The strongest expressions respecting the power of the Roman see, which I have been able to find in the works of St. Augustin, are contained not in his proper works, but in two letters of Pope St. Innocent, written in answer to the synodical letters of the Council of Milevi,—"who thought fit likewise to communicate their judgment to the Pope St. Innocent in order to join the Apostolical authority to their own."[[42]] Their own words are,—"What we have done, Sir and Brother, we have thought good to intimate to your holy charity, that the authority of the Apostolical See may also be added to what we, in our mediocrity, have ordered, to protect the salvation of many, and also to correct the perversity of some."[[43]] They were writing concerning a point nearly touching the common faith, i.e., in condemnation of Pelagius. The Pope in his answer, praises them, that—"Guarding, according to the duty of priests, the institutions of the Fathers, ye resolve that those regulations should not be trodden under foot, which they with no human but Divine voice decreed: viz., that whatever was being carried on, although in the most distant and remote provinces, should not be terminated before it was brought to the knowledge of this see: by the full authority of which the just sentence should be confirmed, and that thence all other churches might derive what they should order; whom they should absolve; whom, as being bemired with ineffaceable pollution, the stream, that is worthy only of pure bodies, should avoid; so that as from their parent source all waters should flow, and through the different regions of the whole world the pure streams of the fountain well forth uncorrupted."[[44]] And in like manner to the Bishops of Numidia, at the same Council. "Ye do, therefore, diligently and becomingly consult the secrets of the Apostolical honour, (that honour, I mean, on which beside those things that are without, the care of all the Churches awaits,) as to what judgment is to be passed on doubtful matters, following in sooth the direction of the ancient rule, which you know, as well as I, has ever been observed in the whole world. But this I pass by, for I am sure your prudence is aware of it: for how could you by your actions have confirmed this, save as knowing that throughout all provinces answers are ever emanating as from the Apostolic fountain to inquirers? Especially, so often as a matter of faith is under inquiry, I conceive that all our brethren and fellow-Bishops ought not to refer, save to Peter, that is, the source of their own name and honour, just as your affection hath now referred, for what may benefit all Churches in common, throughout the whole world. For the inventors of evils must necessarily become more cautious, when they see that at the reference of a double synod they have been severed from ecclesiastical communion by our sentence."[[45]]
There is certainly an indefiniteness about these expressions, which may be made to embrace anything; but they do not fairly mean more than that supervision of the faith which belonged to the office of the first of the Patriarchs. Moreover, they come from a Pope; in St. Augustin's mouth, they would have much more force. They show us, besides, what a tendency there was in the power of the Patriarch continually to increase, as being the centre of appeal to so many, not only Bishops, but Metropolitans. Nay, at this very time, within less than a century, a rival power had grown up in the East, in the See of Constantinople, which, from a simple bishopric, under the Exarch of Heraclea, threatened to push aside the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch; and, by virtue of the Imperial residence at, or near Constantinople, to exercise as great an influence through the whole East, as Rome did in the West. If this happened where there was no Apostolic See to build upon, but simply the privileges of the royal city, how much more in the case of Rome, which stood alone in the West the single object of common reverence; "since it is well known," says this same Pope Innocent, "that there were no churches founded by any one, either in Italy, the Gauls, Spain, Africa, Sicily, or in the adjacent islands, unless by those whom the Apostle St. Peter, or his successors, had appointed Bishops."[[46]] So that the Pope, on the Patriarchal theory, was the common father of the whole West.
In the latter years of St. Augustin's life, the important question of appeals from African Bishops to Rome was settled. Apiarius, a priest, had been excommunicated by his Bishop, and appealed to the Pope. The Bishops of Africa would not agree to the Pope's claim, that the causes of clergy, condemned by their own Bishop, should be brought before the neighbouring Bishops; nor that Bishops should appeal to Rome. The Pope alleged the Canons of Nicea, (not, be it observed, an inherent power in his see to judge Bishops;) the Bishops of Africa said they could not find those Canons in the copies which they had. They agreed, however, to be thus treated, provisionally, for a short time, till they were better informed of the decrees of Nicea. It turned out that, by the Canons of Nicea, the Pope meant those of Sardica, to which the African Bishops refused obedience. The end of this was, that Pope St. Cœlestine restored Apiarius to communion, and sent him back to Africa, with Faustinus, his Legate. "At his arrival, the Bishops of Africa assembled a Council, in which Aurelius, of Carthage, and Valentine, Primate of Numidia, presided. Thirteen more are named, but the name of St. Augustin does not appear among them. This Council having examined the affair of Apiarius, found him charged with so many crimes, that it was impossible for Faustinus to defend him, though he acted the part rather of an advocate than of a judge, and violated all right in the opposition he maintained against the whole Council, under pretence of supporting the privileges of the Church of Rome. For he wanted Apiarius to be received to the communion of the Bishops of Africa, because the Pope had restored him to it, believing that he had appealed, though he could not prove even the fact of his appeal. After a debate of three days, Apiarius at last, stung with remorse, and moved by God, confessed, on a sudden, all the crimes of which he had been accused, which were so infamous and incredible as to draw groans from the whole Council; after which he was for ever deprived of all ecclesiastical administration.
"The Bishops wrote a synodical letter to Pope Cœlestine, in which they conjure him, for the future, not to receive to his communion those who have been excommunicated by them; since this was a point ruled by the Nicene Council. For, they added, if this be forbidden with respect to the minor Clergy, or Laymen, how much more did the Council intend its observance in respect to Bishops? Those, therefore, who are interdicted from communion in their own provinces, ought not to be restored by your Holiness too hastily, and in opposition to the rules; and you ought to reject the Priests, and other Clergy, who are so rash as to have recourse to you. For no ordinance of our fathers has deprived the Church of Africa of this authority, and the decrees of the Nicene Council have subjected the Bishops themselves to their respective Metropolitans. They have ordained with great wisdom and justice, that all matters should be terminated in the places when they arise; and did not think that the grace of the Holy Ghost would be wanting in any province to bestow on its Bishops the knowledge and strength necessary for their decisions; especially, since whosoever thinks himself wronged, may appeal to the Council of his province, or even to a General Council, unless it be imagined that God can inspire a single individual with justice, and refuse it to an innumerable multitude of assembled Bishops. And how shall we be able to rely on a sentence passed beyond the sea, since it will not be possible to send thither the necessary witnesses, whether from the weakness of sex, or of advanced age, or any other impediment? For that your Holiness should send any one on your part we can find ordained by no Council."
"With regard to what you have sent us by our brother, Faustinus, as being contained in the Nicene Council, we find nothing of the kind in the more authentic copies of that Council, which we have received from our brother, the Bishop of Alexandria, and the venerable Atticus, of Constantinople, and which we formerly sent to Boniface, your predecessor, of happy memory. For the rest, whoever desires you to delegate any of your clergy to execute your orders, we beseech you not to comply, lest it seem that we are introducing the pride of secular dominion into the Church of Christ, which ought to exhibit to all men an example of simplicity and humility. For as to our brother Faustinus, since the wretched Apiarius is cut off from the Church, we depend confidently on your goodness, that, without violating brotherly charity, Africa shall be no longer forced to endure him. Such is the letter of the Council of Africa to Pope St. Cœlestine."[[47]]
I confess it was not without astonishment that I first read this passage of history; so exactly had the African Bishops, in 426, when the greatest father of the Church was one of them, anticipated and pleaded the cause of the English Church, in 1534. It is precisely the same claim made in both instances, viz. that these two laws should be observed, on which the stability of the government of the whole Church Catholic rests; as Thomassin remarks:—first, that the action of the Bishop in his own diocese, in matters proper to that diocese, should not be interfered with; secondly, that the action of the Metropolitan with his Suffragans, in matters belonging to his province, should be left equally free. Who ever accused the African Bishops, and St. Augustin, of schism, for maintaining a right which had come down to them from all antiquity, was possessed and acted on all over the Church, was specifically enacted at the greatest Ecumenical Council, and recognised in every provincial Council held up to that time? This was all that the Church of England claimed; she based her claim on the unvarying practice of the whole Church during, at least, the first six centuries. We repeat, it is not a case of doubt, of conflicting testimony, in words elsewhere quoted, "of Popes against Popes, Councils against Councils, some Fathers against others, the same Fathers against themselves; a consent of Fathers of one age against a consent of Fathers of another age, the Church of one age against the Church of another age."[[48]] It is the Church of the Martyrs, the Church of the Fathers, of Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, and Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, and Gregory the Great, bearing one unbiassed indisputable witness, attested in a hundred Councils, denied in none, for the Patriarchal system, and against a power assumed by one Bishop, though the greatest, most venerable, and most illustrious in his own see, to interfere, dispense with, suspend, or abrogate, the authority of the Bishop in his Diocese, and of the Metropolitan in his Council; to exercise singly, by himself, powers which belong only to an Ecumenical Council, and to annul the enactments of at least the first four Ecumenical Councils. Had an advocate been instructed to draw out the abstract case of the English Church, he could not have described it more exactly than the African Bishops in stating their own. True, indeed, it is, that the African Bishops were maintaining a right which not only had never been interrupted, but was universal; while the English Bishops resumed a power which had been surrendered, not only by them, but by all the west of Europe, for many hundred years. Accordingly, the African Bishops did not suffer even a temporary suspension of communion with Rome, for having both condemned afresh Apiarius, whom the Pope had restored, and explicitly refused permission to the Pope to interfere in the ordinary government of their dioceses; while the English Church has ever since been accused of schism by the rest of the Latin communion. This decision of the African Bishops, in the year 426, is a proof that the Canon of the Council of Sardica, conferring, in certain cases, the power of ordering a cause to be reheard on the Pope, and the most favourable to his authority of any Canon of an ancient Council, was yet not received even throughout all the West.
In the year 402, St. Augustin wrote a letter to the Catholics, commonly called his treatise "on the Unity of the Church." The bearing of this book on the controversy respecting schism between ourselves and the Roman Catholics is very remarkable. The Saint refers triumphantly to most express passages from the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, our Lord's own teaching, and that of His Apostles, bearing witness to the catholicity of the Church, an "Ecclesia toto terrarum orbe diffusa." He challenges his adversaries, the Donatists, to produce a single passage, which either restricted the Church to the confines of Africa, or declared that it would perish from the rest of the world, and be restored out of Africa. His test seems decisive against the Donatists, and against all those who in after times have restricted the Church to one province, or have declared the Roman Church to be so corrupt that it is not a part of the true Church. For if it be not, then the promises of Christ have failed. But while it annihilates the position of the Donatists, and of the Puritan or Evangelical faction in these present times, it leaves unassailed that of Andrewes and Ken. St. Augustin every where appeals to the Church spread throughout the whole world, as being, by virtue of that fact, the one communion in which alone there was salvation, and this upon the testimony of the Holy Scriptures only. "To salvation itself, and eternal life, no one arrives, save he who has Christ for his head. But no one can have Christ for his head, except he be in His Body, which is the Church, which like the Head itself we ought to recognise in the Holy Canonical Scriptures, nor to seek after it in the various reports, opinions, doings, sayings, and sights of men."[[49]] But in the whole book there is not one word about the Roman see, or the necessity of communion with it, save as it forms part of the one universal Church. It is not named by itself any more than Alexandria, or Antioch. Any one will see the force of this fact who has but looked into the writings of late Roman Catholic authors. He will see how unwearied they are in setting forth the necessity of the action of the Roman see; how they consider it, and rightly, the centre of their system; how they are ever crying, "Without the sovereign pontiff there is no true Christianity."—De Maistre. The contrast in St. Augustin is the more remarkable. The creed of the Council of Trent says, "I acknowledge one holy, catholic, and apostolic Roman Church, the mother and mistress of all Churches: and I promise and vow true obedience to the Roman Pontiff, successor of the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ." This is distinct and unambiguous: just as much so is St. Augustin's "orbis terrarum." "For this the whole world says to them (the Donatists,) an argument most briefly stated, but most powerful by its truth. The case is, the African Bishops had a contest between themselves; if they could not arrange between themselves the dissension which had arisen, so that the wrong side should either be reduced to concord, or deprived, and they who had the good cause remain in the communion of the whole world through the bond of unity, there was certainly this resource left, that the Bishops beyond the sea, where the largest part of the Catholic Church is spread, should judge concerning the dissensions of their African colleagues,"[[50]] &c. No doubt the Bishop of Rome was one, and the most eminent of these Bishops beyond the sea; but St. Augustin refers the decision of the Donatist controversy not to him specially, but to the Bishops generally. This is the very principle, for which the Eastern Church for a thousand years, and the English Church for three hundred, have contended against the Church of Rome. I know not whether what St. Augustin says or what he does not say is strongest against the present Roman claim; but I think his silence in his book "De Unitate Ecclesiæ" absolutely convincing to any candid mind. Let us hold for an infallible truth his dogma, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum;" but the Latin communion is not the "orbis terrarum." In truth, the papal supremacy at once cut the Church in half; the West, where the Pope's was the only apostolical see, unanimously held with him; the East, with its four patriarchs, as unanimously refused his claim, as a new thing which they had never received. Even De Maistre observes, (Liv. 4. ch. 4,) "It is very essential to observe that never was there a question about dogmas between us at the beginning of the great and fatal division."
Again, St. Augustin has five sermons on the day of the Apostles Peter and Paul; he enlarges, as we might expect, on their labours and martyrdom; on the wonderful change of life which grace produced in them, the one thrice denying, and then thrice loving; the other, a blasphemer and persecutor, and then in labours more abundant than all. He speaks of their being joined in their death, the first apostle and the last, in the service and witness of Him, who is the First and the Last; of their bodies, with those of other martyrs, lying at Rome. But not one allusion is there in all these to the Roman Pontiff; not a word as to his being the heir of a power not committed to the other Apostles. On the contrary, on the very occasion of St. Peter's festival, he does say, "What was commended to Peter,—what was enjoined to Peter, not Peter alone, but also the other Apostles heard, held, preserved, and most of all the partner of his death and of his day, the Apostle Paul. They heard that, and transmitted it for our hearing: we feed you, we are fed together with you." "Therefore hath the Lord commended his sheep to us, because he commended them to Peter."[[51]] Thus Peter's commission is viewed not as excluding, but including that of all the rest; not as distinguished from, but typical of, theirs. Yet at this very time Roman Catholics would have us believe that the successor of Peter communicated to all Bishops their power to feed the Lord's flock; and that such a wonderful power and commission is passed sub silentio by the Fathers.
The very same principles which the Great Voice of the Western Church proclaims in Africa, St. Vincent of Lerins repeats from Gaul. Take the summary of his famous Commonitorium by Alban Butler. "He layeth down this rule, or fundamental principle, in which he found, by a diligent inquiry, all Catholic pastors and the ancient Fathers to agree, that such doctrine is truly catholic as hath been believed in all places, at all times, and by all the faithful. By this test of universality, antiquity, and consent, he saith all controverted points in belief must be tried. He sheweth, that whilst Novatian, Photinus, Sabellius, Donatus, Arius, Eunomius, Jovinian, Pelagius, Cœlestius, and Nestorius expound the Divine oracles different ways, to avoid the perplexity of errors we must interpret the Holy Scriptures by the tradition of the Catholic Church, as the clue to conduct us in the truth. For this tradition, derived from the Apostles, manifesteth the true meaning of the Holy Scripture, and all novelty in faith is a certain mark of heresy; and in religion nothing is more to be dreaded than itching ears after new teachers. He saith, 'They who have made bold with one article of faith, will proceed on to others; and what will be the consequence of this reforming of religion, but only that these refiners will never have done, till they have reformed it quite away?' He elegantly expatiates on the Divine charge given to the Church, to maintain inviolable the sacred depositum of faith. He takes notice that heretics quote the Sacred Writings at every word, and that in the works of Paulus Samosatenus, Priscillian, Eunomius, Jovinian, and other like pests of Christendom, almost every page is painted and laid on thick with Scripture texts, which Tertullian also remarks. But in this, saith St. Vincent, heretics are like those poisoners or quacks, who put off their destructive potions under inscriptions of good drugs, and under the title of infallible cures. They imitate the father of lies, who quoted Scripture against the Son of God, when he tempted Him. The Saint adds, that if a doubt arise in interpreting the meaning of the Scriptures in any point of faith, we must summon in the holy Fathers, who have lived and died in the faith and communion of the Catholic Church, and by this test we shall prove the false doctrine to be novel. For that only must we look upon as indubitably certain and unalterable, which all, or the major part of these Fathers have delivered, like the harmonious consent of a general council. But if any one among them, be he ever so holy, ever so learned, holds any thing besides, or in opposition to the rest, that is to be placed in the rank of singular and private opinions, and never to be looked upon as the public, general, authoritative doctrine of the Church. After a point has been decided in a general council, the definition is irrefragable. These general principles, by which all heresies are easily confounded, St. Vincent explains with equal elegance and perspicuity." "The same rules are laid down by Tertullian in his book of Prescriptions, by St. Irenæus, and other Fathers."—Lives of the Saints, May. 24.
But not a word is there here of the authority of the See of Rome deciding of itself what is, and what is not, error; or of its Communion of itself being a touchstone of what is, and what is not, the Catholic Church. These are necessary parts of the Papal Supremacy; instead of which St. Vincent holds universal consent.