Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

SECTION III.

PRACTICE OF ANTIQUITY CONSIDERED AS EVINCING PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.

FROM the time of the Reformation down to the present day, Protestant writers, both English and German, have frequently and boldly asserted that the theory of Papal Infallibility is of recent date; that this privilege was unheard of up to the time of the separation of East and West; that the claim to it was an invention of the middle ages, originating at the time when the power of the Popes was raised to its height by Gregory VII.; 96 that the claim received developments as time went on, but that it did not assume a formal systematic shape earlier than the sixteenth century. The hope of depreciating the doctrine itself has led some neo-Catholic and Gallican writers to adopt the same line of argument. But an exact study of the records of antiquity will show that these writers are mistaken. Papal Infallibility has been the persuasion of the Church in all ages, from the very origin of the Church itself; for, as we saw in the preceding section, no less is implied in the very words by which the Church was founded upon the primacy of St. Peter. Papal Infallibility is then no mere theological conclusion drawn, like so many doctrines, from revealed principles, and having more or less foundation in Revelation itself; it is a doctrine which has been revealed, directly and immediately, and consequently it has in itself the

96 See Gieseler, Eccl. Hist., vol. iii., pt. iii., d. iii., ch. i., sec. 61, p. 164, and note 12. Edinburgh, 1853.

It is not

substance or essence of an article of faith. meant that the doctrine of Papal Infallibility will be found explicitly proposed in the earliest ages of the Church, under a definite form and in the shape which is now familiar. Its shape, and the definite form which it has assumed, is due to doctrinal development, in the same nature as finds place in many other doctrines;. but the original persuasion of the truth of the doctrine. can be attributed to nothing else but divine revelation. A double task is therefore before us-first, to bring forward the documents which attest that Papal Infallibility was the firm and constant practical persuasion of the Church; secondly, to sketch the historical progress and development of the doctrine, and to point out the phases through which it has passed, the opposition which it has encountered, the triumph which it has achieved. The historical and traditional demonstration which will occupy the present and four following sections, will serve to demonstrate the divine origin of the doctrine; the history of its development, showing the source and origin of the contrary error, will supply an answer to the difficulties raised by Protestant and Gallican controversialists.

Our first argument is founded on the necessity of communion with the Roman See. The common persuasion of antiquity regarded this communion as an indisputable criterion of orthodoxy, so that the want of it was a sure token of heresy or schism. We proved the existence of this persuasion in the first part of the present work, showing that the Roman See was considered as the centre of unity in the Church. Assuming this, we proceed to prove that the persuasion implies a practical persuasion of Papal Infallibility. This follows from a careful consideration of the patristic passages which have been used to show that communion with Rome was the appointed guarantee of unity. Thus we

read in St. Cyprian: "He who forsakes the Chair of St. Peter upon which the Church is built, let him not feel confidence that he is in the Church."97 The Saint had already said in one of his Letters, that as the Church is one, so the Chair is one, which by Christ's voice was founded upon the rock.98 The Chair founded upon the rock is the Chair of St. Peter, on whom, as the holy Martyr often teaches, the Church is to be built.99 St. Cyprian therefore believes that to forsake the unity of the Church is equivalent to forsaking the unity of the Chair, both being founded on the rock of Peter. Now what did St. Cyprian and the other writers of antiquity mean by the word Chair (Cathedra or θρόνος)? There is no doubt that the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, used the word to mean episcopal authority and office, and sometimes the Episcopate itself. But since the principal point in the authority and office of a Bishop consists in his authentic teaching, it follows that the Fathers used the word "chair" to mean principally the authentic teaching, or rather, the doctrine itself which is taught; and this meaning was also familiar to the Jews, and is used by our Lord Himself in the Gospel (Matt. xxiii. 2), of which text St. Jerome gives the following interpretation: “By

97 S. Cyprianus, De Unitate Ecclesiæ, p. 195. Edit. Baluzii. The words "qui cathedram Petri, super quem fundata est Ecclesia, deserit," are found not only in the Letter of Pelagius II. to the Bishops of Istria, in the Acts of Alexander III., and in the writings of Ivo and Gratian, but also in the Vatican manuscript of St. Cyprian's works and in four other very ancient English manuscripts, &c. The passage which we quote from the Epist. xl. of St. Cyprian confirms the belief that these words are authentic. (See the remarks of Baluce and Pamelius in loca.) Nevertheless, from other passages of the same holy Doctor no fair doubt could be entertained as to his belief on this matter. 98 Epist. xl., p. 53. Edit. Baluzii. una super petram Domini voce fundata."

"Una Ecclesia et Cathedra

99 See De Unitate Ecclesiæ, 1. c., and Epist. lxxiii. Edit. Bal., p. 131.

chair Christ means the doctrine of the law." 100 And similarly St. Athanasius: "By chair He means doctrine, as He says 'on the chair of Moses.' "101 And generally the Fathers, when they speak of the "chair," either Episcopal or Pontifical, allude to the Christian doctrine of faith which is taught by the Bishops and by the Popes.102 We see then that St. Cyprian, in the passages just now quoted uses the word "chair in the double sense, as implying both the Papal supreme authority and the Papal authentic magisterium in the Church. This is further evidenced by the scope of St. Cyprian in writing the treatise De Unitate Ecclesiæ, which was to explain the reason why our Lord, having given to all the Apostles an equal power, builds the Church upon Peter, in order to manifest unity, and to set the Church before us as One. Peter, living in his Successors, was to preserve the Church in its perfect unity by his supreme power, and by his authentic magisterium. Whoever then ceases to be connected with the immoveable centre of unity, or forsakes the clear stream of Apostolic tradition to drink of other waters, has no ground of assurance that he is in the Church. By shaking off the yoke of the Papal authority he has made himself a schismatic; by rejecting, whether wholly or in part, the Papal authentic magisterium, he has become a heretic. But this practical maxim inculcated by St. Cyprian rests beyond all question on the persuasion of Papal Infallibility. Without such persuasion, it could not be laid down as a principle on which reliance could in all cases be placed, that to

100 Per Cathedram doctrinam legis intelligit" (In 1. iv., In Matt. xxiii. 2. Op., t. vii., p. 182. Edit. Vallarsii).

101 S. Athanasius, In Ps. i. 1 (Op., t. i., p. 804. Edit. Maur. Patavii, 1777).

102 See Rev. F. Schrader, S.J., De Unitate Romanâ, 1. i., cap. iv., sec. ii., n. 1, p. 117. Edit. Friburgi Brisgoviæ, 1862.

forsake the Chair or doctrine of St. Peter was to forsake the Church itself. If the Successors of Peter could ever by possibility teach erroneous doctrine, resistance to them, and, that failing, separation from their communion would become the duty of all the Faithful; when then the Faithful are taught to submit without reserve to the authentic teaching of the Successors of Peter, it is clearly assumed that these could not by possibility teach erroneous doctrine. And thus we are enabled to see the bearing of St. Cyprian's argument,' and we understand why he speaks with so much contempt of all the artifices employed by the Novatians against the Apostolical Chair; because, he says, "heretical perfidy cannot have any access to the Romans." 104 By these words he clearly shows the persuasion held by all the Catholics of his age that the magisterium of St. Peter's Chair is infallible.

103

But the doctrine of St. Cyprian was the doctrine of all antiquity. Optatus of Milevis insists on the same principle, and shows the existence of the same persuasion which attributed infallibility to the Apostolic See. He teaches that at Rome an Episcopal Chair was established, and that through this one Chair all were to preserve unity in the Church. Moreover, he continues, he who should raise up another throne against this one Chair would be a schismatic and a sinner; and he concludes, that the whole world was in one fellowship of communion with the Successor of St. Peter.105 Now how could all the Faithful in the Church preserve unity in the Chair of Rome, except by an unlimited. submission to the authority and to the doctrine of the

103 S. Cyprianus, Epist. lii. ad Antonianum. Edit. Baluz., p. 66. 104 Ibid., Epist. lv. Edit. Baluz., p. 86.

[ocr errors]

105 “In qua una Cathedra unitas ab omnibus servaretur (S. Optatus Milevitanus, De Schismate Donatistarum, 1. ii., capp. ii., iii. Edit. Migne, PP. LL., t. xi., p. 947, seq.).

« ÖncekiDevam »