Sancti Petri Sedem ab omni permanere, secandum Domini pollicitationem discipulorum go rogavi pro te, ut non deficiat conversus confirma fratres tuos. Hei numquam deficientis charisCathedra successoribus divinitus no munere in omnium salutem Christi grex per eos ab erroris elestis doctrinae pabulo nutrireoccasione Ecclesia tota una condamento innixa firma adversus

aetate, qua salutifera Apostolici ime requiritur, non pauci invenianobtrectant; necessarium omnino tivam, quam unigenitus Dei Filius officio coniungere dignatus est,

ia fidei Christianae exordio perdo, ad Dei Salvatoris nostri gloriam, altationem et Christianorum popapprobante Concilio, docemus ot ogma esse definimus; Romanum. thedra loquitur, id est, cum omnium s et Doctoris munere fungens, pro ca auctoritate doctrinam de fide vel Ecclesia tenendam definit, per assis

in beato Petro promissam, ea ina divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam a de fide vel moribus instructam esso nodi Romani Pontificis definitiones ex onsensu Ecclesiae irreformabiles emo. Nostrae definitioni contradicere, quod mpserit; anathema sit.

publica Sessione in Vaticana Basilica

solemniter celebrata anno Incarnationis Dominicae millesimo octingentesimo septuagesimo, die decima octava Iulii. Pontificatus Nostri anno vigesimo quinto.

Ita est.

JOSEPHUS,

Episcopus S. Ippolyti,

Secretarius Concilii Vaticani.

TRANSLATION.

FIRST DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE
CHURCH OF CHRIST.

PUBLISHED IN THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE HOLY ECUMENICAL

COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

PIUS BISHOP, SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD, WITH THE APPROVAL OF THE SACRED COUNCIL, FOR AN EVERLASTING REMEMBRANCE.

THE Eternal Pastor and Bishop of our souls, in order to continue for all time the life-giving work of His Redemption, determined to build up the Holy Church, wherein, as in the House of the living God, all who believe might be united in the bond of one faith and one charity. Wherefore, before he entered into His glory, He prayed unto the Father, not for the apostles only, but for those also who through their preaching should come to believe in Him, that all might be one even as Ie the Son and the Father are one. * As then He sent the Apostles whom He had chosen to Himself from the world, as he Himself had been sent by the Father: so He willed that there should ever be pastors and teachers in His Church to the end of the

*St. John, xvii. 21.

world. And in order that the Episcopate also might be one and undivided, and that by means of a closely united priesthood the multitude of the faithful might be kept secure in the oneness of faith and communion, He set Blessed Peter over the rest of the Apostles, and fixed in him the abiding principle of this two-fold unity, and its visible foundation, in the strength of which the everlasting temple should arise and the Church in the firmness of that faith should lift her majestic front to Heaven.* And seeing that the gates of hell with daily increase of hatred are gathering their strength on every side to upheave the foundation laid by God's own hand, and so, if that might be, to overthrow the Church: We, therefore, for the preservation, safe-keeping, and increase of the Catholic flock, with the approval of the Sacred Council, do judge it to be necessary to propose to the belief and acceptance of all the faithful, in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal Church, the doctrine touching the institution, perpetuity, and nature of the sacred Apostolic Primacy, in which is found the strength and solidity of the entire Church, and at the same time to proscribe and condemn the contrary errors, so hurtful to the flock of Christ.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE INSTITUTION OF THE APOSTOLIC PRIMACY IN BLESSED PETER.

We therefore teach and declare that, according to the testimony of the Gospel, the primacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church of God was immediately and directly promised and given to Blessed Peter the Apostle by Christ the Lord. For it was to Simon alone, to whom he had al

* From Sermon iv, chap, ii. of St. Leo the Great, A. D. 440, vol, i, p, 17 of edition of Ballerini, Venice, 1753; read in the eighth lectior on the Feast of St. Peter's Chair at Antioch, February 22,

ready said: Thou shalt be called Cephas,* that the Lord after the confession made by him, saying: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, addressed these solemn words: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood have not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in Heaven. And I say to thee that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.† And it was upon Simon alone that Jesus after his resurrection bestowed the jurisdiction of Chief Pastor and Ruler over all His fold in the words:

Feed my lambs: feed my sheep. At open variance with this clear doctrine of Holy Scripture as it has been ever understood by the Catholic Church are the perverse opinions of those who, while they distort the form of government established by Christ the Lord in His Church, deny that Peter in his single person, preferably to all the other Apostles, whether taken separately or together, was endowed by Christ with a true and proper primacy of jurisdiction ; or of those who assert that the same primacy was not bestowed immediately and directly upon Blessed Peter himself, but upon the Church, and through the Church on Peter as her Minister.

If any one, therefore, shall say that Blessed Peter the Apostle was not appointed the Prince of all the Apostles and the visible Head of the whole Church Militant; or that the same directly and immediately received from the same Our Lord Jesus Christ a primacy of honor only, and not of true and proper jurisdiction; let him be anathema. *St. John i. 42, + St. Matthew xvi. 16-19. St. John xxi, 15-17