The Catholic World, Vol. 13, April to September, 1871

by Various

This continuity or unity of the church in time is a simple historical fact, and as certain as any other historical fact, and even more so, for it is a fact that has never fallen into the past, and to be established only by trustworthy witnesses or documents. By it the church to-day is and must be as apostolic and as authoritative as in the days of the apostles Peter, James, and John. Individuals die, but the church dies not; individuals are changed, as are the particles of our bodies, but the church changes not. As in the human race individuals pass off, but the race remains always the same; so in the church individuals pass away, but the church remains unchanged in all its integrity; for the individuals die not all at once, and the new individuals born in their places are born into the one identical body, that does not die, but remains ever the same. No matter, then, how many generations succeed one another in their birth and death, the body of the church is subject to no law of succession, and remains not only one and the same church, but always the one and the same present church. The church of to-day is identically the church of yesterday, the church of yesterday is identically the church of the day before, and thus step by step back to the apostles; on the other hand, the church in the time of the apostles is identically the church of their successors down through all succeeding generations of individuals to us. There has never been an interval of time when it was not, or when it lost its identity as one and the same body. The church is precisely as apostolic now as it was in the beginning, or as were the apostles themselves.

Now, if we suppose our Lord communicated the whole revelation to the apostles either by his personal teaching or by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, then he communicated it to her, and she is an eye and ear witness to the fact of revelation in the same sense that the apostles were, and her historical identity with the apostles makes her a perpetual and contemporary witness to the fact of revelation and to what is revealed. What misleads not a few on this point is that they regard the church as a mere aggregation of individuals, born and dying with them, or succeeding to herself with the succession of each new generation of individuals. But this is no more the case with the church than with the human race itself, or with any particular nation that has an historical existence through several generations. In all historical bodies the generations overlap one another, and no generation of individuals is either aggregated to the body or segregated from it all at once. The body does not die with the receding nor is it born anew with the acceding generation. The church, indeed, is an organism, not a mere aggregation of individuals, but even if it were the conclusion would not follow; for though the individuals are successively aggregated or affiliated, they are aggregated or affiliated to her as a persistent body, and though they pass off successively, they leave the body standing, one and identical. This is the simple historical fact. The church, as an ever-present body, remains one and the same identical body amid all the successive changes of individuals, and is just as much the depositary of the revelation and an eye-witness of the facts recorded in the Gospels, as were the apostles themselves.

We say, then, the church is herself the witness, and a competent and credible witness, to her own divine commission to teach and declare the word of God which he has revealed, and no better, no more competent or credible witness is needed or, in fact, conceivable. She is competent because she is the identical apostolical body, the contemporary and the eye-witness through the successive ages of the facts to which she testifies. She is a credible witness, because even as a human body it would be hardly possible for her either to mistake or to misrepresent the facts to which she testifies, since they are always present before her eyes, since, however her individual members may change, she herself knows no change with lapse of time, and no succession. She could not forget the faith, change it, or corrupt it, because there is at all times in her communion an innumerable body of living witnesses to its unity, purity, and integrity, who would detect the change or alteration and expose it. It is not with her as it would be with a book having a limited circulation. Copies of the book could easily be altered or interpolated without detection; but the living testimony of the church, spread over the whole world and teaching all nations, cannot be interpolated or corrupted. It is on the fidelity of the church, her vigilant guardianship, and uniform testimony that we depend for our confidence in the genuineness and authenticity of our copies of the sacred writings, and it is worthy of note that in proportion as men throw off the authority of the church, and reject her traditions, they lose that confidence, and fail to agree among themselves what books, if any, are inspired; so that without the testimony of the church the Holy Scriptures themselves cease to be an authority in matters of faith.

In human tribunals the supreme court is presumed to know the law which constitutes it, and it defines its own jurisdiction and powers. It declares the law of which it is the depositary and guardian, and though the judges have only their human wisdom, learning, and sagacity, it is remarkable how few mistakes through a long series of ages they commit as to what is or is not the law they are appointed to administer, and nearly all the mistakes they do commit are due to the changes the legislature makes in the law or in the constitution of the court. Why should the church be less competent to judge of the law under which she is constituted, and to define her jurisdiction and powers? And since her constitution, as well as the law she administers, changes not, why should she be less exempt, even as a human court, from mistakes in interpreting and declaring the law, than the supreme court of England or the United States? What higher authority can there be to judge of her own constitution and the law given her to administer than the church herself?

The church received her constitution in the commission given to the apostolic body with whom she is one and identical, and the law or revealed word in the reception of it by the apostles. Being one and identical body with them, she has received what they received, and knows what they knew, is taught what they were taught, understands it in the same sense that they did, and has the same authority to interpret and declare it that they had. If they were commissioned to teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever our Lord commanded them, she is commissioned in their commission to do the same. If he promised them his efficacious presence and assistance to the consummation of the world, he made the promise to her; if he made Peter the prince of the apostles, the father and teacher of all Christians, and gave him plenary authority to feed, rule, and govern the universal church, he made the successor of Peter the visible head of the church, and gave him the same authority. The church, being the apostolic body persisting through all times, knows what the apostles received, knows therefore both her own constitution and the law deposited with her, and is as competent to judge of them as the apostles were, and has full authority to interpret and declare both, and it is to her, as to the supreme court of a nation, to judge what they are, and to define her constitution, jurisdiction, and powers.

The objection which many make to this conclusion arises from their confounding the authority of the church to interpret and define the law—and, as a part of the law, her own constitution, jurisdiction, and powers or functions—with the authority to make the law: a mistake like that of confounding the supreme court of the United States with Congress. The church, like the court or the supreme executive, may make her own rules and orders—what are called the orders and rules of court, for the purpose of carrying out the intent of the law—but she no more makes the law than does the civil court make the law under which it is constituted, and which it administers. God alone is the lawgiver or lawmaker, and his revealed word is the law—the law for the human reason and will, and which binds all men in thought, word, and deed. We want no church, as the supreme judge of the law, to tell us this, for it is a dictamen of reason itself. It is the revealed word of God, which again is only his will, the will of the supreme Lawgiver—that is the law under which the church is constituted, and which she guards, interprets, and declares, whenever a question of law arises. She does not make the law; she keeps, interprets, declares, and defends or vindicates it. Even with only human wisdom, she can no more make the law, or declare that to be law which is not, than the supreme civil court can declare that to be civil law which is not civil law. The objection, therefore, is not well taken.

The law, it is agreed on all hands—that is, the revelation, whether written or unwritten—was deposited with the apostles, then it was deposited, as we have seen, with the church identical with the apostolic body. Now, she knows, as the apostles knew, what she received, the law committed to her charge, and, as she is constituted by the law she has received, she knows, and cannot but know, her own constitution and powers, also what promises, if any, she has received from her divine Lawgiver and Founder. The promises of God cannot fail; and if he has promised her his assistance as an immunity from error she knows it, and knows that her judgments of law, or in matters of faith, are through that assistance infallible. Of all these questions she is the divinely constituted judge. She is the judge of the law constituting her, of her own appointment and commission, and of her rights, powers, and jurisdiction, no less than of the law or revelation committed to her charge, for all this is included in the law. If she defines that in her commission is included the promise of the divine assistance to protect her from error in interpreting and declaring the law—that is, the faith, the revealed word of God—then of all this she judges infallibly, and she is the infallible authority, not for believing what God has revealed—for that is believed on the veracity of God alone—but for believing that what she teaches as his revealed word is his revealed word, and therefore the law we are to obey in thought, word, deed, as the supreme court is the authority for defining its own constitution and powers, and what is or is not the law of the state. Say we not, then, truly that the church is her own witness and accredits herself? Say we not truly, also, that she is the faithful and infallible witness to the fact of revelation, and teacher and judge of what God has or has not revealed? The fact, then, that the church defines that she is the divinely appointed guardian and infallible teacher and judge of revelation, is all we need to know in order to know that it is God we believe in believing her.

None of the sects can apply this argument to themselves; for no one of them can pretend to be the identical apostolical body, or to span the distance of time from the apostles to us, so as to be at once their contemporary and ours. They all have either originated too late or have died too soon for that. Not one of them can pretend to have originated in the apostolic communion, and to have existed as one continuous body down to us. There were sectaries in the lifetime of the apostles, but they were not in the apostolic communion, but separated from it; and there is, as far as we know, no sect in existence that originated in apostolic times. Some of the Gnostic sects sprang up at a very early day, but they have all disappeared, though many of their errors are revived in our day. The Nestorian and Jacobite sects still subsist in the East, but they were born too late to be of apostolic origin, and our modern Unitarians are not the old Arians continued in one unbroken body. The Lutheran and Calvinistic sects are of yesterday, and they and their numerous offshoots are out of the question. The poor Anglicans talk of apostolic succession indeed, but they separated or were cut off from the apostolic body in the sixteenth century, and, with all the pretensions of a few of them, are only a Protestant sect, born of the Reformation, as the greater part of them strenuously contend. There is something in people's instincts; and it is worthy of note that no people who have cast off the authority of the Holy See have ever ventured to assume as their official name the title of APOSTOLIC. Even the schismatic Greeks, while they claim to be orthodox, do not officially call their church apostolic; and the American Anglicans assume only the name of Protestant Episcopal. Protestant apostolic would strike the whole world as incongruous, and very much as a contradiction in terms.

Let the argument be worth little or much, the only body claiming to be the church of Christ that has or has had an uninterrupted historical existence from the apostles to us, is the body that is in communion with the See of Rome, and recognizes the successor of Peter in that see as the Vicar of Christ, the teacher of the nations, supreme pastor of the faithful, with plenary authority from our Lord himself to feed, rule, and govern the universal church. The fact is too plain on the very face of history for any one who knows history at all to deny it. Nor, in fact, does any one deny it. All in reality concede it; and the pretence is that to be in communion with that see is not necessary in order to be in communion with Christ, or with the universal church.

But this is a question of law or of its interpretation, and can itself be determined only by the supreme court instituted to keep, interpret, and declare the law. The court of last resort has already decided the question. It is res adjudicata, and no longer an open question. The court has decided that extra ecclesiam, nulla salus, or, that out of communion with the church there is no communion with Christ; and that out of communion with the Holy See there is no communion with the universal church, for there is no such church. Do you appeal from the decision of the court? To what tribunal? To a higher tribunal? But there is no higher tribunal than the court of last resort. None of the sects are higher than the church, or competent to set aside or overrule her decisions. Do you appeal to the Bible? But this were only appealing from the law as expounded by the church or the supreme court to the law as expounded by yourself or your sect. Such an appeal cannot be entertained, for it is an appeal, not from an inferior court to a superior, but from the highest court to the lowest. The law expounded by the individual or the sect is below, not above, the law expounded and declared by the church. The sect has confessedly no authority, and the law expounded and applied by the sect is no more than the law expounded and applied by the private individual; and no private individual is allowed to expound and apply the law for himself, but must take it as expounded and applied by the court, and the judgment as to what the law is of the court of last resort is final, and from it, as every lawyer knows, there lies no appeal. To be able to set aside or overrule the judgment of the church, it is necessary, then, to have a court of superior jurisdiction, competent to revise her judgments and to confirm or to overrule them. But, unhappily for those who are dissatisfied with her judgments, there is and can be no such court to which they can appeal.