For two properties are continually recurring in Christian records, one of which may be called negative, the other affirmative. The force of the former is to expel from the circle of the one true Catholic Church all sects of heretics and Schismatics: of the latter, that this Church consist in one single communion and society, whose members cohere together by hierarchical subordination.
But is it true that both these points are so plainly and constantly inculcated? To remove all doubt we will quote the authors who most distinctly assert the one and the other. As to the first, there are [103]Clement of Alexandria, [104]Tertullian, [105]Alexander of Alexandria, [106]Celestine, [107]Leander, the Emperor Justinian;[108]then again the Councils of Nice,[109] Sardica,[110] and the third of [111]Carthage; nay, the heretics[112] themselves; and all these agree in asserting that there is one only ancient Catholic Church, outside of which the divine patience endures and bears with heresies, which are as thorns. Thus in language ecclesiastical and Christian nothing can be considered as more certainly proved than that the epithet of Catholic is distinctive, and shows the communion which rejects from its bosom all heresies and all schisms. It was with great reason, therefore, that[113]Pacian wrote what[114]Cyril of Jerusalem, and[115]Augustine very frequently repeated, "Our people is divided from the heretical name by this appellation, that it is called Catholic."
Moreover this unity, which we have said may be called negative, is necessary indeed to the understanding of the Church as Catholic, but is by no means sufficient to complete the idea of Catholicity. To it therefore must be added the affirmative unity, by which Catholicism is not only divided from heretics and schismatics, but becomes in itself a coherent body with members and articulations. It is to the assertion and maintenance of this unity, which is the soul of Catholicity, and without which it cannot even be conceived, that has reference what we so often read in the monuments of antiquity about the [116]necessity of communion among the members of the Church and the [117]tokens and means of that communion. There are very distinct and innumerable testimonies about it in the ancient Fathers,[118] declaring its necessity, and setting forth its mode of composition and coherence.
For to set forth the mode of this is the plain drift of what [119]Irenæus writes in confutation of heretics by the tradition of the Apostolical churches: "For since it would be very long in the compass of our present work to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, taking that Church which is the greatest, the most ancient, and well known to all, founded and established at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, by indicating that tradition which it has from the Apostles, and the faith which it announces to men, which has reached even to us by the succession of bishops, we confound all those, who, in whatsoever manner, either through self-pleasing, or vain glory, or blindness and evil intention, [120]gather otherwise than they ought. For to this church on account of its superior chiefship, it is necessary that every Church should come[121] together, that is, the faithful who are everywhere; for in this Church the tradition which is from the Apostles has been ever preserved by those who are everywhere. ...By this ordination and succession, the tradition and preaching of the truth, which is from the Apostles in the Church, has reached down to us. And this proof is most complete, that it is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved, and handed down in truth, in the Church from the Apostles to the present day."
The churches, therefore, which are everywhere diffused, derive that strength and harmony of parts, out of which the whole body of the Catholic Church is made up, from the fact of their agreeing in the unity of faith and preaching with that Church of Peter, which is the greatest, the chief, and the more powerful. It follows that the Primacy of Peter, and the authority inherent in it to effect unity, is that principle which Christ selected, that the Church which He had set up might be Catholic, and bear the note of Catholicity on its brow.
And Cyprian would set forth the same mode of communion, when he speaks of the coherence of bishops, by which both the Catholic episcopate is made one, and the Church one and Catholic. For as the several communities draw the unity of the body from the unity of the prelates to whom they are subject; so all prelates, and the communities subject to them, constitute one Catholic episcopate and one Catholic Church, because they cohere with the principal church, the root and matrix, which is the Church of Peter, upon whom the Lord founded the whole building, and whom He instituted to be the fountain and source of Catholic unity.[122]
These words are a clue to understand [123]Tertullian's meaning, when, already become a Montanist, he called the Catholic Church, whose discipline he was attacking, the Church near to Peter—"Concerning your opinion, I now enquire whence you claim this right to the Church. If because the Lord said to Peter, 'Upon this rock I will build My Church,' 'to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' or 'whatsoever thou shalt bind or loose on earth, shall be bound or loosed in heaven,' you, therefore, pretend that the power of binding and loosing is derived to you, that is, to all the Church near to Peter; how do you overthrow and change the manifest intention of the Lord in conferring this on Peter[124] personally, 'Upon thee I will build My Church,' and 'I will give to thee the keys,' not to the Church, and 'whatsoever thou bindest or loosest,' not what they bind or loose." Now he used this mode of speaking because it was customary with Catholics, who were wont to exhibit nearness with Peter as the characteristic of the Church, and the necessary condition for sharing that power, whose plenitude and native source Christ had lodged in Peter.
This certain and undoubting judgment of Catholics, Tertullian himself, before his error, had clearly expressed in his book, De Scorpiace, c. x., where he says, "For if you yet think the heaven shut, remember that the Lord here (Matt. xvi. 19) left its keys to Peter, and through him to the Church." Nearness, then, with Peter, and [125]consanguinity of doctrine thence proceeding, are no less necessary to the Church, that it may be the Catholic Church which Christ founded and built upon Peter, than that it be partaker in those gifts which, again, He Himself granted only to unity, as it is effected in Peter and by Peter.
Now not only the most ancient Fathers, as Irenæus, Tertullian, and Cyprian, but the whole body of them, assign the origin of this to Peter. This they make the vivifying principle of agreement, society and unity, without which the Church can neither be intrinsically Catholic, nor the mind conceive it as such. It is so stated by [126]Pacian, [127]Ambrose, the [128]Fathers of Aquileia, [129] Optatus, [130]Gregory Nazianzen, [131]Jerome, [132]Augustine, [133] Gelasius, [134]Hormisdas, [135]Agatho, [136]Maximus Martyr, and, to shorten the list, by Leo[137] the Great. It is in setting forth the unity of the Catholic episcopate that he writes what ought never to be forgotten by Christian minds: "For the compactness of our unity cannot remain firm, unless the bond of charity weld us into an inseparable whole, because, as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. For it is the connection of the whole body which makes one soundness and one beauty; and this connexion, as it requires unanimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord among bishops. For though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an equal jurisdiction; since even among the most blessed Apostles, as there was a likeness of honour, so was there a certain distinction of power, and the election of all being equal, pre-eminence over the rest was given to one, from which mould, or type, the distinction also between bishops has arisen, and it was provided by a great ordering, that all should not claim to themselves all things, but that in every province there should be one whose sentence should be considered the first among his brethren; and others again, seated in the greater cities, should undertake a larger care, through whom the direction of the universal Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere disagree from its head."