction: yet there is necessarily implied subordination to His Divine authority, and a limitation of the power to the maintenance of truth, virtue, order and unity. The apostles avowed themselves powerless against truth, and declared that their power was for edification, that is for the advancement of virtue and for the salvation of men, not for destruction. Hence the successors of Peter studied to exercise their authority temperately and equitably, for the upholding of revealed truth, and the correction of vice, and framed laws, or confirmed the enactments of their colleagues in council, and did not easily depart from rules thus maturely adopted: "Let the rules govern us;" cried out St. Celestine: "let us not set aside the rules let us be subject to the canons, whilst we observe what the canons command."* The advantages of a power suited to every emergency, and yet limited by truth, justice, and right, must be apparent; and the evils which from time to time desolate Christendom may well * Ep. ad ep. Illyric. t. i. Coustant col. 1064. be traced to its neglect. It is found in each bishop, although not in the same degree, nor with the same divine guarantee for its exercise. St. Cyprian was wont to extol it, and to exaggerate the crime of insubordination to the episcopal authority. He adduces the well-known passage of Deuteronomy, in which the decree of the High Priest is enforced with the strongest penal sanction, and other testimonies, and thence concludes: "Since these weighty and numerous examples, with many others, exist, whereby the priestly authority and power, through divine concession, is established, what think you of those, who, being the enemies of the priests, and rebels against the Catholic Church, are not awed, either by the threat of the Lord who forewarns, or by the avenging judgment that awaits them? For from no other source have heresies arisen, or schisms sprung up, than from not obeying the priest of God, and not reflecting that THERE IS ONE PRIEST, FOR THE TIME, IN THE CHURCH, AND ONE JUDGE, FOR THE TIME, IN THE PLACE OF CHRIST, to whom, if all the brotherhood yielded obedience according to the divine instructions, no one would attempt any thing against the college of priests: no one, after the divine judgment, after the suffrage of the people, after the consent of his fellow bishops, would make himself judge, not of the bishop, but of God; no one would rend the Church of Christ by the breach of unity; no one, through vanity and pride, would form a new heresy apart and without."* It may be contended, not without plausibility, that this is said of a local bishop, namely of Cyprian himself, but it is difficult to apply language so strong to each individual bishop, since it is unquestionable that on the principle of unqualified obedience to the diocesan, the whole body of the clergy and people of Constantinople would have been perverted, when Macedonius, or Nestorius, held that See. It is only in the person of the chief Bishop, whom Divine Providence wonderfully guards and directs, that the observations of Cyprian are fully verified. His own resistance to Stephen may seem to shew that he did not inculcate obedience to the mandates of the Roman Bishop: yet as it arose from a supposed abuse of power, it is reconcileable with the advocacy of the general principle, that obedience should be rendered to the one priest and one judge. Besides, the text is illustrated by the history of that opposition in connexion with the rise of Donatism. Had Cyprian in that instance obeyed the priest of God, and reflected that THERE IS ONE PRIEST FOR THE TIME IN THE CHURCH, AND ONE JUDGE, for THE TIME, IN THE PLACE OF CHRIST, the scandal of dissension would * Ep. lix. alias liv. Ív. have been avoided, and the Donatists would have had no occasion to use his venerable name in support of their error and schism. We have seen that Victor and Stephen acted as persons having authority over the Asiatic and African prelates, and menaced the refractory with excommunication, the highest penalty which the Church can inflict. The evidences of a similar exercise of governing power multiply in the fourth and fifth ages, wherein, from the liberty which the Church enjoyed, there was a development of her power, as occasions presented themselves for its employment. Pope Siricius, in the year 385, replying to the consultation of Himerius, bishop of Tarragona, in Spain, says: "We bear the burdens of all who are heavily laden, or rather the blessed apostle Peter bears them in us, and, as we trust, in all things, protects and defends us the heirs of his authority." The language of this document implies a governing power of the most marked character, by which offences against the divine law are punished with the highest ecclesiastical penalty, and positive enactments are enforced by a similar sanction. Those who rebaptize persons baptized by heretics are subjected to excommunication. Having pointed to the authorities which condemn this practice, the Pontiff observes : "You must not hereafter depart from this rule, if you do not wish to be separated from our body by a synodical decree." The immediate administration of this sacrament to infants and persons in danger of death is enjoined under a like penalty: "Let this rule be henceforth observed," he says, "by all priests, who do not wish to be separated from the solidity of the apostolic rock, on which Christ built the Universal Church." It needs no commentary to shew that this is the language of a superior. Incontinent clergymen, who presume to defend their excesses by alleging the laws of the Mosaic dispensation, are threatened with final degradation: "Let them know that they are cast down from all ecclesiastical honor, which they have abused, and that they can never again touch the sacred mysteries." The connivance of the Spanish bishops at abuses in the promotion of unqualified men to sacred orders, is strongly reprobated, and a rule laid down which they must follow: "By a general enactment we decree what hereafter must be followed, and what must be shunned by all Churches." This very remarkable decree closes with a commendation of the bishop to whom it is addressed, for having reported and proposed the various points to the Roman Church, as to the head, and with an injunction to communicate the decree itself to all the bishops, not only of the diocess of Tarragona, but also of Carthage, Boetia, Lusitania, Gallicia, and other neighboring provinces, that none may plead ignorance, in order to es |