The Catholic Controversy by Saint Francis de Sales

[EmeraldWings]

CHAPTER VII.
That in the Church there are good and bad, predestinate and reprobate.

To prove the invisibility of the Church each one brings forward his reason; but the most feeble of all is that derived from eternal predestination. Certainly it is with no little artfulness that they turn the spiritual eyes of the militant Church upon eternal predestination, in order that, dazzled by the lightnings of this inscrutable mystery, we may not perceive what lies before us. They say that there are two Churches, one visible and imperfect, the other invisible and perfect, and that the visible can err and can be blown by the wind of errors and idolatries, the invisible not. And f one ask what is the visible Church, they answer that it is the assemblage of those persons who profess the same faith and sacraments, which contains bad and good, and is a Church only in name; and that the invisible Church is that which contains only the elect, who are not in the knowledge of men, but are only recognized and seen by God.

But we will clearly show that the true Church contains the good and the bad, the reprobate and the elect; - and here are the proofs.

(1.) Was no the true Church which S. Paul called the pillar and ground of truth and the house of the living God (I Tim 3:15)? Certainly; - for to be a pillar of truth cannot pertain to an erring and straying Church. Now the Apostle witnesses of this true Church, the house of God, that there are in it vessels unto honour and unto dishonour (2 Tim. 2:20), that is, good and bad.

(2.) Is not that Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matt. 16:18 ) the true Church? Nevertheless there are therein men who have to be loosed from their sins, and others whose sins have to be retained, as Our Lord shows us in the promise and the power He gave to S. Peter in this matter. Those whose sins are retained - are they not wicked and reprobate? Indeed, the reprobate are precisely those whose sins are retained, and by the elect we ordinarily mean those whose sins are pardoned. Now, that those whose sins S. Peter had power to forgive or to retain were in the Church is evident; for them that are outside the Church only God will judge (I Cor. 5:13). Those therefore of whom S. Peter was to judge were not outside the Church but within, though amongst them there were some reprobate.

(3.) And dos not Our Lord teach us that we are offended by some one of our brethren, after having reprehended and correcting him twice, in two different fashions, we should take him to the Church? Tell the Church; and if he will not hear the Church let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican (Matt. 18:17). Here one cannot escape – the consequence is inevitable. There is question of one of our brethren who is neither heathen nor publican, but under the discipline and correction of the Church, and consequently member of the Church, and yet there is no inconsistency in his being reprobate, perverse, and obstinate. Not only then do the good belong to the true Church, but the wicked also, until such time as they are cast out from it, unless one would say that the Church to which Our Lord sends us is an erring, sinful, and antichristian Church. This would be too open a blasphemy.

(4.) When Our Lord says The servant abideth not in the house for ever; but the Son abideth for ever (John 8:35); - is it not the same as if he had said that in the house of the Church the elect and the reprobate are for a time? Who can this servant be who abideth not in the house forever except the one who shall be cast into exterior darkness. And in fact Christ clearly shows that he so understands it when he says immediately before, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. Now this man, though he abide not forever, yet abideth during such time as he is required for service. S. Paul writes to the Church of God which was at Corinth (I Cor. 1:2), and yet he wishes them to drive out a certain incestuous man (ibid. 5). If he be driven out he was there, and if he were there and the Church is the assemblage of the elect, how could they drive him out? The elect cannot be reprobate.

But why may we not lay down that the reprobate and the wicked are of the true Church, when they can even be pastors and bishops therein? That is certain: is not Judas reprobate? And yet he was Apostle and bishop; according to the Psalmist (cviii. 8 ), and according to S. Peter (Acts i. 17), who says that he had obtained part of the ministry of the apostolate, and according to the whole Gospel, which ever places him in the number of the college of the Apostles. Was not Nicholas of Antioch a deacon like S. Stephen? -and yet many ancient Fathers make no difficulty on that account of considering him an heresiarch; witness, amongst others, Epiphanius, Philostratus, Jerome. And in fact the Nicolaites took occasion from him to recommend their abominations, of whom S. John makes mention in the Apocalypse (ii. 6), as of real heretics. S. Paul declares to the priests of Ephesus that the Holy Ghost had made them bishops to rule the Church of God (Acts xx. 28 ), but he assures them also that some of their own selves would rise up speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. He speaks to all when he says that the Holy Spirit has made them bishops, and speaks of those very same persons when he says that from amongst them shall schismatics arise. But when should I have finished if I would here heap up the names of all those bishops and prelates who, after having been lawfully placed in this office and dignity, have fallen from their first grace and have died heretics.

Who, for a simple priest, ever said anything so holy, so wise, so chaste, so charitable as Origen? No one could read what is written of him by Vincent of Lerins, one of the most judicious and learned of Church writers, no one could ponder over his accursed old age, after a life so admirable and holy, without being filled with compassion, to see this grand and brave Pilot, - after so many storms weathered, after so many and such lucrative voyages to Hebrews, Arabs, Chaldieans, Greeks, and Latins, -on his return, full of honour and of spiritual riches, suffer shipwreck and perish in port, an the edge of the tomb! Who would dare to say that he had not been of the true Church, he who had always fought for the Church, and whom the whole Church honoured and hold as one of its grandest Doctors? And yet behold him at last a heretic, excommunicate outside the Ark, perishing in the deluge of his own conceit!

All this corresponds with the holy word of Our Lord (Matt. xxiii. 2), who considered the Scribes and Pharisees as the true pastors of the true Church of that time, since He commands that they should be obeyed, and yet considered them not as elect but rather as reprobate. Now what an absurdity would it be, I ask you, if the elect alone were of the Church? That would follow which is said of the Donatists, that we could not know our prelates, and consequently could not pay them obedience. For how should we know whether those who were called prelates and pastors were of the Church, since we cannot know who of the living is predestinate and who is not, as will be said elsewhere? - and if they are not of the Church, how can they hold the place of elect there? It would indeed be one of the strangest monsters that could be seen-if the head of the Church were not of the Church. Not only then can one who is reprobate be of the Church but even pastor in the Church. The Church then cannot be called invisible an the ground that it is composed of the predestinate alone.

I conclude all this discourse by the Gospel comparisons which show this truth clearly and completely.

S. John likens the Church to the threshing-floor of a farm, on which is not only the wheat for the barn, but also the chaff to be burnt with unquenchable fire(Matt. iii. 12); are these not the elect and the reprobate? Our Lord compares it to a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kind of fishes good and bad (ibid. xiii. 47) to ten virgins, five of them foolish, and five wise (ibid. xxv. 2); to three servants, one of whom is slothful, and therefore cast into the exterior darkness (ibid.14); finally, to a marriage feast, unto which have entered both good and bad, and the bad, not having on the nuptial garment, are cast into exterior darkness (ibid. xxii.) Are not all these so many sufficient proofs that not only the elect but also the reprobate are in the Church? We must therefore close the door of our judgment to all sorts of notions of this kind, and to this one amongst them, by means of that never-enough-pondered proposition: Many are called, but few are chosen(ibid.) All those who are in the Church are called, but all who are therein are not elect; and indeed Church does not mean election but convocation.  

[EmeraldWings]

CHAPTER VIII.
Answer to the objections of those who would have the Church to consist of the predestinate alone.

WHERE will they find the Scripture passage which can furnish them any excuse for so many absurdities, and against proofs so clear as those we have given? Yet counter-reasons are not wanting in this matter: never does obstinacy leave its followers without them.

Will they then bring forward what is written in the Canticles (iv.) concerning the Spouse; how she is a garden enclosed, a fountain or spring sealed up, a well of living waters, how she is all fair, and there is not a spot in her; or, as the Apostle says, how she is glorious, not having spot or wrinkle, holy, without blemish (Eph. v. 27)? I earnestly beg them to consider the conclusion they wish to draw, namely, that there can be in the Church none but saints, immaculate, faultless, glorious. I will, with the same passages, show them that in the Church there are neither elect nor reprobate. For is it not the humble but truthful saying, as the great Council of Trent declares, of all the just and elect, Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. I suppose S. James was elect, and yet he confesses (iii. 2), In many things we all offend. S. John closes our mouth and the mouth of all the elect, so that no one may boast of being without sin; on the contrary, he will have each one know and confess that he sins (1 John i.) I believe that David in his rapture and ecstasy knew what the elect are, and yet he considered every man to be a liar (Ps. cxv. 11). If then these holy qualities given to the Spouse, the Church, are to be taken precisely, and if there is to be no spot or wrinkle anywhere in it, we must go out of this world to find the verification of these fair titles, the elect of this world will not be able to claim them. Let us then make the truth clear.

(1.) The Church as a whole is entirely fair, holy, glorious, both as to morals and as to doctrine. Morals depend on the will, doctrine an the understanding. Into the understanding of the Church there never entered falseness, nor wickedness into her will. By the grace of her Spouse she can say with him, Which of you, O sworn enemies, shall convince me of sin? (John viii. 46.) And yet it does not follow that in the Church there are no sinners. Remember what I have said to you elsewhere: the Spouse has hair, and nails, which are not living though she is living; the senate is sovereign, but not each senator; the army is victorious, but not each soldier - it wins the battle while many of its soldiers are killed. In this way is the militant Church always glorious, ever victorious over the gates and powers of hell, although many of her members, either straying and thrown into disorder like yourselves, are cut to pieces and destroyed, or by other mishaps are wounded and die within her. Take then one after another the grand praises of the Church which are scattered throughout the Scriptures and make her a crown out of them, for they are richly due to her; just as maledictions are due to those who being in so excellent a way are lost. She is an army set in array (Cant. vi. 9), though some fall out of her ranks.

(2.) But who knows not how often that is attributed to a whole body which belongs only to one of the parts? The Spouse calls her beloved white and ruddy but immediately she says his locks are black (ibid. v. 10, 11). S. Matthew says (xxvii. 44) that the thieves who were crucified with Our Saviour blasphemed him, whereas it was only one of them who did so, as S. Luke relates (xxiii. 39). We say that lilies are white, but there are yellow and there are green. He who speaks the language of love readily uses such expressions, and the Canticles are the chaste expressions of love. All these qualities then are justly attributed to the Church an account of the many holy souls therein who most exactly observe the holy Commandments of God, and are perfect-with the perfection that may be had in this pilgrimage, not with that which we hope for in our blessed fatherland.

(3.) Moreover, though there were no other reason for thus describing the Church than the hope she has of ascending, all pure, all beautiful, to heaven above, the fact that this is the sole term towards which she aspires and runs, would suffice to let her be called glorious and perfect, especially while she has so many fair pledges of this holy hope.

He would never end who should take notice of all the trifles which they stay examining here, and on which they raise a thousand false alarms amongst the poor common people. They bring forward that of S. John (x.); I know my sheep, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand : and they say that those sheep are the predestinate, who alone belong to the fold of the Lord. They bring forward what S. Paul says to Timothy (2 Tim. ii. 19) The Lord knows who are his; and what S. John has Said to apostates: they went out from us, but they were not of us (1 John ii. 19). But what difficulty is there in all this? We admit that the predestinate sheep hear the voice of their pastor, and have sooner or later all the qualities which are described in S. John but he also maintains that in the Church, which is the fold of Our Lord, there are not only sheep but also goats. Otherwise, why should it be said that at the end of the world, in the Judgment, the sheep shall be separated, unless because, until the Judgment, whilst the Church is in this world, she has within herself goats with the sheep? Certainly if they had never been together they would never be separated. And in the last instance, if the predestinate are called sheep, so also are the reprobate.

Witness David: Why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture? (Ps. lxxiii. 1) . I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost (cxviii. ult.). And elsewhere, where he says: Give ear, O thou that rulest Israel; thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep(lxxix. 1): -where he says Joseph, he means those of Joseph, and the Israelitish people, because to Joseph was given the primogeniture, and the eldest gives the name to the race. But who known not that among the people of Israel every one was not predestinate or elect, and yet they are called sheep, and all are together under one shepherd. We confess then that there are sheep saved and predestinated, of whom it is spoken in S. John: there are others damned, of whom it is spoken elsewhere, and all are in the same flock.

Isaias (liii. 6) compares all men, both the reprobate and the elect, to sheep: All we like sheep have gone astray; and in verse 7 he similarly compares Our Saviour: He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter. And so throughout the whole of chapter xxxiv. of Ezechiel, where there is no doubt but that the whole people of Israel are called sheep (John vi. 67) on account of the doctrine of the real eating of his flesh, and yet he received them as people over which David has to reign (v. 23).

And in the same way, - who denies that Our Lord known those who are his? He knew certainly what would become of Judas, yet Judas was not therefore not one of his Apostles. He knew what would become of those disciples who went back. It is a quite different thing to belong to God according to the eternal foreknowledge, as regards the Church Triumphant, and to belong to God according to the present communion of Saints for the Church Militant. The first are known only to God, the latter are known to God and to men. "According to the eternal foreknowledge," says S. Augustine, "how many wolves are within; how many sheep without! " Our Lord then known those who are his for his Triumphant Church, but besides these there are many others in the Militant Church whose end will be perdition, as the same Apostle shows where he says that in a great house there are all sorts of vessels and utensils, some indeed unto honour, but some unto dishonour (2 Tim. ii. 20).

So, what S. John says: They have gone out from amongst us, but they were not of us is nothing to the purpose. For I will say, as S. Augustine said: They were with us numero, but they were not with us merito : that is, as the same Doctor says (In Joh. lxv.) "they were with us and were ours by the Communion of the Sacraments, but according to their own individual vices they were not so.” They were already heretics in their soul and will, though they were not so after the external appearance. And this is not to say that the good are not with the bad in the Church: an the contrary indeed, how could they go out of the company of the Church if they were not in it? They were doubtless in it actually, but in will they were already without.

Finally, here is an argument which seems to be complete in form and in figure. "He has not God for Father who has not the Church for mother” (Cyp. de unit. Ecel. v.); that is certain: similarly he who has not God for Father has not the Church for mother; most certainly: now the reprobate have not God for Father, therefore they have not the Church for mother; and consequently the reprobate are not in the Church. But the answer is this. We accept the first foundation of this reason; but the second - that the reprobate are not children of God - requires to be well sifted. All the faithful baptized can be called sons of God, so long as they are faithful, unless one would take away from Baptism the narre of regeneration or spiritual nativity which Our Lord has given it. If thus understood there are many of the reprobate who are children of God, for how many persons are there, faithful and baptized, who will be damned, men who as the Truth says, believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away (Luke viii. 13). So that we totally deny this second proposition, that the reprobate are not children of God. For being in the Church they can be called children of God by Creation, Redemption, Regeneration, Doctrine, Profession of faith; although our Lord laments over them in this sort by Isaias (i. 2): I have brought up my children…and they have despised me. But if one say that the reprobate have not God for their Father because they will not be heirs, according to the word of the Apostle, if a son an heir also (Gal. iv. 7)-we shall deny the consequence: for not only are the children within the Church, but so are the servants too, with this difference, that the children will abide there for ever as heirs; the servants shall not, but shall be turned out when it seems good to the master.

Witness the Master himself in S. John (viii. 35), and the penitent son who knew well and acknowledged that many hired servants in his father's house abounded in bread, while he, true and lawful son, was amongst the swine, perishing with hunger, a proof of the Catholic faith in this point. O how many princes are walking on the ground as servants (Eccles. x. 7)! How many unclean animals and ravens in the Ark of the Church! O how many fair and sweet-smelling apples are an the tree cankered within yet attached to the tree, and drawing good sap from the trunk! He who had eyes clear-seeing enough to see the issue of the career of men, would see in the Church reason indeed to cry: many are called and few are chosen; that is, many are in the Militant Church who will never be in the Triumphant. How many are within who shall be without; as S. Anthony foresaw of Arius, and S. Fulbert of Berengarius. It is then a certain thing that not only the elect but also the reprobate can be and are of the Church. And he who to make it invisible would place only the elect therein, acts like the wicked scholar who excused himself for not going to the assistance of his master, an the ground that he had learnt nothing about his body but only about his soul.  

[EmeraldWings]

CHAPTER IX.
That the Church cannot perish.

I SHALL be more brief here, because what I shall say in the following chapter forms a strong proof for this belief in the immortality of the Church and its perpetuity. It is said then, to escape the yoke of the holy submission which is owing to the Church, that it perished eighty odd years ago; that it is dead and buried, and the holy light of the true faith extinguished. All this is open blasphemy against the Passion of our Lord, against his Providence, against his goodness, against his truth.

Do we not know the word of our Lord himself: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself (John xii. 12)? Was he not lifted up on the cross? did He not suffer? - and how then having drawn to himself the Church, should he let it escape so utterly from him? how should he let go this prize which had cost him so dear? Had the prince of the world, the devil, been driven out with the stick of the cross for a time of three or four hundred years, to return and reign a thousand years? Would you make so absolutely vain the might of the cross? Is your faithfulness in judgment of such a sort that you would thus iniquitously divide our Lord, and henceforward place a certain comparison between the divine goodness and diabolical malice? No, no: When a strong man armed keepeth court, those things which he possesseth are in peace; but if a stronger than he come upon him, and overcome him, he will take away all his armour and will distribute his spoils (Luke xi. 22 23).

Are you ignorant that Our Lord has purchased the Church with His own Blood? and who can take it from him? Think you that He is weaker than his adversary? Ah! I pray you, speak honourably of this captain. And who then shall snatch his Church out of his hands? Perhaps you will say He is one who can keep it, but who will not. It is then his Providence, his goodness, his truth that you attack. The goodness of God has given gifts to men as he ascends to heaven . . . apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, doctors for the perfection of the saints in the work of the ministry, unto the edification of the body of Christ (Eph. iv. I2). Was the perfection of the saints already accomplished eleven or twelve hundred years ago? Had the edification of the mystical body of our Lord, that is, the Church, been completed? Either cease to call yourselves edifiers or answer no:- and if it has not been completed, as in fact it has not, even yet, why wrong you thus the goodness of God, saying that he has taken back and carried away from men what he had given them? It is one of the qualities of the goodness of God that, as S. Paul says (Rom. xi. 29) his gifts are without repentance: that is to say, he does not give in order to take away.

His divine Providence, as soon as it had created man, the heavens, the earth, and the things that are in heaven and an earth, preserved them and perpetually preserves them, in such a way that the species (generation) of each tiniest bird is not yet extinct. What then shall we say of the Church? All this world cost him at the dearest but a simple word: he spoke and all were made (Ps. cxlviii. 5); and he preserves it with a perpetual and infallible Providence. How, I ask you, should he have abandoned the Church, which cost him all his blood, so many toils and travails? He has drawn Israel out of Egypt, out of the desert, out of the Red Sea, out of so many calamities and captivities; and we are to believe that He has let Christianity be engulfed in infidelity? He has had such care of his Agar, and he will despise Sara! He has so highly favoured the servant who was to be driven out of the house, and he will hold the legitimate wife in no esteem! He shall so greatly have honoured the shadow, and will abandon the substance! Oh! how utterly vain and good for nothing would be the promises an promises which he has made of the perpetuity of this Church.

It is of the Church that the Psalmist sings: God hath founded it for ever (xlvii. 8 ); In his days shall justice spring up, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away for ever (lxxi. 7). What peace, what justice, except in the Church? His throne (he is speaking in the person of the eternal Father, of the Church, which is the throne of the Messiah, David’s son) ) shall be as the sun before me and as the moon perfect for ever, and a faithful witness in heaven (lxxxviii. 38 ). And: I will make his seed to endure for evermore; and his throne as the days of heaven (30); that is, as long as heaven shall endure. Daniel ii. 44 calls it: A kingdom which shall not be destroyed for ever. The angel says to Our Lady that of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luke i. 33), and he is speaking of the Church, as we prove elsewhere. Did not Isaias prophesy thus of Our Lord (liii. 10): If he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed, that is, of long duration: and elsewhere (lxi. 8 ): I will make a perpetual covenant with them; and: all that see them (he speaks of the visible Church) shall know them?

Now, I ask you, who has given Luther and Calvin a commission to revoke so many holy and solemn promises of perpetuity which Our Lord has made to his Church? Is it not Our Lord who, speaking of his Church, says that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it? How shall this promise be verified if the Church has been abolished a thousand years or more? How shall we understand that sweet adieu our Lord made to his Apostles: Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world (Matt. ult.), if we say that the Church can perish? Or do we really wish to violate the sound rule of Gamaliel, who speaking of the rising Church used this argument: If this design or work be of men it will fall to nothing; but if it be of God, you are not able to destroy it (Acts v. 38, 39) Is not the Church the work of God? and how then shall we say that it has come to nothing? If this fair tree of the Church had been planted by man's hand I would easily acknowledge that it could be rooted up, but having been planted by so good a hand as is that of our Lord, I could not offer better counsel to those who hear people crying at every turn that the Church had perished than what our Lord said: Let those blind people alone, for every plant which God hath not planted shall be rooted up (Matt. xv. 13, 14)

S. Paul says that all shall be made alive; but each one in his own order: the first-fruits Christ, then they that are of Christ…afterwards the end ( I Cor xv. 22, 23, 24). Between Christ and those that are of Christ, that is, the Church, there is no interval, for ascending up to heaven he has left them on earth; between the Church and the end there is no interval, since it was to last unto the end. How! was not our Lord to reign in the midst of his enemies, until he had put under his feet and subjected all who were opposed to him (Ps. cix. 2)? - and how shall these authorities be fulfilled, if the Church, the kingdom of our Lord, has been ruined and destroyed? How should he reign without a kingdom, and how should he reign among his enemies unless he reigned in this world below?

But, I pray you, if this Spouse had died, who first drew life from the side of her Bridegroom asleep an the Cross, if, I say, she had died, who would have raised her from the dead? Do we not know that the resurrection of the dead is not a less miracle than creation, and much greater than continuation or preservation? Do we not know that the re-formation of man is a much deeper mystery than the formation? In the formation God spake, and man was made, he breathed into him the living soul, and had no sooner breathed it into him than this man began himself to breathe: but in his re-formation God employed thirty three years, sweated blood and water, yea, he died over this re-formation. Whoever then is rash enough to say that this Church is dead, calls in question the goodness, the diligence and the wisdom of this great Reformer. And he who thinks himself to be the reformer or resuscitator thereof, attributes to himself the honour due to Jesus Christ alone, and makes himself greater than the Apostles. The Apostles have not brought the Church back to life, but have preserved its life by their ministry, after our Lord had instituted it.

He then who says that having found the Church dead he has raised it to life -does he not in your opinion deserve to be seated an the throne of audacity? Our Lord had cast the fire of his charity upon the earth, the Apostles blowing on it by their preaching had increased it and spread it throughout the world: you say it has been extinguished by the waters of ignorance and iniquity; who shall enkindle it again? (In Ps. ci., S. 2) Blowing is of no use: what is to be done then? Perhaps we must strike again with nails and lance an Jesus Christ the holy living stone, to bring forth a new fire surprised r shall it be enough to have Calvin or Luther in the world to relight it? This would indeed be to be third Eliases, for neither Elias nor S. John Baptist did ever as much. This would be leaving all the Apostles far far behind, who did indeed carry this fire throughout the world, but did not enkindle it. "O impudent cry!" says S. Augustine against the Donatists, (s. 79 in Cant.) "the Church is not, because you are not in it!" "No, no," says S. Bernard, "the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock(Matt. vii. 25), and the rock was Christ(1 Cor. x. 4)”

And to say the Church has failed - what else is it but to say that all our predecessors are damned. Yes, truly; for outside the true Church there is no salvation, out of this Ark every one is lost. Oh what a return we make to those good Fathers who have suffered so much to preserve to us the inheritance of the Gospel: and now so arrogant are their children that they scorn them and hold them as silly fools and madmen.

I will conclude this proof with S. Augustine (De Unit. Eccl.xvii.), and say to your ministers: “What do you bring us new? Shall it be necessary to sow again the good seed, whereas from the time of its sowing it is to grow till the harvest? If you say that what the Apostles sowed has everywhere perished, we answer to you: read this to us from the Holy Scriptures: this you shall never do without having first shown us that this is false which is written, saying, that the seed which was sown in the beginning could grow till the time of the harvest. The good seed is the children of the kingdom, the cockle is the wicked, the harvest is the end of the world (Matt. xiii.). Say not then that the good seed is destroyed or choked, for it grows even to the consummation of the world.”  

[EmeraldWings]

CHAPTER X.
The counter-arguments of our adversaries, and the answers thereto.

(1.) Was not the Church everywhere destroyed when Adam and Eve sinned? Answer: Adam and Eve were not the Church, but the commencement of the Church. And it is not true that the Church was ruined then, or yet that it had been, because they did not sin in doctrine or belief but in act.

(2.) Did not Aaron the High Priest adore the golden calf with all his people? Answer: Aaron was not as yet high priest, nor head of the people, but became so afterwards. And it is not true that all the people worshipped idols: for were not the children of Levi men of God, who joined themselves to Moses?

(3.) Elias lamented that he was alone in Israel (3 Kings xix. 14). Answer: Elias was not the only good man in Israel, for there were seven thousand men who had not given themselves up to idolatry, and what the Prophet says here is only to express better the justice of his complaint. It is not true again that if all Israel had failed, the Church would have thereby ceased to exist, for Israel was not the whole Church. Indeed it was already separated therefrom by the schism of Jeroboam; and the kingdom of Juda was the better and principal part; and it is Israel, not Juda, of which Aarias predicted (II Par. xy. 3), that it should be without priest and sacrifice.

(4.) Isaiah says (i. 6) that from head to foot there is no soundness. Answer: these are forms of speaking, and of vehemently detesting the vice of a people. And although the Prophets, pastors and preachers use these general modes of expression, we are not to understand them of each particular person, but only of a large proportion; as appears by the example of Elias who complained that he was alone, notwithstanding that there were seven thousand faithful. S. Paul complains to the Philippians (ii. 21) that all seek their own interest and advantage; still at the end of the Epistle he acknowledges that there were many good people with him and with them. Who knows not the complaint of David (Ps. xiii. 3), that there is none that doth goos, no, not one? - and who knows not on the other hand that there were many good people in his day? These forms of speech are frequent, but we must not draw a particular conclusion about each individual. Further, -such things do not prove that faith had failed in the Church, nor that the Church was dead: for it does not follow that if a body is everywhere diseased it is therefore dead. Thus, without doubt, are to be understood all similar things which are found in the threats and rebukes of the Prophets.

(5.) Jeremias tells us (vii. 4) not to trust in lying words, saying: the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord. Answer: who maintains that under pretence of the Church we are to trust to a lie? Yea, on the contrary, he who rests an the judgment of the Church rests on the pillar and ground of truth; he who trusts to the infallibility of the Church trusts to no lie, unless that is a lie which is written: the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. We place our trust then in the Holy Word, which promises perpetuity to the Church.

(5.) Is it not written that the revolt and separation must come (2 Thess. ii. 3), and that the sacrifice shall cease (Dan. xii. 11), and that the Son of Man shall hardly find faith on earth at his second visible return (Luke xviii 8 ), when he will come to judge? Answer: all these passages are understood of the affliction which antichrist will cause in the Church, during the three and a half years that he shall reign mightily; but in spite of this the Church during even these three years shall not fail, and shall be fed and preserved amid the deserts and solitudes whither it shall retire, as the Scripture says (Apoc. xii.).  

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CHAPTER XI.
That the Church has never been dispersed or hidden.

THE ancients had wisely said that to distinguish correctly the different times referred to in the Scriptures is a good rule for interpreting them aright; for lack of which distinction the Jews continually err, attributing to the first coming of the Messias what is properly said of the second: and the adversaries of the Church err yet more grossly, when they would rnake the Church such from the time of S. Gregory to this age as it is to be in the time of antichrist. They wrest to this sense that which is written in the Apocalypse (xii. 6) that the woman fled into solitude; draw the consequence that the Church has been hidden and secret, trembling at the tyranny of the Pope, this thousand years, until she has come forward in Luther and his adherents. But who sees not that all this passage refers to the end of the world, and the persecution of antichrist, the time three years and a half being expressly determined therein; and in Daniel also (xii. 7)? And he who would by some gloss extend this time which the Scripture has limited would openly contradict Our Lord, who says (Matt. xxiv. 22) that for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. How then do they dare to transfer this Scripture to an interpretation so foreign to the intention of the author, and so contrary to its own circumstances, refusing to look at so many other holy words which prove and certify, loudly and clearly, that the Church shall never be in the desert thus hidden until that extremity, and for that short time; that she will be seen to flee thither and be seen thence to come forth?

I will not again bring forward the numerous passages previously cited, in which the Church is said to be like to the sun, the moon, the rainbow, a queen, a mountain as great as the world -and a multitude of others. I will content myself with putting before your consideration two great captains of the ancient Church, two of the most valiant that ever were, S. Augustine and S. Jerome. David had said (PS. xlvii. 1) : The Lord is great and exceedingly to be praised, in the city of our God in his holy mountain. "This is the City," says S. Augustine (In Ps. xlvii.),"set an a mountain, that cannot be hid. This is the light which cannot be concealed, nor put under a bushel, which is known to all, famous to all:" for it follows: With the joy of the whole earth is Mount Sion founded. And in fact how would Our Lord, who said that men do not light a candle and put it under a bushel (Matt. v. 15) have placed so many lights in the Church to go and hide them in certain unknown corners?

S. Augustine continues (In Ep. i- Joan. Tr. i. The order is slightly changed [Tr.].) : "This is the mountain which covers the whole face of the earth: this is the City of which it is said: A City set an a mountain cannot be hid. The Donatists (the Calvinists) come up to the mountain, and when we say to them, ascend; it is not a mountain, say they, and they rather strike their heads against it than establish their dwelling an it. Isaias, whom we read yesterday, cried out (ii. 2): In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on top of mountains, and all nations shall flow into it.

What is there so visible as a mountain? - Yet there are mountains unknown because they are situated in a corner of the earth. Who amongst you knows Olympus? No one, I am sure, any more or any less than its inhabitants know our Mount Giddaba. These mountains are in parts of the earth: but that mount not so; for it has filled the whole face of the earth. The stone cut from the mountain, without any new operation (Dan. ii) is it not Jesus Christ, springing from the race of the Jews without operation of marriage? And did not this stone break in pieces all the kingdoms of the earth, that is, all the dominations of idols and demons? - did it not increase until it filled the whole earth? It is then of this mountain that is said the Word, prepared on the top of mountains; it is a mountain elevated above the heads of all mountains, and all nations shall flow into it. Who can get lost, or can miss this mountain? Who knocks against and breaks his head against this? Who fails to see the city set an a mountain? Yet no; be not astonished that it is unknown to those who hate the brethren, who hate the Church. For by this they walk in darkness, and know not where they go. They are separated from the rest of the universe, they are blind with anger."

Such are the words of S. Augustine against the Donatists, but the present Church so perfectly resembles the first Church, and the heretics of our age those of old, that by merely changing the names the ancient reasons press the Calvinists as closely home as they did those ancient Donatists.

S. Jerome (Contra Lucif. 14, 25.) enters into the fray from another side, which is just as dangerous to you as the former; for he makes it clearly evident that this pretended dispersion, this retreat and hiddenness, destroy the glory of the cross of Our Lord. For, speaking to a schismatic who had rejoined the Church, he says: "I rejoice with thee, and give thanks to Jesus Christ my God, in that thou hast turned back in good earnest from the heat of falsehood to that which is the sweetness and savour of the whole world. And say not like some do: Save me, 0 Lord, for there is now no saint (Ps. xi. i); whose impious voice makes vain the cross of Christ, subjects the Son of God to the devil, and understands that grief which the Saviour has poured out over sinners to be expressed concerning all men. But let it never be that God should die for nothing, the mighty one is bound and despoiled of all, the Word of God is accomplished: ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession (Ps. ii. 8 ).

Where, I pray you, are those too religious, yea, rather too profane persons, who declare there are more synagogues than churches? How shall the cities of the devil be destroyed, and at last, that is, at the consummation of the world, how shall the idols be thrown down, if Our Lord has had no Church, or has had it only in Sardinia? Certainly he is become too indigent." Yes, indeed, if Satan possess at the same time England, France, the East, the Indies, barbarous nations and every place,-how would the trophies of the cross be collected and squeezed into one corner of the world. And what would this great man say of those who not only deny that it has been general and universal, but say that it was only in certain unknown persons, and will no specify one single little village where it was eighty years ago? Is not this greatly to bring down the glorious trophies of Our Lord? The heavenly Father, for the great humiliation and annihilation which Our Lord had undergone on the tree of the cross, has made his name so glorious that all knees were to bow and bend in reverence of Him; but these people do not value the Cross or the actions of the Crucified, taking from this account all the generations of a thousand years. The Father had given him as his inheritance many nations because he had delivered his soul to death (Isaiah liii. 12), and had been reputed with malefactors and robbers; but these people make his inheritance narrow indeed, and so cut away his portion that hardly during a thousand years shall he have a few secret followers, yea, shall have had none at all!

For I address myself to you, O predecessors, who bear the name of Christian, and who have been in the true Church. Either you had the true faith or you had it not. If you had it not, O unhappy ones, you are damned; and if you had it why did you conceal it from others, why did you leave no memorials of it, why did you not set yourselves against impiety, idolatry? In no wise were you ignorant that God has recommended to each one his neighbour. Certainly with the heart we believe unto justice; but for salvation we must make confession of our faith (Rom. x. 10), and how could you say: I have believed, therefore have I spoken (Psalm cxv. 1)? O miserable again for having so excellent a talent and hiding it in the earth. If the case is so ye are in the exterior darkness; but if, on the contrary, O Luther, O Calvin, the true faith has always been published and continually preached by all our predecessors, yourselves are miserable who have a quite opposite one, and who, to find some excuse for your wills and your fancies, accuse all the Fathers either of impiety if they have believed ill, or of treachery if they have kept silence.  

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CHAPTER XII.

The Church cannot err.

ONCE when Absalom wished to form a faction and division against his good father David, he sat in the way near the gate, and said to each person that went by: There is no man appointed by the king to hear thee..O that they would make me judge over the land, that all that have business might come to me, that I might do them justice(2 Kings xv). Thus did he seduce the loyalty of the Israelites. O how many Absaloms have there been in our age, who, to seduce and distort the people of Our Lord from obedience to the Church and her pastors, and to lead away Christian loyalty into rebellion and revolt, have cried up and down the ways of Germany and of France: there is no one appointed by God to hear doubts concerning the faith and to answer them ; the Church itself, the rulers of the Church, have no power to determine what we are to hold as to the faith and what we are not; we must seek other judges than the prelates, the Church can err in its decrees and rules.

But what more hurtful and audacious proposition could they make to Christianity than that? If then the Church can err, O Calvin, O Luther, to whom shall I have recourse in my difficulties? To the Scripture, say they. But what shall I, poor man, do, for it is precisely about the Scripture that my difficulty lies. I am not in doubt whether I must believe the Scripture or not; for who knows not that it is the Word of Truth?

What keeps me in anxiety is the understanding of this Scripture, is the conclusions to be drawn from it, which are innumerable and diverse and opposite on the same subject; and everybody takes his view, one this, another that, though out of all there is but one which is sound:- Ah! who will give me to know the good among so many bad? who will tell me the real verity through so many specious and masked vanities. Everybody would embark an the ship of the Holy Spirit; there is but one, and only that one shall reach the port, all the rest are an their way to shipwreck.

Ah! what danger am I in of erring! All shout out their claims with equal assurance and thus deceive the greater part, for all boast that theirs is the ship. Whoever says that our Master has not left us guides in so dangerous and difficult a way, says that he wishes us to perish. Whoever says that he has put us aboard at the mercy of wind and tide, without giving us a skilful pilot able to use properly his compass and Chart, says that the Saviour is wanting in foresight. Whoever says that this good Father has sent us into this school of the Church, knowing that error was taught there, says that he intended to foster our vice and our ignorance. Who has ever heard of an academy in which everybody taught, and nobody was a scholar? - such would be the Christian Commonwealth if the Church can err. For if the Church herself err, who shall not err? and if each one in it err, or can err, to whom shall I betake myself for instruction? - to Calvin? but why to him rather than to Luther, or Brentius, or Pacimontanus?

Truly, if I must take my Chance of being damned for error, I will be so for my own not for another's, and will let there wits of mine scatter freely about, and maybe they will find the truth as quickly as anybody else. We should not know then whither to turn in our difficulties if the Church erred. But he who shall consider how perfectly authentic is the testimony which God has given of the Church, will see that to say the Church errs is to say no less than that God errs, or else that he is willing and desirous for us to err; which would be a great blasphemy. For is it not Our Lord who says: If thy brother shall offend thee . . . tell the Church, and he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican ( Matt. xviii.) Do you see how Our Lord sends us to the Church in our differences, whatever they may be? How much more in more serious offences and differences!

Certainly if by the order of fraternal correction I am obliged to go to the Church to effect the amendment of some evil person who has offended me, how much more shall I be obliged to denounce him who calls the whole Church Babylon, adulterous, idolatrous, perjured? And so much the more because with this evil-mindedness of his he can seduce and infect a whole province ; the vice of heresy being so contagious that it spreadeth like a cancer(2 Tim. ii. 17) for a time. When, therefore, I see some one who says that all our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers have fallen into idolatry, have corrupted the Gospel, and committed all the iniquities which follow upon the fall of religion, I will address myself to the Church, whose judgment every one must submit to.

But if she can err then it is no longer I, or man, who will keep error in the world it will be our God himself who will authorise it and give it credit, since he commands us to go to this tribunal to hear and receive justice. Either he does not know what is done there, or he wishes to deceive us, or true justice is really done there; and the judgments are irrevocable. The Church has condemned Berengarius; if any one would further discuss this matter, I hold him as a heathen and a publican, in order to obey my Saviour, who leaves me no choice herein, but gives me this order: Let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican.

It is the same as S. Paul teaches when he calls the Church the pillar and ground of truth ( 1 Tim. iii. 15). Is not this to say that truth is solidly upheld in the Church? Elsewhere truth is only maintained at intervals, it falls often, but in the Church it is without vicissitude, unmovable, unshaken, in a word steadfast and perpetual. To answer that S. Paul's meaning is that Scripture has been put under the guardianship of the Church, and no more, is to weaken the proposed similitude too much. For to uphold the truth is a very different thing from guarding the Scripture. The Jews guard a part of the Scriptures, and so do many heretics; but they are not an that account a column and ground of truth. The bark of the letter is neither truth nor falsehood, but according to the sense that we give it is it true or false. The truth consists in the sense, which is, as it were, the marrow. And therefore if the Church were guardian of the truth,the sense of the Scripture would have been entrusted to her care, and it would be necessary to seek it with her, and not in the brain of Luther or Calvin or any private person. Therefore she cannot err, ever having the sense of the Scriptures. And in fact to place with this sacred depository the letter without the sense, would be to place therein the purse without the gold, the shell without the kernel, the scabbard without the sword, the box without the ointment, the leaves without the fruit, the shadow without the Body.

But tell me, if the Church has the care of the Scriptures, why did Luther take them and carry them away from her? And why do you not receive at her hands the Machabees, Ecclesiasticus, and the rest, as much as the Epistle to the Hebrews? For she protests that she has just as jealous a care of these as of these. In short, the words of S. Paul cannot suffer this sense that you would give them: he speaks of the visible Church, for where would he direct his Timothy to behave himself? He calls it the house of Our Saviour; therefore it is well founded, well ordered, well sheltered against all storms and tempest of error. It is the pillar and ground of truth ; truth then is in it, it abides there, it dwells there; who seeks it elsewhere loses it. It is so thoroughly safe and firm that all the gates of hell, that is, all the forces of the enemy, cannot make themselves masters of it. And would not the place be taken by the enemy if error entered it, with regard to the things which are for the honour and service of the Master? Our Lord is the head of the Church,-are you not ashamed to say that the Body of so holy a head is adulterous, profane, corrupt?

And say not that he is head of an invisible Church, for, since there is only a visible Church (as I have shown above) our Lord is the head of that; as S. Paul says :And he hath made him head over all the Church (Eph. i. 22); not over one Church out of two, as you imagine, but over the whole Church. Where two or three are gathered together in the name of the Lord, he is in the midst of them (Matt. xviii. 20). Ah! who shall say that the assembly of the universal Church of all time has been abandoned to the mercy of error and impiety? I conclude then that when we see that the universal Church has been and is in the belief of some article, - whether we see it expressly in the Scripture, whether it is drawn therefrom by some deduction, or again by tradition, - we must in no way judge, nor dispute, nor doubt concerning it, but show obedience and homage to this heavenly Queen, as Christ commands, and regulate our faith by this standard: And if it would have been impious in the Apostles to contest with their Master, so will it be in him who contests with the Church. For if the Father has said of the Son: Hear ye him, the Son has said of the Church: If any one will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican.  

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CHAPTER XIII.

The ministers have violated the authority of the Church.

I AM not now concerned to show how your ministers have degraded the holiness and majesty of the Spouse of Jesus Christ. They cry out loud and clear that she has remained eight hundred years adulterous and antichristian, from S. Gregory to Wicliffe - whom Beza considers the first restorer of Christianity. Calvin indeed would shield himself under a distinction, saying that the Church can err in things unnecessary for salvation, not in others. But Beza openly confesses that she has so far erred that she is no longer the Church. And is this not to err in things necessary for salvation, although he avows that outside the Church there is no salvation? It follows then from what he says-let him turn and turn about as he likes - that the Church has erred in things necessary for salvation. For if outside the Church there is no salvation, and the Church has so gravely erred that she is no more the Church, certainly in her there is no salvation. Now she can only lose salvation by giving up the things necessary for salvation; she has therefore erred in things necessary for salvation; otherwise, having what is necessary for salvation, she would be the true Church, or else men can be saved outside the true Church, which is impossible. And Beza says that he learnt this way of speaking from those who instructed him in his pretended religion, that is, from Calvin.

Indeed if Calvin thought that the Church of Rome had not erred in things necessary for salvation he would have done wrong to separate himself from it, for bring able to secure his salvation in it, and true Christianity residing in it, he would have been obliged to stay therein for his salvation, which could not be in two different places.

Perhaps I may be told that Beza says indeed that the Roman Church, as it is now, errs in things necessary for salvation, and that therefore he left it; but that he does not say the true Church has ever erred. He cannot, however, escape in that direction; for what Church was there in the world two, there, four, five hundred years ago, save the Church Catholic and Roman, just exactly as it is at present? There was certainly no other, therefore it was the true Church and yet it erred; or there was no Church in the world - and in that case again he is constrained to confess that this disappearance of the Church arose from intolerable error, and error in things necessary for salvation. For as to that dispersion of the faithful, and that secret Church that he fancies he can bring forward, I have already sufficiently exposed the vainness of it. Besides the fact that when they confess the visible Church can err, they dishonour the Church to which Our Lord directs us in our difficulties, and which S. Paul calls the pillar and ground of truth. For it is only of the visible Church that these testimonies are understood, unless we would say that Our Lord had sent us to speak to an invisible and unperceivable thing, a thing utterly unknown, or that S. Paul instructed his Timothy to converse in a society of which he had no knowledge.

But is it not to violate all the respect and reverence due to this Queen, this spouse of the heavenly King, to have brought back into the realm almost all the rout which with such cost of blood, of sweat, and of travails, she had by solemn penal sentence banished and driven from these her confines, as rebels and as sworn enemies of her crown? I mean this setting up so many heresies and false opinions which the Church had condemned, infringing thereby the sovereignty of the Church, absolving those she had condemned, condemning those whom she has absolved. Examples follow.

Simon Magus said that God was the cause of sin, says Vincent of Lerins (Com. Ium c. 34). But Calvin and Beza say no less; the former in the treatise an eternal predestination, the latter in his answer to Sebastian Castalio (See Claude de Sainetes an Atheism; Francis Feuardent in his Dialogues; Bellarmine Controv. Tom. iv. Lib. ii. c. 6 [where find quotations from Calvin and Beza. Tr.]; Hay in his Questions and Answers.): though they deny the word, they follow the things and substance of this heresy - if heresy it is to be called, and not atheism. But of this so many learned men convict them by their own words that I will not stay upon it.

Judas, says S. Jerome (in Matt. xxvi. 48 ), thought that the miracles he saw worked by the hand of Our Lord were diabolical operations and illusions (Porphyry and Eunomius did the same. (See Jerome adv. Vig. (10).) I know not whether your ministers think of what they are saying, but when we bring forward miracles, what do they say but that they are sorceries? The glorious miracles which Our Lord does, O men of this world, instead of opening your eyes, how do you speak of them? (See Calvin in Pref. to Instit. ; the Centuriators ; Peter Martyr (a viii. Ind. de Harr. c. 27).)

The Pepusians, says S. Augustine (De Haer. 27.) (or Montanists and Phrygians, as the Code calls them), admitted women to the dignity of the priesthood. Who is ignorant that the English brethren hold their Queen Elizabeth to be head of their Church?

The Manicheans, says S. Jerome (Praef. in Dial. c. Pelag.), denied freewill: Luther has composed a book against free-will, which he calls de servo arbitrio: for Calvin I appeal to yourselves. (The Saint adds in marginal note : Amb. Ep. 83 (Migne Ep. xxiii. ) " We rightly condemn the Manicheans an account of their Sunday fasts.")

The Donatists believed that the Church was destroyed throughout the world and remained only with them (Aug. de Haer. 69): your ministers say the same. Again, they believe that a bad man cannot baptize (lb. contra Pet. i. 7); Wicliff said just as much, whom I bring forward in mockery, because Beza holds him for a glorious reformer. As to their lives, their virtues were such as these: they gave the most precious Sacrament to the dogs, they cast the holy Chrism upon the ground, they overthrew the altars, broke the chalices and sold them, they shaved the heads of the priests to take the sacred unction from them, they took and tore away the veil from nuns to reform them (See Optatus de sch. Don. ii. 17, vi. 1.)

Jovinian, as S. Augustine testifies (De Haer. 82 : and see Jerome cont. Jov.), he would have any kind of meat eaten at any time and against every prohibition ; he said that fasting was not meritorious before God, that the saved were equal in glory, that virginity was no better than marriage, and that all sins were equal. Your masters teach the same.

Vigilantius, as S. Jerome says, (Cont. Vig.; and Ep. ii. adv. eundem.) denied that the relics of the Saints are to be honoured, that the prayers of the Saints are profitable, that priests should live in celibacy; [he rejected] voluntary poverty. And what of all those things do you not deny? (here and in the preceding paragraph the Saint refers to Luther (De Nat. B.M.; in I Pet. Ep.; and Epithal.); and Calvin (in Antid. S. vi.))

About the year 324, Eustathius despised the ordinary fasts of the Church, ecclesiastical traditions, the shrines of the holy Martyrs, and places dedicated to their honour. The account is given by the Council of Gangra (in proef.) in which for those reasons he was anathematized and condemned. See how long your reformers have been condemned.

Eunomius would not yield to plurality, dignity, antiquity, as S. Basil testifies (Contre Eun. I) He said that faith alone was sufficient for salvation, and justified (Aug. haer. 54). As to the first point, see Beza in his treatise an the marks of the Church; as to the second, does it not agree with that celebrated sentence of Luther's, (de Cap. Bab. i) whom Beza holds to be a most glorious reformer: "You see how rich is the Christian, that is, the baptized man, who even if he wishes is not able to lose his salvation by any sins whatever, unless he refuses to believe"?

Aerius, according to S. Augustine (H. 53), denied prayer for the dead, ordinary fasts, and the superiority of a bishop over a simple priest. Your masters deny all this.

Lucifer called his Church alone the true Church and said that the ancient Church had become, instead of a Church, a house of ill-fame (Jer. contra Lucif.) and what do your ministers cry out all the day?

The Pelagians considered themselves assured and certain of their justice, promised salvation to the children of the faithful who died without Baptism, held that all sins were mortal. (Jerome adv. Pet. ii. and iii.; S. Aug. contra Jul. vi.) As to the first, this is your ordinary language, and that of Calvin (in Antidoto, p. vi).The second and third points are too ordinary with you to have anything said about them. The Manicheaus rejected the sacrifices of the Church, and images, ( S. Aug. contra Faustum xx) as your people also do.

The Messalians despised Sacred Orders, Churches, Altars, as says S. Damascene (Haeres. 8o); and S. Ignatius says (Apud Theodoret. Dial. 3, called Impatibilis.): They do not admit the Eucharist and the oblations, because they do not acknowledge the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, which the Father mercifully raised up. Against whom S. Martial has written (II Epist. ad Burdigalenses (apocryphal Tr.).).

Berengarius taught the Same, long afterwards, and was condemned by three Councils, in the two last of which he abjured his heresy.

Julian the Apostate despised the sign of the Cross. Xenaias did the same (Niceph. xvi. 27), the Mahometans treat it no worse (Damas. 100.). But he who would see this at full length, let him look at Sanders (viii. 57) and Bellarmine in his Notes of the Church. Do you see the mould on which your ministers lay and form their reformation?

Now, ought not this agreement of opinions, or, to speak more rightly, this close parentage and consanguinity which your first masters had with the most cruel, inveterate, and sworn enemies of the Church, ought not this alone to dissuade you from following them, and to bring you under the right banner? I have not cited one heresy which was not held as such by that Church which Calvin and Beza confess to have been the true Church - that is, in the first five hundred years of Christianity. Ah! I pray you, is it not to trample the majesty of the Church under foot thus to produce as reformations, and necessary and holy reparations, what she has so greatly abominated when she was in her purest years, and which she had crushed down as impiety, as the ruin and corruption of true doctrine? The delicate stomach of this heavenly Spouse had scarcely been able to bear the violence of these poisons, and had rejected them with such energy that many veins of her martyrs had burst with the effort, and now you offer them to her again as a precious medicine! The Fathers whom I have quoted would never have placed them an the list of heretics if they had not seen the Body of the Church hold them as such. These Fathers being in the highest rank of orthodoxy, and closely united with all the other Catholic bishops and doctors of their time, we see that what they held to be heretical was so in reality.

Picture to yourselves this venerable antiquity in heaven round about the Master, who regards your reformers and their works. Those have gained their crown combatting the opinions which the ministers adore; they have held as heretics those whose steps you follow. Do you think that what they have judged to be error, heresy, blasphemy, in the Arians, the Manichaeans, Judas, they now judge to be sanctity, reformation, restoration? Who sees not that this is the greatest contempt for the majesty of the Church that can be shown? If you would be in the succession of the true and holy Church of those first centuries, do not then oppose what it has so solemnly established and instituted. Nobody can be partly heir and partly not. Accept the inheritance courageously; the charges are not so great but that a little humility will give a good account of them - to say good-bye to your passions, and to give up the difference which you have with the Church: the honours are infinite - the being heirs of God, co-heirs of Jesus Christ in the happy society of all the Blessed!  

[EmeraldWings]

The Authority of the Pope


CHAPTER I.
Of the first promise made to St. Peter: upon this rock I will build my Church.

WHEN Our Lord imposes a name upon men he always bestows some particular grace according to the name which he gives them. If he changes the name of that great father of believers, and of Abram makes him Abraham, also of a high father he makes him father of many, giving the reason at the same time: Thou shalt be called Abraham; because I have made thee the father of many nations.( Gen. xvii. 5.) And changing that of Sarai into Sara, of lady that she was in Abraham's house, he makes her lady of the nations and peoples who were to be born of her. If he changes Jacob into Israel, the reason is immediately given: For if thou halt been powerful against God, how much more shalt thou prevail against men. (Ib. xxxii. 28.) So that God by the names which he imposes not only marks the things named, but teaches us something of their qualities and conditions. Witness the angels, who have names only according to their offices, and S. John Baptist, who has the grace in his name which he announced in his preaching; as is customary in that holy language of the Israelites. The imposition of the name in the case of S. Peter is no small argument of the particular excellence of his charge, according to the very reason which Our Lord appended: Thou art Peter, &c.

But what name does he give him? A name full of majesty, not common, not trivial, but one expressive of superiority and authority, like unto that of Abraham himself. For if Abraham was thus called because he was to be father of many nations, S. Peter has received this name because upon him as upon a firm rock was to be founded the multitude of Christians. And it is on account of this resemblance that S. Bernard "calls the dignity of Peter " patriarchate of Abraham." (de Consid. ii)

When Isaias would exhort the Jews by the example of Abraham, the stock from which they sprang, he calls Abraham Peter: Look unto Abraham, unto the rock (petram)-whence you are hewn: . . look unto Abraham your father; (li. 1,2)' where he shows that this name of rock very properly refers to paternal authority. This name is one of Our Lord's names; for what name do we find more frequently attributed to the Messias than that of rock ? (Eph. ii. 20; Ps. Cxvii. 21; I Cor x. 4) This changing and imposition of name is then very worthy of consideration. For the names that God gives are full of power and might. He communicates Peter's name to him; he has therefore communicated to him some quality corresponding with the name. Our Lord himself is by excellence called the rock, because he is the foundation of the Church, and the corner-stone, the support, and the firmness, of this spiritual edifice: and he has declared that on S. Peter should his Church be built, and that he would establish him in the faith: Confirm thybrethren.(Luke xxii. 32) I am well aware that he imposed a name upon the two brothers John and James, Boanerges, the sons of thunder;(Mark iii. 17) but this name is not one of superiority or command, but rather of obedience, nor proper or special but common to two, nor, apparently, was it permanent, since they have never since been called by it: it was rather a title of honour, on account of the excellence of their preaching. But in the case of S. Peter he gives a name permanent, full of authority, and so peculiar to him that we may well say: to which of the others hath he said at any time, Thou art Peter? -showing that S. Peter was superior to the others.

But I will remind you that Our Lord did not change S. Peter's name, but only added a new name to his old one, perhaps in order that he might remember in his authority what he had been, what his stock was, and that the majesty of the second name might be tempered by the humility of the first, and that if the name of Peter made us recognise him as chief, the name of Simon might tell us that he was not absolute chief, but obeying and subaltern chief, and head-servant. S. Basil seems to have given support to what I am saying, when he said (Hom. de Peonit. 4): " Peter denied thrice and was placed in the foundation. Peter had previously not denied, and had been pronounced blessed. He had said: Thou art the Son of the living God, and thereupon had heard that he was Peter. The Lord thus returned his praise, because although he was a rock, yet he was not the rock; for Christ is truly the immovable rock, but Peter on account of the rock. Christ indeed gives his own prerogative to others, yet he gives them not losing them himself, he holds them none the less. He is a rock, and he made a rock; what is his, he communicates to his servants; this is the proof of opulence, namely, to have and to give to others." Thus speaks S. Basil.

What does he [Christ] say? three things; but we must consider them one after the other : Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it: (Matt. xvi.): he says, that Peter was a stone or rock, and that on this rock or this stone he would build his Church.

But here we are in a difficulty: for it is granted that Our Lord has spoken to S. Peter, and of S. Peter as far as this- and upon this rock -but, it is said that in these words he no longer speaks of S. Peter. Now I ask you:-What likelihood is there that Our Lord would have made this grand preface: Blessed art thou Simon Bar jona ; because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven and I say to thee, &c., in order to say no more than Thou art Peter,-and then suddenly have changed his subject and gone on to speak of something else ? And again, when he says : And on this rock I will build my church,-do you not see that he evidently speaks of the rock of which he had previously spoken? and of what other rock had he spoken but Simon, to whom be had said: Thou art Peter? But this is the ambiguity which may be causing hesitation in your mind; you perhaps think that as Peter is now the proper name of a man, it was so then, and that so we transfer the signification of Peter to rock by equivocation of masculine and feminine. But we do not equivocate here; for it is but one same word, and taken in the same sense, when Our Lord said to Simon: Thou art Peter, and when he said: and on this rock I will build my church. And this name of Peter was not a proper name of a man, but was only [then] appropriated to Simon Bar-jona. This you will much better understand, if you take it in the language in which Our Lord said it; he spoke not Latin but Syriac. He therefore called him not Peter but Cephas, thus: Thou art Cephas, and on this Cephas I will build: as if one said in Latin: Thou art saxum, and on this saxum; or in French: Thou art rocher, and on this rocher I will build my church. Now what doubt remains that it is the same person of whom he says: Thou art Rock, and of whom he says And on this Rock ? Certainly there is no other Cephas spoken of in all this chapter but Simon. On what ground then do we come to refer this relative hanc to another Cephas besides the one who immediately precedes?

You will say:-Yes, but the Latin says: Thou art Petrus, and not: Thou art Petra: now this relative hanc, which is feminine, cannot refer to Petrus, which is masculine. The Latin version indeed has other arguments enough to make it clear that this stone is no other than S. Peter, and therefore, to accommodate the word to the person to whom it was given as a name, who was masculine, there is given it a corresponding termination; as the Greek does, which had put: Thou art neTpos, and on this Tn neTpa. But it does not come out so well in Latin as in Greek, because in Latin Petrus does not mean exactly the same as petra, but in Greek neTpos and neTpa is the very same thing. Similarly in French rocher and roche is the same thing, yet still so that if I had to predicate either word of a man, I would rather apply to him the name of rocher than of roche, to make the masculine word correspond with the masculine subject. I have only to add, on this interpretation, that nobody doubts that Our Lord called S. Peter Cephas (for S. John records it most explicitly, and S. Paul, to the Galatians), or that Cephas means a stone or a rock, as S. Jerome says (In Gal. ii. 13.).

In fine, to prove to you that it is really S. Peter of whom it is said: And on this rock,-I bring forward the words that follow. For it is all one to promise him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and to say to him: Upon this rock; now we cannot doubt that it is S. Peter to whom he promises the keys of the kingdom of heaven, since he says clearly: And to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven: if therefore we do not wish to disconnect this piece of the Gospel from the preceding and the following words in order to place it elsewhere at our fancy, we cannot believe but that all this is said to S. Peter and of S. Peter: Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. And this the Catholic Church, when, even according to the admission of the ministers, she was true and pure, has confessed loudly and clearly in the assembly of 630 Bishops at the Council of Chalcedon (Act iii.).

Let us now see what these words are worth and what they import. (i.) We know that what the head is to a living body, the root to a tree, that the foundation is to a building. Our Lord then, who is comparing his Church to a building, when he says that he will build it on S. Peter, shows that S. Peter will be its foundation-stone, the root of this precious tree, the head of this excellent body. The French call both the building and the family, house, on this principle, that as a house is simply a collection of stones and other materials arranged with order, correspondence and measure, so a family is simply a collection of persons with order and interdependence. It is after this likeness that Our Lord calls his Church a building, and when he makes S. Peter its foundation, he makes him head and superior of this family.

(2.) By these words Our Lord shows the perpetuity and immovableness of this foundation. The stone on which one raises the building is the first, the others rest on it. Other stones may be removed without overthrowing the edifice, but he who takes away the foundation, knocks down the house. If then the gates of hell can in no wise prevail against the Church, they can in no wise prevail against its foundation and head, which they cannot take away and overturn without entirely overturning the whole edifice.

He shows one of the differences there are between S. Peter and himself. For Our Lord is foundation and founder, foundation and builder; but S. Peter is only foundation. Our Lord is its Master and Lord in perpetuity; S. Peter has only the management of it, as we shall explain by and by.

(3.) By these words Our Lord shows that the stones which are not placed and fixed on this foundation are not of the Church, although they may be in the Church.  

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CHAPTER II.
Resolution of a difficulty.

BUT a great proof of the contrary, as our adversaries think, is that, according to S. Paul: No one can lay another foundation but that which is laid: which is Christ Jesus" ( 1 Cor. 3 11); and according to the same we are domestics of God; built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone.(Eph. Ii, 19,20) And, in the Apocalypse, (xxi., 14) the wall of the holy city had twelve foundations, and in these twelve foundations the names of the twelve Apostles. If then, say they, all the twelve Apostles are foundations of the Church, how do you attribute this title to S. Peter in particular? And if S. Paul says that no one can lay another foundation than Our Lord, how do you dare to say that by these words: Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church S. Peter has been established as foundation of the Church? Why do you not rather say, asks Calvin, that this stone on which the Church is founded is no other than Our Lord? Why do you not rather declare, says Luther, that it is the confession of faith which Peter had made?

But in good truth it is an ill way of interpreting Scripture to overturn one passage by another, or to strain it by a forced interpretation to a strange and unbecoming sense. We must leave to it as far as possible the naturalness and sweetness of the sense which belongs to it.

In this case, then, since we see that Scripture teaches us there is no other foundation than Our Lord, and the same teaches us clearly that S. Peter is such also, yea and further that the Apostles are so, we are not to give up the first teaching for the second, the second for the third, but to leave them all three in their entirety. Which we shall easily do if we consider these passages in good faith and sincerely.

Now Our Lord is in very deed the only foundation of the Church; he is the foundation of our faith, of our hope and charity; he is the foundation of all ecclesiastical authority and order, and of all the doctrine and administration which are therein. Who ever doubted of this? But, some one will say to me, if he is the only foundation, how do you place S. Peter also as foundation? (I.) You do us wrong; it is not we who place him as foundation. He, besides whom no other can be placed, he himself placed him. So that if Our Lord is true founder of the Church, as he is, we must believe that S. Peter is such too, since Our Lord has placed him in this rank. If any one besides Our Lord himself had given him this grade we should all cry out with you: No one can lay another foundation but that which is laid. (2.) And then, have you well considered the words of S. Paul? He will not have us, recognise . foundation besides Our Lord, but neither is S Peter nor are the other Apostles foundations besides Our Lord they are subordinate to Our Lord: their doctrine is not other than that of their Master, but their very Master's itself. Thus the supreme charge. which S. Peter had in the militant Church, by reason of which he is called foundation of the Church, as chief and governor, is not beside the authority of his Master, but is only a participation in this, so that he is not the foundation of this hierarchy besides Our Lord but rather in Our Lord: as we call him most holy Father in Our Lord, outside whom he would be nothing. We do not indeed recognise any other secular authority than that of His Highness [of Savoy], but we recognise several under this, which are not properly other than that of His Highness, because they are only certain portions and participations of it. (3.) In a word, let us interpret S. Paul passage by passage: do you not think he makes his meaning clear enough when he says: You are built upo the foundations of the Prophets and Apostles But that you may know these foundations to be no other than that which he preached, he adds: Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Our Lord then is foundation and S. Peter also, but with so notable a difference that in respect of the one the other may be said not to be it. For Our Lord is foundation and founder, foundation without other foundation, foundation of the natural, Mosaic and Evangelic Church, foundation perpetual and immortal, foundation of the militant and triumphant, foundation by his own nature, foundation of our faith, hope and charity, and of the efficacy of the Sacraments.

S. Peter is foundation, not founder, of the whole Church; foundation but founded on another foundation, which is Our Lord; foundation of the Evangelic Church alone, foundation subject to succession, foundation of the militant not of the triumphant, foundation by participation, ministerial not absolute foundation; in fine, administrator and not lord, and in no way the foundation of our faith, hope and charity, nor of the efficacy of the Sacraments. A difference so great as this makes the one unable, in comparison, to be called a foundation by the side of the other, whilst, however, taken by itself, it can be called a foundation, in order to pay proper regard to the Holy Word. So, although he is the Good Shepherd, he gives us shepherds (Eph. iv, 11) under himself, between whom and his Majesty there is so great a difference that he declares himself to be the only shepherd (John x, 11; Ezech. xxxiv. 23).

At the same time it is not good reasoning to say all the Apostles in general are called foundations of the Church, therefore S. Peter is only such in the same way as the others are. On the contrary, as Our Lord has said in particular, and in particular terms, to S. Peter, what is afterwards said in general of the others, we must conclude that there is in S. Peter some particular property of foundation, and that he in particular has been what the whole college has been together. The whole Church has been founded on all the Apostles, and the whole on S. Peter in particular; it is then S. Peter who is its foundation taken by himself, which the others are not. . For to whom has it ever been said Thou art Peter, &c.? It would be to violate the Scripture to say that all the Apostles in general have not been foundations of the Church. It would also be to violate the Scripture to deny that S. Peter was so in particular. It is necessary that the general word should produce its general effect, and the particular its particular, in order that nothing may remain useless and without mystery out of Scriptures so mysterious. We have only to see - for what general reason all the Apostles are called foundations of the Church: namely, because it is they who by their preaching have planted the faith and the Christian doctrine ; in which if we are to give some prerogative to any one of the Apostles it will be to that one who said: I have laboured more abundantly than all they.' (I Cor. xv. 10)

And it is in this sense that is meant the passage of the Apocalypse. For the twelve Apostles are called foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem, because they were the first who converted the world to the Christian religion Lwhich was as it were to lay the foundations of the glory of men, and the seeds of their happy immortality. But the passage of S. Paul seems to be understood not so much of the person of the Apostles as of their doctrine. For it is not said that we are built upon the Apostles, but upon the foundation of the Apostles - that is, upon the doctrine which they have announced. This is easy to see, because it is not only said that we are upon the foundation of the Apostles, but also of the Prophets, and we know well that the Prophets have. not otherwise been foundations of the Evangelical Church than by their doctrine. And in this matter all the Apostles seem to stand on a level, unless S. John and S. Paul go first for the excellence of their theology. It is then in this sense that all the Apostles are foundations of the Church; but in authority and government S. Peter precedes all the others as much as the head surpasses the members; for he has been appointed ordinary pastor and supreme head of the Church, the others have been delegated pastors intrusted with as full power and authority over all the rest of the Church as S. Peter, except that S. Peter was the head of them all and their pastor as of all Christendom. Thus they were foundations of the Church equally with him as to the conversion of souls and as to doctrine; but as to the authority of governing, they were so unequally, as S. Peter was the ordinary head not only of the rest of the whole Church but of the Apostles also. For Our Lord had built on him the whole of his Church, of which they were not only parts but the principal and noble parts. "Although the strength of the Church," says S. Jerome (ad Jovin. I. 27), "is equally established on all the Apostles, yet amongst the twelve one is chosen that a head being appointed occasion of schism may be taken away." "There are, indeed," says S. Bernard to his Eugenius (de Consid. ii. 8 ), and we can say as much of S. Peter for the same reason, "there are others who are custodians and pastors of flocks, but thou hast inherited a name as much the more glorious as it is more special."  

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CHAPTER III.
Of the second promise made to St. Peter: and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Our adversaries are so angry at our proposing to them the chair of S. Peter as a holy touchstone by which we may test the meanings, imaginations and fancies they put into the Scriptures, that they overthrow heaven and earth to wrest out of our hands the express words of Our Lord, by which, having said to S. Peter that he would build his Church upon him, in order that we might know more particularly what he meant he continues in these words: And to thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. One could not speak more plainly. He has said: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar jona, because flesh and blood, &c. And I say to thee that thou art Peter, . . . and to thee will I give, & c. This to thee refers to that very person to whom he had said: And I say to thee ; it is then to S. Peter. But the ministers try as hard as they can to disturb the clear fountain of the Gospel, so that S. Peter may not be able to find his keys therein, and that we may turn disgusted from the water of the holy obedience which we owe to the vicar of Our Lord.

And therefore they have bethought them of saying that S. Peter had received this promise of Our Lord in the name of the whole Church, without having received any particular privilege in his own person. But if this is not violating Scripture, never did man violate it. For was it not to S. Peter that he was speaking? and how could he better express his intention than by saying: And I say to thee. . .. I will give to thee? Put with this his having just spoken of the Church, and said: The gates of hell shall not prevail against it, which would have prevented him from saying: And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom, if he had wished to give hem to the whole Church immediately. For he does not say to it, but, to thee, will I give. If it is allowed thus to go surmising over clear words, there will be nothing in the Scripture which cannot be twisted into any meaning whatever; though I do not deny that S. Peter in this place was speaking in his own name and in that of the whole Church, not indeed as delegated by the Church or by the disciples (for we have not the shadow of a sign of this commission in the Scripture, and the revelation on which he founds his confession had been made to himself alone-unless the whole college of Apostles was named Simon Bar jona), but as mouthpiece, prince and head of the Church and of the others, according to S. Chrysostom and S. Cyril on this place, and " on account of the primacy (Ult. In Joan.) of his Apostolate," as S. Augustine says. It was then the whole Church that spoke in the person of S. Peter as in the person of its head, and not S. Peter that spoke in the person of the Church. For the body speaks only in its head, and the head speaks in itself not in its body; and although S. Peter was not as yet head and prince of the Church, which office was only conferred on him after the resurrection of the Master, it was enough that he was already chosen out for it and had a pledge of it. As also the other Apostles had not as yet the Apostolic power, travelling over all that blessed country rather as scholars with their tutor to learn the profound lessons which afterwards they taught to others than as Apostles or Envoys, which they afterwards were throughout the whole world, when their sound went forth into all the earth (Ps. xviii. 5.). Neither do I deny that the rest of the prelates of the Church have a share in the use of the keys; and as for the Apostles I own that they have every authority here. I say only that the giving of the keys is here promised principally to S. Peter, and for the benefit of the Church. For although it is he who has received them, still it is not for his private advantage but for that of the Church. The control of the keys is promised to S. Peter in particular, and principally, then afterwards to the Church; but it is promised principally for the general good of the Church, then afterwards for that of S. Peter; as is the case with all public charges.

But, one will ask me, what difference is there between the promise which Our Lord here makes to S. Peter to give him the keys, and that which He made to the Apostles afterwards? For in truth it seems to have been but the same, because Our Lord explaining what he meant by the keys said: And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose, &c- which is just what he said to the Apostles in general: Whatsoever you shall bind, &c (Matt. xviii. 18 ). If then he promises to all in general what he promises to Peter in particular, there will be no ground for saying that S. Peter is greater than one of the others by this promise.

I answer that in the promise and in the execution of the promise Our Lord has always preferred S. Peter by expressions which oblige us to believe that he has been made head of the Church. And as to the promise, I confess that by these words: And whatsoever thou shalt loose, Our Lord has promised no more to S. Peter than he did to the others afterwards Whatsoever you shall bind, &c. For the words are the same in substance and in meaning in the two passages. I admit also that by these words: And whatsoever thou shalt loose, said to S. Peter, he explains the preceding: And I will give to thee the keys, but I deny that it is the same thing to promise the keys and to say: Whatsoever thou shalt loose. Let us then see what it is to promise the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And who knows not that when a master, going away from his house, leaves the keys with some one, what he does is to leave him the charge and governance thereof. When princes make their entrance into cities, the keys are presented to them as an acknowledgment of their sovereign authority.

It is then the supreme authority which Our Lord here promises to S. Peter; and in fact when the Scripture elsewhere wishes to speak of a sovereign authority it has used similar terms. In the Apocalypse(i. 17, 18 ) when Our Lord wishes to make himself known to his servant, he says to him: I am the first and the last and alive and was dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever, and have the keys of death and of hell. What does he mean by the keys of death and of hell, except the supreme power over the one and the other? And there also where it is said These things saith the Holy one and the True one, who hath the key of David: he that openeth and no man shutteth, shutteth and no man openeth (Ibid. iii. 7) , what can we understand but the supreme authority of the Church? And what else is meant by what the Angel said to Our Lady (Luke i. 32): The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever?-the Holy Spirit making us know the kingship of our Lord, now by the seat or throne, now by the keys. But is the commandment which in Isaias (xxii.) is given to Eliacim which is parallel in every particular with that which Our Lord gives to S. Peter. In it there is described the deposition of a sovereign-priest and governor of the Temple: Thus saith the Lord God of hosts: go get thee into him that dwelleth in the tabernacle, to Sobna who is over the temple; and thou shalt say to him what dost thou here? And further on: I will depose thee. See there the de position of one, and now the institution of the other. And it. shall come to pass in that day that I will call my servant Eliacim the son of Helcias, and I will, clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand : and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Juda. And I will lay the key of the house David upon his shoulder; and he shall open and none shall shut: and he shall shut and none shall open.

Could anything fit better than these two Scriptures? For: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, because flesh and blood have not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven- is it not at least equivalent to: I will call my servant Eliacim the son of Helcias? And I say to thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell, &c. -does this not signify the same as: I will clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand, and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Juda? And what else is it to be the foundation or foundationstone of a family than to be there as father, to have the superintendence, to be governor there? And if one has had this assurance: I will lay the key of the house of David on his shoulder, the other has had no less, who had the promise: And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And if when he has opened no one shall shut, when he has shut no one shall open; so, when the other shall have loosened no one shall bind, when he shall have bound no one shall loosen. The one is Eliacim son of Helcias, the other, Simon the son of Jonas; the one is clothed with the pontifical robe, the other with heavenly revelation; the one has power in his hand, the other is a strong rock; the one is as father in Jerusalem, the other is as foundation in the Church; the one has the keys of the kingdom of David, the other those of the Church of the Gospel; when one shuts nobody opens, when one binds nobody looses; when one opens no one shuts, when one loosens nobody binds. What further remains to be said than that if ever Eliacim son of Helcias was head of the Mosaic Temple, Simon son of Jonas was the same of the Gospel Church? Eliacim represented Our Lord as figure, S. Peter represents him as lieutenant; Eliacim represented him in the Mosaic Church, and S. Peter in the Christian Church. Such is what is meant by this promise of giving the keys to S. Peter, a promise which was never made to the other Apostles.

But I say that it is not all one to promise the keys of the kingdom and to say: Whatever thou shalt loose, although one is an explanation of the other. And what is the difference? -certainly just that which there is between the possesion of an authority and the exercise of it. It may well happen that while a king lives, his queen, or his son, may have just as much power as the king himself to chastise, absolve, make gifts, grant favours: such person, however, will not have the sceptre but only the exercise of it. He will indeed have the same authority, but not in possession, only in use and exercise. What he does will be valid, but he will not be head or king, he must recognise that his power is extraordinary, by commission and delegation, whereas the power of the king, which may be no greater, is ordinary and is his own. So Our Lord promising the keys to S. Peter remits to him the ordinary authority, and gives him that office in ownership, the exercise of which he referred to when he said: Whatsoever thou shalt loose, &c. Now afterwards, when he makes the same promise to the other Apostles, he does not give them the keys or the ordinary authority, but only gives them the use and exercise thereof. This difference is taken from the very terms of the Scripture for to loose and to bind signifies but the action and exercise, to have the keys, the habit. . . . See how different is the promise which Our Lord made to S. Peter from that which he made to the other Apostles. The Apostles all have the same power as S. Peter, but not in the same rank, inasmuch as they have it as delegates and agents, but S. Peter as ordinary head and permanent officer. And in truth it was fitting that the Apostles who were to plant the Church everywhere, should all have full power and entire authority as to the use of the keys and the exercise of their powers, while it was most necessary that one amongst them should have charge of the keys by office and dignity,- "that the Church, which is one," as S. Cyprian says, (Ad Jubaianum) "should by the word of the Lord be founded upon one who received the keys thereof."  

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CHAPTER IV.
Of the third promise made to St. Peter: I have prayed for thee.

To which of the others was it ever said: I have prayed or thee Peter, that thy faith fail not, and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren (Luke xxii. 32)? Truly they are two privileges of great importance, these. Our Lord, when about to establish the faith in his Church, did not pray for the faith of any of the others in particular, but only of S. Peter as head. For what could be the object of this prerogative ? Satan hath sought you (vos)-you all; but I have prayed for thee Peter,-is not this to place him alone as responsible for all, as head and guide of the whole flock? But who sees not how pregnant this passage is for our purpose? Let us consider what precedes, and we shall find that Our Lord had declared to his Apostles that there was one of them greater than the others: He, who is the greatest among you.. and he that is the leader,- and immediately Our Lord goes on to say to him that the adversary was seeking to sift them, all of them, as wheat, but that still he had prayed for him in particular that his faith should not fail. I pray you, does not this grace which was so peculiar to him, and which was not common to the others, according to S. Thomas, show that S. Peter was that one who was greatest among them? All are tempted, and prayer is made for one alone. But the words following render all this quite evident. For some Protestant might say that he prayed for S. Peter in particular on account of some other reason that might be imagined (for the imagination ever furnishes support enough for obstinacy), not because he was head of the others or because the faith of the others was maintained in their pastor. On the contrary, gentlemen, it is in order that being once converted he might confirm his brethren. He prays for S. Peter as for the confirmer and support of the others; and what is this but to declare him head of the others? Truly one could not give S. Peter the command to confirm the Apostles without charging him to have care of them. For how could he put this command in practice without paying regard to the weakness or the strength of the others in order to strengthen or confirm them? Is this not to again call him foundation of the Church? If he supports, secures, strengthens the very foundation-stones, how shall he not confirm all the rest? If he has the charge of supporting the columns of the Church, how shall he not support all the rest of the building? If he has the charge of feeding the pastors, must he not be sovereign pastor himself? The gardener who sees the young plant exposed to the continual rays of the sun, and wishes to preserve it from the drought which threatens it, does not pour water on each branch, but having well steeped the root considers that all the rest is safe, because the root continues to distribute the moisture to the rest of the plant. Our Lord also, having planted this holy assembly of the disciples, prayed for the head and the root, in order that the water of faith might not fail to him who was therewith to supply all the rest, and in order that through the head the faith might always be preserved in the Church.

But I must tell you, before closing this part of my subject, that the denial which S. Peter made on the day of the Passion must not trouble you here; for he did not lose the faith, but only sinned as to the confession of it. Fear made him disavow that which he believed. He believed right but spoke wrong.  

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CHAPTER V.
Feed my sheep.

WE know that Our Lord gave a most ample procuration and commission to his Apostles to treat with the world concerning its salvation, when he said to them (John xx.) : As the Father hath sent me I also send you . . receive ye the Holy Ghost whose sins you shall forgive, &c. It was the execution of that promise of his which had been made them in general: Whatsoever you shall bind, &c. But it was never said to any one of the other Apostles in particular: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, nor was it ever said to one of the others: Feed my sheep (John xxi. 17). S. Peter alone had this charge. They were equal in the Apostolate, but into to the pastoral dignity S. Peter alone was instituted: Feed my sheep. There are other pastors in the Church; each must feed the flock which is under him as S. Peter says (I. Ep. v. 2), or that over which h the Holy Ghost hath placed him bishop, according to S. Paul (Acts xx. 28 ). But, "to which of the others," says S. Bernard, (De Consid. ii. 8.)" were ever the sheep so absolutely, so universally committed: Feed my sheep?"

And to prove that it is truly S. Peter to whom these words are addressed, I betake myself to the holy Word. It is S. Peter only who is called Simon son of John, or of Jona (for one is the same as the other, and Jona is but the short of Joannah); and in order that we may know that this Simon son of John is really S. Peter, S. John bears witness that it was Simon Peter- Jesus saith to Simon Peter: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these? It is then S. Peter to whom in particular Our Lord says: Feed my sheep.

And Our Lord puts S, Peter apart from the others in that place where he compares him with them: Lovest thou me- there is S. Peter on the one side- more than these- there are the Apostles on the other. And although all the Apostles were not present, yet the principal ones were: S. James, S. John, S. Thomas and others. It is only S. Peter who is grieved, it, is: only S. Peter whose death is foretold. What room is there then for doubting that it was to him alone that this word feed my sheep is addressed, a word which is united to all these others ?

Now that to feed the sheep includes the charge of them, appears clearly. For what is it to have the charge of feeding the sheep, but to be pastor and shepherd; and shepherds have full charge of the sheep, and not only lead them to pasture, but bring them back, fold them, guide them, rule them, keep them in fear, chastise them and guard them. In Scripture to rule and to feed the people is taken as the same thing, which is easy to see in Ezekiel (xxxiv.); in the second Book of Kings (v.2) and in several places of the Psalms, where, according to the original there is to feed, and we have to rule: and in fact, between ruling and pasturing the sheep with iron crook there is no difference. In Psalm xxii., verse I, The Lord ruleth me, i.e., as shepherd governeth me, and when it is said that David had been elected to feed Jacob his servant and Israel his inheritance: and he fed them in the innocence of his (Ps. lxxvii.,71,72) it is just the same as if he said to rule, to govern, to preside over. And it is after the same figure of speech that the people are called sheep of the pasture of Our Lord (Ps. xcix. 3) so that, to have the commandment of feeding the Christian sheep is no other thing than to be their ruler and pastor.

It is now easy to see what authority Our Lord intrusted to S. Peter by these words: Feed my sheep. For in truth the charge is so general that it includes all the faithful, whatever may be their condition; the commandment is so particular that it is addressed only to S. Peter. He who wishes to have this honour of being one of Our Lord's sheep must acknowledge S. Peter, or him who takes Peter's place, as his shepherd. " If thou lovest me "-I quote S. Bernard (De Consid. ii. 8.) - "feed my sheep. Which sheep ? The people of this or that city or region or even kingdom? My sheep, Christ says. Is it not clear to everybody that he did not mean some, but handed over all. There is no exception where there is no distinction. And perhaps the others, his fellow-disciples, were present when, giving a charge to one, he commended unity to all in one flock with one pastor, according to that (Cant. vi.): One is my dove, my beautiful one, my perfect one. Where unity is there is perfection."

When Our Lord said: I know my sheep, he spoke of all; when he said feed my sheep, he still means it of all; for Our Lord has but one fold and one flock. And what else is it to say: feed my sheep, but: Take care of my flock, of my pastures, or of my sheep and my sheepfold? It is then entirely under the charge of S. Peter. For if he said to him: Feed my sheep, either he recommended all to him or some only; if he only recommended some-which? I ask. Were it not to recommend to him none, to recommend to him some only without specifying which, and to put him in charge of unknown sheep? If all, as the Word expresses it, then he was the general pastor of the whole Church. And the matter is thus rightly settled beyond doubt. It is the common explanation of the Ancients, it is the execution of his promises. But there is a mystery in this institution which our S. Bernard does not allow me to forget, now that I have taken him as my guide in this point. It is that Our Saviour thrice charges him to do the office of pastor, saying to him first: Feed my lambs; secondly, my lambs; thirdly, my sheep: not only to make this institution more solemn, but to show that he gave into his charge not only the people, but the pastors and Apostles themselves, who, as sheep, nourish the lambs and young sheep, and are mothers to them.

And it makes nothing against this truth that S. Paul and the other Apostles have fed many peoples with the Gospel doctrine, for being all under the charge of S. Peter, what they have done belongs also to him, as the victory does to the general, though the captains have fought : nor, that S. Paul received from S. Peter the right hand of fellowship (Gal. ii, 9), for they were companions in preaching, but S. Peter was greater and chief in the pastoral office ; and the chiefs, call the soldiers and captains comrades.

Nor that S. Paul was the Apostle of the Gentiles and S. Peter of the Jews; because it was not to divide the government of the Church, nor to hinder either the one or the other from converting the Gentiles and the Jews indifferently, nor because the chief authority was not in the hands of one; but it was to assign them the quarters where they were principally to labour in preaching, in order that each one attacking impiety in his own province the world might the sooner be filled with the sound of the Gospel.

Nor that he would seem not to have known that the Gentiles were to belong to the fold of Our Lord, which was confided to him: for what he said to the good Cornelius: In truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh justice is acceptable to him (Acts x.), is nothing different from what he had said before: Whosoever shall call upon, the name of the Lord shall be saved (ii.), and the prophecy which he had explained: And in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed (iii.). He was only uncertain as to the time when the bringing back of the Gentiles was to begin, according to the holy Word of the Master: You shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth (i.), and that of S. Paul: To you behoved us to speak first the word God but seeing you reject it, we turn to the Gentiles (xiii.), just as Our Lord had already opened the mind of the Apostles to the intelligence of the Scriptures when he said to them: Thus it behoved.. . . that penance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginningwith Jerusalem (Luke ult.).

Nor that the Apostles instituted deacons without the command of S. Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles (vi.); for S. Peter's presence there sufficiently authorised that act; besides, we do not deny that the Apostles had full powers of administration in the Church, under the pastoral authority of S. Peter. And we bishops, in union with the Holy See of Rome, ordain both deacons and priests without any special authorisation.

Nor that the Apostles sent Peter and John into Samaria (Ib. viii.), for the people also sent Phinees, who was the High Priest, and their superior, to the children of Ruben and Gad (Jos. xxii.); and the centurion sent the chiefs and heads of the Jews, whom he considered to be greater than himself (Luke vii.); and S. Peter being in the council, himself consented to and authorised his own mission.

Nor finally, that which is made so much of- at S. Paul withstood S. Peter to the face (Gal ii. ) for every one knows that it is permitted to the inferior to correct the greater and to admonish him with charity and submission when charity requires; witness our S. Bernard in his books On Consideration; and on this subject the great S. Gregory (In Ezech. ii. 6) says these all golden words: " "He became the follower of his inferior, though before him in dignity; so that he who was first in the high dignity of the Apostolate might be first in humility.”  

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CHAPTER VI.
The order in which the evangelists name the apostles.

IT is a thing very worthy of consideration in this matter that the Evangelists never name either all the Apostles or a part of them together without putting S. .Peter ever at the very top, ever at the head of the band. This we cannot consider to be done accidentally; for it is perpetually observed by the Evangelists; and it is not four or five times that they are thus named together, but very often. And besides, as to the other Apostles, they do not keep any particular order.

The names of the twelve Apostles are these, says S. Matthew (x.): The first, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Mathew the publican, James of Alpheus and Thaddeus, Simon Chananeus, and Judas Iscariot. He names S. Andrew the 2nd; S. Mark names him the 4th; and to better show that it makes no difference, S. Luke, who in one place has put him 2nd, in another puts him 4th. S. Matthew puts S. John 4th; S. Mark puts him 3rd; S. Luke in one place 4th, in another 2nd. S. Matthew puts S. James 3rd; S. Mark puts him 2nd. In short, it is only S. Philip, S. James of Alpheus and Judas who are not sometimes higher, sometimes lower. When the Evangelists elsewhere name all the Apostles together there is no principle except as regards S. Peter, who goes first everywhere. Well now, let us imagine that we were to see in the country, in the streets, in meetings, what we read in the Gospels (and in truth it is more certain than if we had seen it)-if we saw S. Peter the first and all the rest grouped together,-should we not judge that the others were equals and companions, and S. Peter the chief and captain.

But, besides this, very often when the Evangelists talk of the Apostolic company they name only Peter, and mention the others as accessory and following: And Simon and who were with him followed after him (Mark i.): But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep (Luke ix.). You know well that to name one person and put the others all together with him, is to make him the most important and the others his inferiors.

Very often again he is named separately from the others, as by the Angel: Tell his disciples and Peter (Mark xvi): But Peter standing up, with the eleven . . . they said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles (Acts ii.): Peter then answering and the Apostles said, Have we not power to lead about a woman, a sister, as well as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas (i Cor. ix.)? What does this mean, to say: Tell his disciples and Peter-Peter and the Apostles answered? Was Peter not an Apostle? Either he was less or more than the others, or he was equal. No man, who is not altogether mad, will say he was less. If he is equal and stands on a level with the others, why is he put by himself? If there is nothing particular in him, why is it not just as well to say: Tell his disciples and Andrew, or John? Certainly it must be for some particular quality which is in him more than in the others, and because he was not a simple Apostle. So that having said: Tell his disciples, or, as the rest of the Apostles, how can one longer doubt that S. Peter is more than Apostle and disciple? Only once in the Scriptures S. Peter is named after S James, James and Cephas and John gave the right hands of fellowship (Gal. ii.).

But in truth there is too much occasion to doubt whether in the original and anciently S. Peter was named first or second, to allow any valid conclusion to be drawn from this place alone. For S. Augustine, S. Ambrose, S. Jerome, both in the commentary and in the text, have written Peter, James, John, which they could never have done if they had not found this same order in their copies: S. Chrysostom has done the same in the commentary. All this shows the diversity of copies, which makes the conclusion doubtful on either side. But even if the copies we now have were originals, one could deduce nothing from this single passage against the order of so many others; for S. Paul might be keeping to the order of the time in which he received the hand of fellowship, or without concerning himself about the order might have written first the one which came first to his mind.

But S. Matthew shows us clearly what order there was amongst the Apostles, that is, that one was first, and the remainder were equal without 2d or 3d. First,says he, Simon who is called Peter; he does not say 2d, Andrew, 3d, James, but goes on simply naming them, to let us know that provided S. Peter was first all the rest were in the same rank, and that amongst them there was no precedence. First, says he, Peter, and Andrew. From this is derived the name of Primacy. For if he were first (primes), his place was first, his rank first, and this quality of his was Primacy.

It is answered to this that if the Evangelists here named S. Peter the first, it was because he was the most advanced in age amongst the Apostles, or on account of some privilege which existed amongst them. But what is the worth of such a reason as this, I should like to know? To say that S. Peter was the oldest of the society is to seek at hazard an excuse for obstinacy; and the Scripture distinctly tells us he was not the earliest Apostle when it testifies that S. Andrew led him to Our Lord. The reasons are seen quite clearly in the Scripture, but because you are resolved to maintain the contrary, you go seeking about with your imagination on every side. Why say that S. Peter was the oldest, since it is a pure fancy which has no foundation in the Scripture, and is contrary to the Ancients? Why not say rather that he was the one on whom Christ founded his Church, to whom he had given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, who was the confirmer of the brethren? -for all this is in the Scripture. What you want to maintain you do maintain; whether it has a base in Scripture or not makes no difference. And as to the other privileges, let anybody go over them to me in order, and none will be found special to S. Peter but those which make him head of the Church.  

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CHAPTER VII.
Of some other marks which are scattered through the Scriptures of the primacy of St. Peter.

IF I wanted to bring together here all that is to be found, I should make this proof as large as I want to make all the section, and without effort on my part. For that excellent theologian, Robert Bellarmine, would put many things into my hands. But particularly has Doctor Nicholas Sanders treated this subject so solidly and so amply that it is hard to say anything about it which he has not said or written in his books On the Visible Monarchy. I will give some extracts.

Whoever will read the Scriptures attentively will see this Primacy of S. Peter everywhere. If the Church is compared to a building, as it is, its rock and its secondary foundation is S. Peter (Matt. xvi.).

If you say it is like a family, it is only Our Lord who pays tribute as head of the household, and after him S. Peter as his lieutenant(lb xvii.).

If to a ship, S. Peter is its captain, and in it Our Lord teaches (Luke v.).

If to a fishery, S. Peter is first in it; the true disciples of Our Lord fish only with him (Ib. and John xxi.).

If to draw-nets (Matt. xiii.), it is S. Peter who casts them into the sea, S. Peter who draws them; the other disciples are his coadjutors. It is S. Peter who brings them to land and presents the fish to Our Lord (Luke v., John xxi).

Do you say it is like an embassy? S. Peter is first ambassador (Matt. x.).

Do you say it is a brotherhood Peter is first, the governor and confirmer of the rest (Luke xxii.).

Would you rather have it a kingdom? S. Peter receives its keys (Matt. xvi.).

Will you consider it a flock or fold of sheep and lambs? S. Peter is its pastor and shepherd-general (John xxi.).

Say now in conscience, how could Our Lord testify his intention more distinctly. Perversity cannot find use for its eyes amid such light. S. Andrew came the first to follow Our Lord; and it was he who brought his brother, S. Peter, and S. Peter precedes him everywhere. What does this signify except that the advantage one had in time the other had in dignity?

But let us continue. When Our Lord ascends to heaven, all the holy Apostolic body goes to S. Peter, as to the common father of the family (Acts i.).

Peter rises up amongst them and speaks the first, and teaches the interpretation of weighty prophecy (Ib.).

He has the first care of the restoration and increase of the Apostolic college (Ib.). It s he who first proposed to make an Apostle, which is no act of light authority; for the Apostles have all had successors, and by death have not lost their dignity. But S. Peter teaching the Church shows both that Judas had lost his Apostolate and that another was needed in his place, contrary to the ordinary course of this authority, which in the others continues after death, and which they will even exercise on the Day of Judgment, when they shall be seated around the Judge, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

The Apostles have no sooner received the Holy Ghost than S. Peter, as chief of the Evangelic Embassy, being with his eleven companions, begins to publish, according to his office, the holy tidings of salvation to the Jews in Jerusalem. He is the first catechist of the Church, and preacher of penance; the others are with him and are all asked questions, but S. Peter alone answers for all as chief of all (Acts ii.).
If a hand is to be put into the treasury of miracles confided to the Church, though S. John is present and is asked, S. Peter alone puts in his hand (lb. iii.).
When the time comes for beginning the use of the spiritual sword of the Church, to punish a lie, ,it is S. Peter who directs the first blow upon Animas and Sapphira (Ib. v.): from this springs the hatred which lying heretics bear against his See and succession; because, as S. Gregory says (In Ezech. ii, 18 ) " Peter by his word strikes liars dead."
He is the first who recognises and refutes heresy in Simon Magus (Ib. viii): hence comes the irreconcileable hatred of all heretics against his See.
He is the first who raises the dead, when he prays for the devout Tabitha (Ib. ix.).
When it is time to put the sickle into the. harvest of paganism, it is S. Peter to whom the revelation is made, as to the head of all the labourers, and the steward of the farmstead (Ib. x.).

The good Italian centurion, Cornelius, is ready to receive grace of the Gospel; he is sent to S. Peter, that the Gentiles may by his hands be blessed and consecrated: he is the first in commanding the pagans to be baptized (Acts x.).

When a General Council is sitting, S. Peter as president therein opens the gate to judgment and definition; and his sentence [is] followed by the rest, his private revelation becomes a law (lb. xv.).

S. Paul declares that he went to Jerusalem expressly to see Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days (Gal i.). He saw S. James there, but to see him was not what he went for, only to see S. Peter. What does this signify? Why did he not go as much to see the great and most celebrated Apostle S. James as to see S. Peter? Because we look at people in their head and face, and S. Peter was the head of all the Apostles.

When S. Peter and S. James were in prison the Evangelist testifies that prayer was made without ceasing by the Church to God for S. Peter, as for the general head and common ruler (Acts xii.).

If all this put together does not make you acknowledge S. Peter to be head of the Church and of the Apostles, I confess that Apostles are not Apostles, pastors not pastors, and doctors not doctors. For in what other more express words could be made known the authority of an Apostle and pastor over the people than those which the Holy Ghost has placed in the Scriptures to show that S. Peter was above Apostles, pastors, and the whole Church?  

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CHAPTER VIII.
Testimonies of the Church to this fact.

IT is true that Scripture suffices, but let us see who wrests it and violates it. If we were the first to draw conclusions in favour of the Primacy of S. Peter, one might think that we were wresting it. But how do things stand? It is most clear on the point, and has been understood in this sense by all the primitive Church. Those, then, force it who bring in a new sense, who gloss it against the natural meaning of the words, and against the sense of Antiquity. If this be lawful for everybody, the Scripture will no longer be anything but a toy for fanciful and perverse wits.

What is the meaning of this: that the Church has never held as patriarchal sees any but those of Alexandria, of Rome, and of Antioch? One may invent a thousand fancies, but there is no other reason than that which S. Leo produces (Ad Anat..): because S. Peter founded these three sees they have been called and esteemed patriarchal, as testify the Council of Nice, and that of Chalcedon, in which a great difference is made between these three sees and the others. As for those of Constantinople and Jerusalem, the abovenamed Councils show how differently they are considered from those three others founded by S. Peter.

Not that the Counil of Nice speaks of the See of Constantinople.; for Constantinople was of no importance at all at that time, having only been built by the great Constantine, who dedicated and named it in the twenty-fifth year of his Empire: but the Council of Nice treats of the see of Jerusalem, and that of Chalcedon of the see of Constantinople.

By the precedence and pre-eminence of these three sees, the ancient Church testified sufficiently that she held S. Peter for her chief, who had founded them. Otherwise why did she not place also in the same rank the see of Ephesus, founded by S. Paul, confirmed and assured by S. John; or the see of Jerusalem, in which S. James had conversed and presided ?

What else did she testify, when in the public and patent letters which they anciently called formatae, after the first letter of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, there was put the first letter of Peter, except that after Almighty God, who is the absolute King, the lieutenant's authority is in great esteem with all those who are good Christians?

As for the consent of the Fathers concerning this point, Surius, Sanders, and a thousand others have taken away from posterity all occasion of doubting it. I will only bring forward the names by which the Fathers have called him, which sufficiently show their belief concerning his authority.

Optatus of Milevis called him "the head of the Churches" (Contra Parm. ii).
They have called him "Head of the Church," as S. Jerome (adv. Jov. i.), and S. Chrysostom (Hom. ii in Matt.).
"Happy foundation of the Church," as S. Hilary (in Matt. xvi.), and
"Janitor of heaven, the first of the Apostles," as S. Augustine (in J. 56) after S. Matthew.
"Mouth and crown of the Apostles," as Origen (in Luc. xvii.), and S. Chrysostom (in Matt. 55).
“Mouth and prince of the Apostles," as the same S. Chrysostom (in J. 87).
"Guardian of the brethren, and of the whole world " (Ib. ult.).
“Pastor of the Church and head stronger than adamant " (Id. in Matt. 55).
"The immovable rock, immovable pedestal, the great Apostle, first of the disciples, first called and first obeying " (Id. in Poen. 3).
" Firmament of the Church, leader and master of Christians, column of the spiritual Israel, guardian of the feeble, master of the heavens, mouth of Christ, supreme head of the Apostles " (Id. in ador. caten. et glad. Apost. princ. Petri).
" Prince of the Church, port of faith, master of the world" (Id. in SS. P. et P. et Eliam).
"First in the supremacy of the Apostolate " (Greg. in Ezech. xviii.).
" High Priest of Christians " (Euseb. in Chron. 44).
" Master of the army of God " (Id. Hist. ii. 14).
"Set over the other disciples" (Bas. de Judie. Dei 9).
" President of the world " (Chrys. in Matt. I I ).
"The Lord of the house of God, and prince of all his possession" (Bern. Ep. 137, ad Eugen.).

Who shall dare to oppose this company? Thus they speak, thus they understand the Scripture, and according to it do they hold that all these names and titles are due to S. Peter.

The Church then was left on earth by her Master and Spouse with a visible chief and lieutenant of the Master and Lord. The Church is therefore to be always united together in a visible chief-minister of Christ.