Indeed, the new name of Janus, assumed by the authors, has also a figurative meaning, inasmuch as a different face may be exhibited, just as the case may demand. Janus declares his love and attachment to the church and the primacy, and regards it as a complete misapplication of the term piety "to conceal or color historical facts and faulty institutions." (P. 20.)
Hence the inference will be legitimate to stigmatize as impious a mode of investigation which misstates and distorts historical facts, shaking at the very foundation both the church and the primacy. And this is precisely what Janus would accomplish, even contrary to his own avowed intention. For, according to him, "The primacy rests on divine appointment;" and still it has been transformed, and has become destructive to the church, rending asunder that unity which to uphold and represent it had been instituted. (Pp. 18, 21.)
"Since the ninth century, a transformation of the primacy, artificial and sickly, the consequences of which have been the splitting up of the previously united church into three great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other."
If such is the case, where, may we ask, is that primacy of divine institution to be found?—that primacy ever-living and indefectible as the church herself. And yet, we have the word of Janus for it, the primacy, divinely instituted as the centre of unity, has virtually become extinct, and has failed to be the source and centre of unity. Did Janus himself dare to face this inevitable and logical conclusion?
"The Roman bishops not only believed themselves to be in possession of a divine right, and acted accordingly, but this right was actually recognized by others." (P. 22.)
How is this profession to be reconciled with the following one, "that the form which this primacy took depended on the concessions of the particular local churches"?
What the privileges were which Christ himself bestowed on the primacy, Janus nowhere attempts to state. Where, then, is his reason for asserting that the form which the primacy took depended on concessions? Wherein consist the privileges inherent in the primacy by divine right, and which are those conceded by the local churches? Until Janus has distinctly defined these respective limits, with what show of logic and scientific process can he pronounce that for eight centuries the primacy was legitimately developed, and since the ninth century so fatally transformed and totally disfigured? Truly, if he had committed himself to any precise theory,[64] he would have exposed himself to an inglorious refutation; as it is now, he has taken refuge in silence. And yet, in justice to himself, and in order to save his scientific reputation, Janus was obliged to define these divine rights of the primacy before he could venture to say that they had been fatally transformed; thus he is able to bring forward "a very dark side of the history of the papacy." Superficial minds may be ensnared by this deceitful procedure, but fair and scientific thinkers will rise indignantly and enter their solemn protest against such an abuse of logic and history. Moreover, it is obvious that a primacy whose form, that is, rights inherent to it, are made dependent upon the consent of those over whom it is to be exercised, is illusory, and is a mere shadow. It is very difficult to understand how such a novel mode of reasoning should have escaped our authors, who have "written under a deep sense of anxiety," and we fear that, by pledging their faith to such dogmas as the infallibility of the church, and the divinely appointed primacy of St. Peter and his successors, in the person of the bishops of Rome, they have either deluded themselves or hoped to delude others by hollow professions of faith and a hypocritical show of piety.
The authors, having thus left a wide and open field in which to lead astray and bewilder the minds of their readers, do not hesitate to assert, "No one acquainted with church history will choose to affirm that the popes ever exercised a fixed primatial right in the same way" over the churches in different countries. Quite a captious and vague affirmation in each and every particular. Are we to understand that, because the same primatial rights were not everywhere and uniformly exercised, there were no acknowledged rights of the primacy? And yet to this conclusion, however illogical, such a proposition would lead. If the Roman bishops have not at all times exercised the same rights over the churches in Egypt as over those of Africa or Gaul, it is simply owing to the different condition of the various churches, where the exercise of such rights was not necessary, and by the very nature of things varied to meet the exigencies of the churches. What opinion would we form of a writer—we may be permitted to use a familiar illustration—who, from the fact that Congress did not at one time enforce the same article of our constitution in the State of Ohio as it did in Virginia, concluded that this legislative body possessed not, or was not conscious of possessing, the same rights and power granted by the constitution in Ohio as in Virginia? This is precisely what Janus would induce his readers to believe regarding the rights of the primacy. That the popes throughout the first centuries of the church exercised primatial rights, Janus readily grants, and must grant from the position he assumes. Now, if the exercise of such rights over the various churches at different periods of the ancient church, taken collectively, involve all those prerogatives which the papacy has since claimed and enjoyed, we must of necessity infer that the rights of the primacy, as understood and exercised at the present period, are identical with those of the first eight centuries.
This we could prove by a "work entirely made up of facts, and supporting all statements by reference to the original authorities." Yes, this has already been done by able and judicious historians; among the more modern ones we may appropriately challenge a careful perusal of the history of Dr. Döllinger,[65] in which a complete enumeration of the prerogatives exercised by the bishops of Rome over the whole church, both in the east and in the west, may be found, together with a direct reference to many and unexceptionable historical facts. Under the present head we merely refer to the action of Pope St. Victor, in the second century, against the churches of Asia Minor concerning the question of paschal celebration against the Quartodecimans; St. Stephen, against the Anabaptists in Africa; St. Cornelius, against Novatus and Felicissimus; St. Dionysius, in the case of Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, when the Emperor Aurelian himself would not sustain him, and referred to the Bishop of Rome for a final decision; all these statements attested by such writers as Eusebius,[66] Socrates,[67] and Theodoret.[68] How about the appeal of the Montanists to the Bishop of Rome, mentioned by Tertullian[69] himself? Did not Marcion repair to Rome to obtain a reversal of the sentence passed against him?[70] Did not that illustrious champion of faith, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, appeal to Pope Julius I. against the Arians, when the Council of Sardica was convoked at the request of the pope in the year 343, and the supremacy of the Roman bishop solemnly acknowledged, to whom all must appeal for final sentence?[71]
Janus, however, with this most conspicuous incident of history before him, says,