xx.] PAPAL SUPREMACY A DEVELOPMENT. 367 history we can trace the process by which the city of Rome came to exercise imperial dominion. We thus learn that in ecclesiastical matters, as well as in secular, Roman supremacy is a development, not a tradition. If I desired a summary proof that some at least of the powers which the Popes have exercised in later times were not part of the original prerogatives of the see, I should find it in the oath which every bishop in communion with Rome is now bound to take on his appointment: The rights, privileges, and powers of the see of Peter I will, to the best of my ability, extend and promote.' In fact, every bishop of Rome thought he was doing a good thing if he gained for his see some powers and privileges which had not previously belonged to it; and for some centuries he has pledged all over whom he has power to aid him in this laudable endeavour. But one man's powers and privileges cannot be extended except at the expense of those of someone else. If the Popes get more power independent bishops must have less. The Pope's avowed policy for centuries, therefore, has been one of usurpation; and unless we believe either that all the Roman Catholic bishops have perjured themselves, or that their united efforts, continued for hundreds of years, have failed to augment and promote the rights, dignities, and privileges of the Pope, that prelate must possess some powers now which his predecessors did not enjoy. But it is quite unnecessary for me to elaborate any proof that the doctrine of Papal Supremacy is a development; for it is fully owned by Newman how faint are the traces of it in the history of the early centuries. I have already told you that the method of his celebrated Essay on Development is to make frank confession that neither Scripture nor Tradition will furnish any adequate proof of Roman doctrines. But then he contends that the same confession must be made about doctrines which Roman Catholics and we hold in common, and he puts forward his theory of Development as able to supply the deficiency alike in either case. Thus, then, while he owns (p. 164) that the Pope's Supremacy is a development, so also, he contends, is Episcopacy. He tells us that St. Ignatius in his Epistles is silent on the subject of the Pope's authority; but that this is because that authority was not, and could not have been in active operation then. While apostles were on earth they exercised the powers both of bishop and Pope. When they were taken away, 'Christianity did not at once break into portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of internal dissensions, and a local arbiter would, in consequence, be wanted.' 'When the Church was thrown on her own resources, first local disturbances gave exercise to bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances gave exercise to Popes.' Newman quotes with assent some of Barrow's topics of proof that Roman Supremacy did not exist in the first ages of the Church: namely—(1) that in the writings of the Fathers against the Gnostic heretics of the second century they never allege the sentence of the universal pastor and judge as the most compendious and efficacious method of silencing them; and (2) that heathen writers are quite ignorant of the doctrine, although no point of Christian teaching would be so apt to raise offence and jealousy in pagans, no novelty be more suspicious or startling than this creation of a universal empire over the consciences and religious practices of men, the doctrine also being one that could not but be very conspicuous and glaring in ordinary practice. Newman also assents to Barrow's assertion that the state of the most primitive Church did not well admit such a universal sovereignty. For that did consist of small bodies, incoherently situated and scattered about in very distant places, and consequently unfit to be modelled into one political society, or to be governed by one head, especially considering their condition under persecution and poverty. What convenient resort for direction or justice could a few distressed Christians in Egypt, Ethiopia, Parthia India, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, Cappadocia, and other parts have to Rome?' Newman is quite consistent with the thesis of his Essay in abandoning Tradition as a basis for the doctrine of Papal Supremacy; but the basis of Development on which he attempts to build it is altogether insufficient to constitute any firm foundation. For the history of Development can only xx.] DEVELOPMENT AFFORDS NO ADEQUATE PROOF. 369 tell us what has been, not what ought to be. The cases of Episcopacy and Papal Supremacy are not parallel; because the former institution dates from apostolic times; and if it can be shown that it was established by apostles, then it can claim a right to permanent continuance. But what claim for permanence can be made on behalf of any form of Church government which confessedly shaped itself at least two or three centuries after the apostles were all dead? Let us liberally grant that an ecclesiastical monarchy was the form of government best adapted to the needs of the Church at the time when, in temporal matters, the whole civilized world was governed by a single ruler; and yet it might be utterly unfit for her requirements in subsequent times when Europe has been broken up into independent kingdoms; and we might be as right now in disowning Papal authority as our ancestors were in submitting to it. The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men in temporal matters as well as in spiritual; and we can trace the working of His Providence in guiding events in the one as well as in he other. We can see, for example, how the establishment of the Empire of heathen Rome tended to the furtherance of the Gospel, which never could have spread so rapidly from land to land if it had not been for the facility of intercourse resulting from the Roman peace. Yet no evidence that the Roman Empire was for a time beneficial to the world would show that it was divinely intended to have perpetual duration, or that we now commit any sin in not belonging to it; and if we recognize the guiding hand of God's Providence in the formation of that Empire, we might equally do so in its dissolution. In like manner, a citizen of the United States of America cannot help owning that his country was originally colonized from Great Britain; that the authority of the Sovereign of England was recognized in those States without question for a century or two; that English rule was of the greatest advantage in protecting the infant colonies from enemies, and conferring other benefits on them; yet he would hold that the time came when English rule was no longer beneficial, and that now the Sovereign of England neither hath nor ought to have authority in the United States. Thus, then, in like manner, the most that the theory of Development could do for the doctrine of Papal Supremacy would be to establish a proof that there have been times when the Pope's Supremacy has been beneficial to the Church (or, to speak more cautiously, to the Western Church); that there have been bishops of Rome whose aims were high, whose lives were good, and by whose rule it was at least better to have been guided than by any other likely at the time to have been substituted for it. But surely it will be granted me, without my having need to open up topics from which I have refrained in this course of lectures, that there have been bishops of Rome whose aims were not high, whose lives were not pure, and whose guidance it was not good to follow. What claim to obedience can such make out? Unless it be held that God's Providence ceased to exert itself three centuries ago, or else that it has merely a local operation, and does not extend to England, Scandinavia, or Germany, the theory of Development will afford as good a justification for the revolt from Papal authority in the sixteenth century as for its rise and growth in the third or fourth and subsequent centuries. And this theory would not prevent a historical student from pronouncing Papal Supremacy to be now a useless or mischievous survival of a form of Church government which has had its day, but which is unsuited to the character of the present age. If, therefore, we are to establish any justification of Papal Supremacy we must fall back on the old sources of proof, Scripture and Tradition; for Newman's proposed substitute, the theory of Development, completely breaks down. If we once admit Roman Supremacy to have been but a development, there were natural causes in operation which quite sufficiently account for it. The primacy of the bishop of Rome grew naturally out of the precedence accorded to the bishop of the first city of the Empire. Our own experience would tell us that the people of the greatest city can choose their bishop from among a larger number of candidates, that they are likely to be able to secure the services of an abler man, that they can put larger sums of money at his disposal for charitable and other purposes, and altogether make him a much more influential person in the xx.] THE ADVANCE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 371 Church than the bishop of a small town. Romanists who refer the supremacy of their see to divine appointment are naturally desirous to throw into the background the human causes of the greatness of the see; yet one example is enough to show how inevitably the temporal greatness of a city leads to the pre-eminence of its bishop. If there be room for controversy as to the causes which gave Rome the first place among Christian sees, there can be no doubt as to the cause which elevated Constantinople to the second place. It was the temporal greatness of the city and nothing else. Byzantium was quite an upstart capital, raised to that dignity only in the fourth century by the will of the Emperor Constantine. It had no Christian historic associations. No Apostle had evangelized the town, or had addressed letters to it, or suffered martyrdom there. It was not even a metropolitan see, but was subject to Heraclea, the very name of which may be unfamiliar to some of you. At the time when Constantinople was made a capital, the recognized order of precedence of the great sees was Rome, Alexandria, Antioch. Yet without a struggle the relations between Constantinople and Heraclea were inverted. Against the further elevation of Constantinople there would naturally be strong objection on the part of Alexandria and Antioch, not to speak of that which might arise from sees formerly fully equal to Byzantium, which was now made the superior. And, besides, the bishop of Rome, sagaciously perceiving that Constantinople, if once admitted to the second place, would be a far more formidable rival for the first place than Alexandria or Antioch could be, resisted the promotion of Constantinople with all his might. But his resistance was in vain, and the title of Constantinople to the second place came in time to be fully admitted at Rome. So if we had not countless examples in ecclesiastical history to show how inevitably a change in the civil position of a city entails a change in its ecclesiastical position, this one example would put the fact beyond controversy. It is plain that the causes which, in spite of all the disadvantages of a late start, were able when Constantinople became the second city of the Empire to raise its see to the second place, would alone have sufficed to raise to the first place Rome, which |