Such are the illustrations afforded by the preceding century to what we have stated was the unquestioned constitution of the Catholic Church at the time of the Council of Nicea; viz. that while the three great Sees of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch exercised a powerful but entirely paternal influence on their colleagues, that of Rome having the undoubted primacy, not derived from the gift of Councils, or the rank of the imperial city, but from immemorial tradition as the See of St. Peter; yet, at the same time, the fullness of the priesthood, and with it all power to govern the Church, were acknowledged to reside in the whole Episcopal Body. "The Bishop," says Thomassin, quoting with approbation a Greek writer, as representing the doctrine of the early Fathers, and of the universal Church since, "is the complete image in the Church on earth of Him who in the holy Trinity alone bears the name of Father, as being the first principle without principle, and the fruitful source of the other Persons, and of all the divine perfections.... The Bishop communicates the Priesthood, as He who is without principle in the Godhead, and is therefore called Father."[[30]] The Apostolic Canons, and those of the Council of Nicea, are the legislative acts bearing witness to this order of things: the conduct and words of St. Cyprian, St. Firmilian, and St. Augustin, which we have instanced, and an innumerable multitude of other cases, exhibit it in full life and vigour; while, on the other side, there is absolutely nothing to allege.
The history of the Church during the three hundred years following the Nicene Council is but a development of this constitution. The problem was, how to combine in the harmonious action of One organized Body those Apostolical powers which resided in the Bishops generally. The Patriarchal system was the result. As the Church increased in extent, her rulers would increase in number. This multiplication, which would tend so much to augment the centrifugal force, was met by increased energy in the centripetal: the power of the Patriarchs, and specially of the Bishop of Rome, grew. It is impossible, in my present limits, to follow this out, but I propose to give a few specimens, as before, in illustration.
In so vast a system of interlaced and concurrent powers as the Church of Christ presented, differences would continually arise; and in so profound a subject-matter as the Christian revelation, heresies would be continually starting up: to arrange the former, and to expel or subjugate the latter, the Bishops, says Thomassin, having already more than once appealed to the Christian Emperors for the calling of great Councils, saw the danger of suffering the Imperial authority to intervene in ecclesiastical causes, and sought to establish a new jurisprudence on this head.[[31]] "The Council of Antioch (A.D. 341), and that of Sardica (A.D. 347), which were held almost at the same time,—the one in the East, the other in the West,—set about this in a very different manner, aiming, however, at the same end. The Council of Antioch ordered that Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, who should have been condemned by a provincial Council, might recur to a larger Council of Bishops; but that if they carried their complaints before the Emperor they could never be reestablished in their dignity." "One must in good faith admit, that this regulation had much conformity with what had been practised in the first ages of obscurity and persecution, for it was in the same way that extraordinary Councils had been held, such as were those of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, Bishop of that great city. It was the Metropolitans and Bishops of the neighbourhood who assembled with those of the Province where the flame of a great dissension had been kindled. The Council of Sardica, urged by the same desire to break through the custom which was introducing itself, of having recourse to the Emperor for judgment of spiritual causes of the Church, bethought itself of another means, which was not less conformable to the practice of the preceding centuries, and which had, beside that, much foundation in the Holy Scriptures. For Jesus Christ, having given the Primacy, and the rank of Head, to St. Peter, above the other Apostles, and having given successors as well to the Apostles, to wit, all the Bishops, as to St. Peter, to wit, the Roman Pontiffs; moreover, having willed that His Church should remain for ever one by the union of all Bishops with their Head, it is manifest, that if the Bishops of a province could not agree in their Provincial Council, and if the Bishops of several provinces had disputes between each other, the most natural way to finish these differences was to introduce the authority of the Head, and of him whom Jesus Christ has established as the centre of unity of His universal Church."
Accordingly, at the Council of Sardica, attended by St. Athanasius, then in exile, and about a hundred Western Bishops, after the secession of the Eastern or Arian portion, Hosius proposed, "If two Bishops of the same province have a disagreement, neither of the two shall take for arbitrator a Bishop of another province: if a Bishop, having been condemned, feels so assured of his right, that he is willing to be judged anew in a Council, let us honour, if you think it good, the memory of the Apostle St. Peter: let those who have examined the cause, write to Julius, Bishop of Rome; if he thinks proper to order a fresh trial, let him name judges; if he does not think that there is reason to renew the matter, let what he orders be kept to. The Council approved this proposition. The Bishop Gaudentius added, that, during this appeal, no Bishop should be ordained in place of him who had been deposed, until the Bishop of Rome had judged his cause."[[32]]
"To make the preceding Canon clearer, Hosius said, 'When a Bishop, deposed by the Council of the province, shall have appealed and had recourse to the Bishop of Rome, if he judge proper that the matter be examined afresh, he shall write to the Bishops of the neighbouring province to be the judges of it; and if the deposed Bishop persuade the Bishop of Rome to send a priest from his own person, he shall be able to do it, and to send commissioners to judge by his authority, together with the Bishops; but if he believes that the Bishops are sufficient to settle the matter, he will do what his wisdom suggests to him.' The judgment which Pope Julius, together with the Council of Rome, had given in favour of Athanasius and the other persecuted Bishops, seems to have given cause to this Canon, and we have seen that this Pope complained that they had judged St. Athanasius without writing to him about it."
Such is the modest commencement of that power of hearing episcopal causes on appeal, which has been the instrument of obtaining the wonderful authority concentrated by a long series of ages in the see of Rome. However conformable to the practice of preceding centuries, as Thomassin says, this may have been, this power is here certainly granted by the Council, not considered as inherent in the see of Rome. And this one fact is fatal to the present claim of the supremacy. To use De Maistre's favourite analogy, it is as though the States General or Parliament conferred his royal powers on the Sovereign who convoked them, and whose assent alone made their enactments law. Accordingly, like the whole course of proceedings in these early Councils, it is incompatible with the notion of the Pope being the monarch in the Church. We may safely say, history offers not a more wonderful contrast in a power bearing the same name, than that here conferred on Pope Julius in 347, and that exercised by Pope Pius the Seventh in 1802. On the bursting out of the French revolution, out of a hundred and thirty-six Bishops more than a hundred and thirty remained faithful to God and the Church: some offered the testimony of their blood; the rest became confessors in all lands for Christ's sake, in poverty, contempt, and banishment. After ten years, the civil governor, who had lately professed himself a Mahometan, proposes to the Pope to re-establish the Church, but on condition of himself nominating to the sees, and those not the ancient sees of the country, but a selection from them, to the number of eighty. Thereupon the Pope requires those eighty Bishops and Confessors who still survived, and whom he acknowledged to be not only blameless, but martyrs for the name of Christ, to resign into his hands their episcopal powers. Of his own single authority he abolishes the ancient sees of the eldest daughter of the Western Church, constitutes that number of new sees which the civil power permits, and treats as schismatics those few Bishops who disobey his requisition. I do not presume to express any blame of Pope Pius; I simply mention a fact. But it seems to me, certainly, that those who would entirely recognise the power and precedence exercised by Pope Julius, are not necessarily schismatics because they refuse to admit a power not merely greater in degree, but different in kind, and to set the High Priesthood of the Church beneath the feet of one, though it be the First of her Pontiffs.
The restrictions under which, according to the Council of Sardica, the Pope could cause a matter to be reheard, are specific. Much larger power is assigned in the fourth General Council, that of Chalcedon, to the see of Constantinople, in the ninth Canon, which says, "If any Bishop or Clergyman has a controversy against the Bishop of the province himself (i.e. the Metropolitan), let him have recourse to the Exarch of the diocese, or to the throne of the Imperial city of Constantinople, and plead his cause before him."
But, between these two Councils of Nicea, A.D. 325, and Chalcedon, 451, the whole Patriarchal system of the Church had sprung up, and covered the provinces of the Roman Empire with as it were a finely reticulated net. The system may be said to be built on two principles, recognised and enforced in the Apostolic Canons, and consistently carried out, from the Bishop of the poorest country town up to the primatial see of Rome. These principles are, "the authority of the Metropolitan over his Bishops in important and extraordinary affairs, and the supreme authority of Bishops in the ordinary government of their particular bishoprics. With this distinction, that the Metropolitan even cannot arrange important and extraordinary affairs but with the counsel of his suffragans, whilst every Bishop conducts all the common and ordinary affairs of his Diocese without being obliged to take the advice of his Metropolitan."[[33]] This latter principle, it will be seen, expresses the essential equality and unity of the High Priesthood vested in Bishops by descent from the Apostles, to which St. Cyprian bears such constant witness, so that it may be said to be the one spirit which animates all his government: while the former, leaving this quite inviolate, builds together the whole Church in one vast living structure. For as the Bishops of the province have their Metropolitan, and their spring and autumn Councils under him, so the Metropolitan stands in a like relation to his Exarch, or Patriarch; and of the five great Patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, who are found at the Council of Chalcedon to preside over the Church Catholic, that of Rome has the unquestioned primacy, and is seen at the centre, sustaining and animating the whole. "The most important of all the powers of Metropolitans, Exarchs, and Patriarchs, was the election of Bishops, the confirmation and consecration of Bishops elected. For all the other degrees of authority were founded on this one, which rendered the Metropolitan the Father, Master, and Judge of all his suffragans."[[34]] "And so that famous Canon of the Council of Nicea, (the 6th,) which seems in appearance only to confirm the ancient right of the three first Metropolitans of the world to ordain the Bishops of all the provinces of their dependence, establishes in effect all the rights and all the powers of the Metropolitans, because it establishes the foundation on which they all rest. 'If any one be made a Bishop contrary to the sentence of his Metropolitan, the great Synod declares that he should not be a Bishop.' Nothing is juster than to found the right of a holy and paternal rule on the right of generation. For by ordination the Bishops engender not children indeed, but Fathers, to the Church." This system continued unimpaired in the whole Church, at least to the time of St. Gregory the Great. It offers, I think, an unanswerable refutation to what must be considered the strongest argument of the Roman Catholics for the Supremacy, that there could be no unity in the Church without it, as a living organized body; history says, there was unity, with five co-ordinate Patriarchs, and an Episcopate twice as numerous as that of the present Latin Communion. In the Latin Church itself, this system was only gradually overshadowed by another system which sprang from the excessive development of one of its parts; in the Greek and Russian Church, it continues down to this day; whatever ecclesiastical constitution we still have ourselves, is a part of this system. And by reference to, and under cover of this, which if not strictly of Divine right, as is the High Priesthood of Bishops, approaches very nearly indeed to it, and was the effluence of the Spirit of God ruling and guiding the Church of the Fathers, we must justify ourselves from the damning blot of schism. We cannot, dare not, do this upon principles such as "the right of private judgment"—"The Bible alone is the religion of Protestants,"—and the like, which lead directly, and by most certain consequence, to dissent, heresy, and anarchy. God forbid that they who profess to be members of the One holy Catholic Church should, urged by any unhappiness of their provisional and strange position, take up Satanic and Antichristian arms. No! if we may not hope for that system under which Augustin and Chrysostom laboured and witnessed, we will have nothing to do with those who destroy dogmatic faith altogether, and break up the visible unity of the Church of Christ into a multitude of atoms. Quot homines, tot voluntates. We cannot so relapse into worse than a second heathenism, and with the unity of Pentecost offered us, deliberately choose the confusion of Babel.
But over and above his natural eminence in the Church, which I have attempted to describe, a concurrence of events in the fourth century tended to give a still greater moral weight to the voice of the Bishop of Rome. While the other great sees of the Church were vexed with heresy or schism, his was providentially exempted from both. The same century witnessed Cœcilianus of Carthage, judged and supported by Pope Melchiades, while the Donatist schism all that century long rent Africa in twain; and St. Athanasius, of Alexandria, driven from his see, and persecuted by the whole East, received and justified by Pope Julius; and St. John Chrysostom, too good by far for a corrupt capital and a degenerate court, in life protected, and in death restored, by Pope Innocent. We have seen St. Jerome appeal to Pope Damasus, to know which of three competitors for the Patriarchal throne of Antioch was the right Bishop. But it is impossible to describe the confusion and violence which the Arian heresy, and the cognate heresies concerning the Person of our Lord, wrought throughout the Church and Empire. In all these the Roman Patriarch was beheld immovable, supporting, with his whole authority, what turned out to be the orthodox view. What Mr. Newman asserts is, moreover, entirely in accordance with the Patriarchal system, as we have attempted to describe it, "that the writers of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly allow, that the prerogatives of Rome were derived from apostolic times, and that because it was the See of St. Peter." I confess that these words set me upon the search, and that I have found such testimonies in abundance; but then they are invariably to the Bishop of Rome as holding the first see, not as Episcopus Episcoporum: they bear witness to the Patriarchal system, not to the Papal. For instance, all lovers of truth would be obliged to Mr. Newman to point out, in all the works of St. Augustin, a single passage which is sufficiently distinct and specific to justify the Papal claims, nay, which does not consider the Pope the first Bishop, and no more. It is little to say I have searched for such in vain. But in a Western Father, whose extant writings are so voluminous, and whose personal history is almost a history of the Church during the nearly forty years of his episcopate, and who continually gives judgment on all matters concerning the Church's government and constitution, it would seem impossible but that such a testimony should be found, if a thing so wondrous as is the Papal Power then existed. On the contrary, St. Augustin, continually explaining those often cited passages of Scripture, on which mediæval and later Roman writers ground the Papal prerogatives, that is, Thou art Peter, &c., Feed my sheep, &c., says specifically, that Peter represents the Church. One of these passages we have already quoted. Take another. "And I say unto thee, because thou hast said to me; thou hast spoken, now hear; thou hast given a confession, receive a blessing; therefore, and I say unto thee, that thou art Peter; because I am the Rock, thou art Peter; for neither from Peter is the Rock, but from the Rock, Peter; because not from the Christian is Christ, but from Christ the Christian. And upon this Rock I will build my Church; not upon Peter, which thou art, but upon the Rock which thou hast confessed. But I will build my Church, I will build thee, who in this answer representest the Church."[[35]] Again, in a passage which conveys that old view of Cyprian, that every Bishop's chair is the chair of St. Peter. "For as some things are said which would seem to belong personally to the Apostle Peter, yet cannot be clearly understood unless when they are referred to the Church, which he is admitted, in figure, to have represented, on account of the Primacy which he held among the disciples,—as is,—I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven;—and if there be any such like."[[36]] Again: "For Peter himself, to whom He entrusted His sheep as to another self, He willed to make one with Himself, that so He might entrust His sheep to him; that he might be the Head, the other bear the figure of the Body, that is, the Church; and that, as man and wife, they might be two in one flesh."[[37]] Again: "The Lord Jesus chose out His disciples before His Passion, as ye know, whom He named Apostles. Amongst these, Peter alone almost everywhere was thought worthy (meruit) to represent the whole Church. On account of that very representing of the whole Church, which he alone bore, he was thought worthy to hear, I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. For these keys not one man but the unity of the Church received. Here, therefore, the eminence of Peter is set forth, because he represented the very universality and unity of the Church, when it was said to him, I give to thee what was given to all. For that you may know that the Church has received the keys of the kingdom of God, hear what in another place the Lord says to all his Apostles: Receive the Holy Ghost. And presently: Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to him; whosesoever ye retain, they are retained. This belongs to the keys concerning which it was said, What ye loose on earth, shall be loosed in Heaven; and what ye bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven. But this He said to Peter. That you may know that Peter then represented the whole Church, hear what is said to him,"[[38]] &c. "For deservedly, after His resurrection, the Lord delivered His sheep to Peter himself to feed; for he was not the only one among the disciples who was thought worthy to feed the Lord's sheep. But when Christ speaks to one, unity is commended; and to Peter above all, because Peter is the first among the Apostles."[[39]] Again: "As in the Apostles, the number itself being twelve, that is, four divisions into three,"—(he seems to mean, that there was a mystical universality betokened in the number four, as a mystical unity in the number three,)—"and all being asked, Peter alone answered, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And it is said to him, I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, as if he alone had received the power of binding and loosing; the case really being, that he singly said that in the name of all, and received this together with all, as representing unity itself; therefore one in the name of all, because unity is in all."[[40]] This, written at so many different times, was evidently the view preferred by this great Father;[[41]] and be it observed, that while, on the one hand, there is a total silence as to the local see of Rome, on the other hand, there is in these words a specific denial of the present Roman doctrine, that all spiritual jurisdiction throughout the whole Church is derived from the see of Rome alone. That jurisdiction is derived from the see of Rome, and the other Apostolic Sees in conjunction, is the truth of the Patriarchal system; that it is derived from the see of Rome, as distinct from them, and without them, is the exaggeration of the Papal system.
I may remark here, that St. Leo the Great does apply these passages both to St. Peter personally, as distinct from the other Apostles, and to the Roman Pontiffs, as his successors, distinct from all other Bishops. St. Augustin's different application is the more remarkable.