have prayed the Father for thee, that thy faith fail not, and thou being converted, confirm thy brethren. See, beloved, the truth cannot be falsified, nor can the faith of Peter ever be shaken or changed.'

*

St. Gregory the Great, A.D. 604, in his celebrated letter to Maurice, Emperor of the East, says, 'For it is clear to all who know the Gospel, that the care of the whole Church was committed to the Apostle St. Peter, prince of all the Apostles. For to him it is said, "Peter, lovest thou Me? Feed My sheep." To "To him it is said, "Behold, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not, and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren." To him it is said, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church," + &c.

Stephen, Bishop of Dori, A.D. 649, at a Lateran Council under Martin I. says, in a libellus supplex or memorial read and recorded in the acts, Peter the Prince of the Apostles was first commanded to feed the sheep of the Catholic Church, when the Lord said, "Peter, lovest thou Me? Feed My sheep." And

* Nostis enim in evangelio dominum proclamantem, Simon, Simon, ecce Satanas expetivit vos, ut cribraret sicut triticum, ego autem rogavi pro te Patrem, ut non deficiat fides tua, et tu conversus confirma fratres tuos. Considerate, carissimi, quia veritas mentiri non potuit, nec fides Petri in æternum quassari poterit vel mutari. —Pelagius. II. epist. v. in Labbe, Concil. tom. vi. p. 626.

† Cunctis enim Evangelium scientibus liquet, quod voce dominica sancto et omnium apostolorum Petro Principi Apostolo totius Ecclesiæ cura commissa est. Ipsi quippe dicitur, Petre, amas me? pasce oves meas. Ipsi dicitur, Ecce Satanas expetiit cribrare vos sicut triticum; et ego pro te rogavi, Petre, ut non deficiat fides tua; et tu aliquando conversus confirma fratres tuos. Ipsi dicitur, Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram, etc.-St. Gregor. Epist. lib. v. ep. xx. tom. ii. 748, ed. Ben. Paris, 1705.

again, he chiefly and especially, having a faith firm above all, and unchangeable in our Lord God, was found worthy to convert and to confirm his fellows and his spiritual brethren who were shaken.'*

Pope St. Vitalian, A.D. 669, says, in a letter to Paul, Archbishop of Crete, 'What things we command thee and thy Synod according to God and for the Lord, study at once to fulfil, lest we be compelled to bear ourselves not in mercy but according to the power of the sacred canons, for it is written: The Lord said, "Peter, I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren." And again: "Whatsoever thou, Peter, shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

זיי.

The quotations given in the Pastoral Letter of last year, united with these, afford the following result. The application of the promise Ego rogavi pro te, &c. to the infallible faith of Peter and his successors, is made by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Leo, St. Gelasius, Pelagius II., St. Gregory the Great,

Princeps apostolorum Petrus pascere primus jussus est oves Catholicæ Ecclesiæ, cum Dominus dicit, Petre, amas me? Pasce oves meas; et iterum ipse præcipue ac specialiter firmam præ omnibus habens in Dominum Deum nostrum. et immutabilem fidem, convertere aliquando et confirmare exagitatos consortes suos et spiritales meruit fratres.-Labbe, Concil. tom. vii. p. 107.

† Quæ præcipimus tibi secundum Deum et propter Dominum tuæque synodo, stude illico peragere, ne cogamur non misericorditer sed secundum virtutem sacratissimorum canonum conversari. Scriptum namque est, Dominus inquit, Petre, rogavi pro te ut non deficeret fides tua; et tu aliquando conversus confirma fratres tuos. Et rursum, Quodcunque ligaveris, etc.--St. Vitalian, epist. i. in Labbe, Concil. tom. vii. p. 460.

Stephen Bishop of Dori in a Lateran Council, St. Vitalian, the Bishops of the IV. Ecumenical Council A.D. 451, St. Agatho in the VI. A.D. 680, St. Bernard A.D. 1153, St. Thomas Aquinas A.D. 1274, St. Bonaventure A.D. 1274: that is, this interpretation is given by three out of the four doctors of the Church, by six Pontiffs down to the seventh century. It was recognised in two Ecumenical Councils. It is explicitly declared by the Angelic Doctor, who may be taken as the exponent of the Dominican school, and by the Seraphic Doctor, who is likewise the witness of the Franciscan; and by a multitude of Saints. This catena, if continued to later times, might, as all know, be indefinitely prolonged.

The interpretation by the Fathers of the words 'On this rock,' &c. is fourfold, but all four interpretations are no more than four aspects of one and the same truth, and all are necessary to complete its full meaning. They all implicitly or explicitly contain the perpetual stability of Peter's faith. It would be out of place to enter upon this here. It is enough to refer to Ballerini De vi et ratione Primatus, where the subject is exhausted.

In these two promises a divine assistance is pledged to Peter and to his successors, and that divine assistance is promised to secure the stability and indefectibility of the Faith in the supreme Doctor and Head of the Church, for the general good of the Church itself.

It is therefore a charisma, a grace of the supernatural order, attached to the Primacy of Peter which is perpetual in his successors.

I need hardly point out that between the charisma, or gratia gratis data of infallibility and the idea of impeccability there is no connection. I should not so much as notice it, if some had not strangely obscured the subject by introducing this confusion. I should have thought that the gift of prophecy in Balaam and Caiaphas, to say nothing of the powers of the priesthood, which are the same in good and bad alike, would have been enough to make such confusion impossible.

The

The preface to the Definition carefully lays down that infallibility is not inspiration. The Divine assistance by which the Pontiffs are guarded from error, when as Pontiffs they teach in matters of faith and morals, contains no new revelation. Inspiration contained not only assistance in writing but sometimes the suggestion of truths not otherwise known. Pontiffs are witnesses, teachers, and judges of the revelation already given to the Church; and in guarding, expounding, and defending that revelation, their witness, teaching, and judgment, is by Divine assistance preserved from error. This assistance, like the revelation which it guards, is of the supernatural order. They, therefore, who argue against the infallibility of the Pontiff because he is an individual person, and still profess to believe the infallibility of Bishops in General Councils, and also of the Bishops dispersed throughout the world, because they are many witnesses, betray the fact that they have not as yet mastered the idea that infallibility is not of the order of nature, but is of the order of grace. In the order of nature, indeed, truth may be found rather with the

many than with the individual, though in this the history of mankind would give a host of contrary examples. But in the supernatural order, no such argument can have place. It depends simply upon the ordination of God; and certainly neither in the Old Testament nor in the New have we examples of infallibility depending upon number. But in both we have the example of infallibility attaching to persons as individuals; as for instance the Prophets of the old and the Apostles of the new law. It is no answer to say that the Apostles were united in one body. They were each one possessed of that which all possessed together. To this may be also added the inspired writers, who were preserved from error individually and personally, and not as a collective body. The whole evidence of Scripture, therefore, is in favour of the communication of Divine gifts to individuals. The objection is not scriptural nor Catholic, nor of the supernatural order, but natural, and, in the last analysis, rationalistic.

IV. Fourthly, the Definition precisely determines the acts of the Pontiff to which this Divine assistance is attached; namely, 'in doctrina de fide vel moribus definienda,' to the defining of doctrine of faith and

morals.

The definition, therefore, carefully excludes all ordinary and common acts of the Pontiff as a private person, and also all acts of the Pontiff as a private theologian, and again all his acts which are not in matters of faith and morals; and further, all acts in which he does not define a doctrine, that is, in which he does not act as the supreme Doctor of the Church