in that He was also called a rock,' rightly made 'knives of stone,' (Jos. v. 2); whence also not without reason did He impose the name Peter

extract given from his Montanist treatise de Pudicitia, the power of the keys, &c., was peculiar and personal to Peter, and so also was the power of binding and loosing special and restricted to him and to the Apostles. Being personal, those powers ceased with those who received them. Further, he invented an ingenious interpretation, which was meant to shew how the promise of Christ was fulfilled and terminated in Peter,—an interpretation which need not be repeated here, though it is one which has found much favour with some modern writers.

Though no answer to Tertullian has come down to us, we see, from the very passage referred to, what was the received interpretation and belief of the time, as well as what was the practice of the Church, which continued when Tertullian and Montanism had passed away.

As regards the course pursued with the Novatians, which, as we have said, was in some respects but an offshoot of Montanism, we have abundant evidence. Take only St. Cyprian, St. Pacian, and St. Ambrose. From them we find that the Novatians were denied, so long as they remained in their errors, to have any abiding-place, or real share, in the unity of the Church. The authors and originators of their system were well known; and whatever their position in the episcopate, they had no predecessors holding their views. before a certain date. They held not with Peter, or Peter's Chair, and so held not with the Church, and had no real authority in it. The powers of the keys and of binding and loosing, bestowed on Peter and the Apostles, were not like their miraculous gifts, which were given as evidences of their mission, and of the truths which they taught, but were, like baptism, the Episcopacy itself, the Holy Eucharist, and the like, to continue, as they had continued, and were believed by the Novatians themselves to remain, in the Church; and the denial of the powers of the keys and of binding and loosing ought, logically and in consistency, to draw with it the denial of the whole sacramental system, the form and government of the Church, nay, and the very existence of the Church itself: not to mention the folly of admitting the

on Simon, on whom He built His Church."-Tract. 13, de Circumcis. 8, Galland. v. 127.

power of the keys as to slighter and denying it as to graver sins.

We will give one more example, that of the Donatists. They had separated, about the year 311, from Cæcilianus, Bishop of Carthage, under the plea that he had been consecrated by a bishop who had betrayed the Sacred Books in the time of the Dioclesian persecution. At first it seemed little more than a personal quarrel, on a mere point of discipline, but it soon ran the usual course of schism, and rapidly degenerated into heresy. It became a principle with them that, to hold communion with one who is guilty, is to become a partaker of the guilt; and as the Catholic world communicated with Cæcilianus, to them the Catholic world became corrupt and lost, until they ended by rebaptizing all who had not been baptized by their party, maintaining that baptism out of the Church which was theirs, was absolutely null and void. Thus the efficacy of the Sacraments was made to depend on the holiness of the minister.

Amongst other answers, St. Augustin invented or propounded the following theory. That when the keys and the power of binding and loosing were given to Peter, they were not given to him as Peter, but as the representative of the Church; that Peter represented the whole Church (Ep. 53); or that he represented the body of the good in the Church, as Judas the body of the bad (Tr. 50, in Joann.); but sometimes the good and the bad, the strong and the weak together, (Serm. 76.) Peter, further, represents the Unity of the Church (Tr. 118, in Joann.; Serm. 76.); or, again, both the Unity and the Universality of the Church (Serm. 295; Cont. Ep. Fundam.); and he alone, because of the primacy of his apostolate' (Tr. 124, in Joann.), or the primacy amongst the disciples,' (In Ps. 108.) Thus Peter, because of his primacy, was the representative of the One, Catholic Church; but, though he doubted when walking on the waters, sinned by cutting off the ear of Malchus; and above all by his conduct at the Passion, when he cursed and swore and thrice denied Christ, (de Agone Christ. n. 32.) still he had the primacy over all, was not abandoned by his fellow apostles, and was still the figurative embodiment of Christ's Church

ST. ATHANASIUS. G. C. 362.-"He is on my right hand.' (Ps. xv. 8.) He manifestly reproves the stupidity of the Jews, for the chief (Coryphæus)

on earth. These premises granted, the system of the Donatists was utterly untenable. The efficacy of the sacraments could not possibly depend on the sanctity of the minister, when the chief and the primate of the Church had fallen so grievously, and yet retained his prerogatives, and was acknowledged by his compeers.

Peter, then, in St. Augustin's view, represented the Church, and this because of his primacy. He had the primacy amongst all; a primacy amongst the apostles; a primacy in the whole Church. The power of each of the other apostles was very extensive, but it was limited; inasmuch as no one of the other apostles had any power or jurisdiction over any of the rest. But Peter's primacy extended over all; over all the apostles, and over all the Church. Whatever other Fathers may have said, as to one being chosen as a 'principle of unity;' of a 'head being constituted to do away with the occasion of schism;' of 'the Church being in the Bishop,' all this, at least, is involved in St. Augustin's view; for Peter is not only a principle of unity, but the representative of Unity itself, of Catholicity itself, of the one Catholic Church, and the whole Church is in its chief bishop.

And as whatever the form, organization and ordering of the Church, when it came out of the hands of Christ, the same must continue, or the whole system of apostolical succession, and the grounds on which the Episcopacy, the divine commission to teach and to administer the sacraments, are at once subverted, it naturally follows that there must always have been, and must always be, one, and he the successor of Peter, of whom the same must be predicated as is predicated of Peter, that, in virtue of his primacy, he is the representative of Unity and Catholicity, or, in other words, of the Church.

So that, if, probably, from his unacquaintance with Hebrew, or with Syro-Chaldaic, the language spoken by our Saviour, he puts forward an interpretation, or, to speak more accurately, leaves it to the reader, to retain the old interpretation, which was at first also his own, or to adopt the new one suggested, and eventually adhered to, by himself, that not

Peter, in the Acts, has referred these words to Christ."-In Ps. xv. 8, T. iii. p. 106, Migne.

"In Thy saints, who in every age have been well pleasing to Thee, is truly Thy faith; for Thou hast founded the world on Thy faith, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."-Ib. in Ps. 118, p. 1191. Migne.

Commenting on St. Matt. vii. 1, 'Judge not, that you be not judged;' he gives the examples of judgments by Moses, (Numb. xv. 35); by Josue, (vii. 25); by Phinees, (Numb. xxv. 7, 8); by Samuel, (I. Kings xv. 33); by Elias, (III. Kings xviii. 40); by Elisæus, (IV. Kings v. 27); and by Daniel, (xiii. 62); "And Peter, who had received the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' having condemned Ananias with his wife, as having put aside. a portion of their possessions, instantly caused them 'to give up the ghost,' (Acts v. 1-10); and Paul also judged Alexander, the coppersmith, saying, "The Lord will reward him according to his works,'

Peter, but Christ, is the Rock, he, at all events, struck out a theory which presents indeed the old truth under a new form, but leaves that truth in its integrity.

Thus three interpretations of the text of St. Matthew xvi. 15-19, are met with in the Fathers of the first five centuries of the Church. The first, asserting Peter to be the Rock, prevailed uniformly till the time of St. Hilary; the second, first noticed in St. Hilary, and springing out of the Arian heresy, represented Peter, as also Peter's Confession, as the Rock; the third, propounded by St. Augustin, to meet the errors and controversies of the day, left it optional to regard Peter as the Rock, (T. i. Retractat, L. i. 21, p. 67-8,) but preferred to view Peter as personifying, as the personal representative of the Church, because of his Primacy, in the sense and manner explained above.

If any apology be due for the length of this note, the importance of the subject, it is hoped, may be thought a sufficient justification.

(II. Tim. iv. 14)."-Fragm. in Matt. T. iii. p. 1377.

ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM. G. C. 363.-" Let no one despair of his own salvation. Peter, the chiefest, and the prince of the apostles, before a little maid thrice denied the Lord; but being moved to penitence, he wept bitterly; and to weep shows a heartfelt repentance. And therefore, not only received he forgiveness for the denial, but was spared the apostolical dignity."-Catech. ii. 19, p. 31, Ed. Bened. Migne.

"The error spreading, that godly pair, Peter and Paul, the leaders of the Church, having arrived, corrected the evil. For Simon (Magus), who was accounted a God, when making a display, they forthwith laid dead. For Simon, announcing that he would be raised aloft towards heaven, and being borne through the air on a chariot of Dæmons, the servants of God bending the knee, and giving an instance of that agreement, of which Jesus said, 'If two of you shall consent concerning anything whatsoever that they shall ask, it shall be done to them,' (Matt. xviii. 19), sending by prayer this weapon of their unanimity against that Magician, they cast him down to the earth. And though the thing be wonderful, it is no wonder; for it was Peter, he who bears about with him the keys of heaven.' And it is not worth our wonder; for it was Paul, he who was caught up into the third heaven.'"Catech. vi. 15, p. 96.

"Our Lord Jesus Christ then became man; but by the many He was not known. But wishing to teach that which was not known, having assembled the disciples, He asked, 'Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am ?'...And all being silent,-for it was beyond man to learn,-Peter the prince of the apostles, and chief herald of the Church, not using