A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

“There is an utter and hopeless disagreement, and on a point which involves supreme government. It is no secondary question, but one, as Dupin reminds us, which includes all ecclesiastical discipline. And yet, whether pope is superior to council, or the reverse; and whether the pope enjoys his prerogatives by Divine right, or ecclesiastical, has never been defined, though the decision is above all things required. In the Council of Trent, where the delivery of a clear, intelligible doctrine might have been reasonably expected, there was, instead, a prohibition of all discussion on the subject. It is not even settled whether, by disagreement on the question, persons incur the peril of heresy; Gerson holds the affirmative, and Bossuet sides with him, while Duval and others maintain the negative. The truth is, that the Roman Church has authorized two opposite conclusions, which have been enforced as the one party or the other prevailed. It is not the mere contention of private doctors, whose judgment might on either side be disavowed, but it is the Church itself which speaks inconsistently by its synodical decisions. It has, indeed, been demanded unreasonably, and sometimes incautiously allowed, that no statements of doctrine should be attributed to the Roman Church as authoritative, but such as are contained in the decrees of the Council of Trent, in the creed of Pius IV., and in the catechism. But it is to be observed, in the first place, that the decisions of the council avowedly do not extend beyond such points as had been brought into question by Protestants, and, at the same time, had not been disputed among Romanists themselves, for it was expressly enjoined that no definition should be made about any matter controverted among ‘Catholics’ themselves. The creed and the catechism have no more than the authority of the individual pope, by whom they were promulgated. It is true that this office was remitted to the bishop of Rome by the members of the council, but they possessed no such power of delegation. They might have adopted any decree of the pope, and have given it synodical sanction; but their consent previous to the consideration, or even knowledge of its contents, could not afford any weight additional to that which the pope alone could give. And, in the next place, the index of books, the catechism, the breviary, and the missal, possess equal authority, for they are enumerated together in the decree passed at the close of the council; that is, they possess as much authority as the decree of a pope could give them, and less than that which belongs to the decree of a council which has papal confirmation. It is true that, in the last of the articles which Pius IV. added to the creed of the Church Catholic, there is a profession of adherence to the decrees of general councils; but then no Romanist can tell what is and what is not a general council. It depends on the school to which he belongs, and on which side of the mountains he happens to live. Some so-called general councils, as Bellarmine tells us, are received, some are rejected, and some partly approved and partly reprobated; which, as Leslie says truly, ‘is going through all the degrees of uncertainty.’ The chief difficulty arises from those which flatly contradict each other, and which yet, from indispensable considerations, the Roman Church is obliged to acknowledge; they are chiefly such as pronounce upon this question of the supreme authority. At Pisa, and Constance, and Basle, the superiority of a council was distinctly and absolutely affirmed; and obedience required from all persons of whatever dignity, including the pope. In the Council of Florence it was decreed that the pope, as the successor of Peter, and as the vicar of Christ, is head of the whole church, the father and teacher of all Christians, and that plenary power from Christ was given him, in the person of St. Peter, to feed the universal flock. The Lateran Council under Leo X. decreed that the pope has full authority over all councils, to summon, transfer, and dissolve them. It is to be observed, that these conflicting decisions of great Roman councils are no more than the embodying in decrees the opposite interpretations of that text which forms the main Scripture authority for all papal assumptions. No Latin council is to be compared with that of Constance for importance or dignity; and by its acts, accepted and confirmed through the whole Western Church, it rejected the exposition which Romanists are now trying to enforce. M. de Maistre, the chief papal champion in the present century, disposes of the difficulty in a very characteristic way. When pressed with the Decrees of Constance, he says that the answer is easy: the council talked nonsense, like the English Long Parliament, or the Constituent Assembly, or the National Convention, &c.

“Our opponents boast that their Church is the same everywhere; but we cross the Alps, and find the whole system of ecclesiastical doctrine changed. The very term, ultramontane, which is universally recognised as the distinction of a school, bears witness that diversities have not only subsisted at different periods, but exist at the same time in different places. The Gallican Church has, doubtless, been the stronghold of those who deny the absolute power of the pope; but they have had their advocates among distinguished members of the Roman communion in all countries. Panormitan represented them in Italy, Cardinal de Cusa in Germany, and in Spain Alphonso Tostato, of whom Bellarmine says that he was the wonder of the world for his learning. Nay, even in the university of Paris, and among the doctors of the Sorbonne, we find the contest raging with the utmost violence, and the great teachers in vehement antagonism. Sometimes we see the representative of the pope brought into collision with the theological professor; as when Richer maintained the prevalent opinions of his Church against Cardinal du Perron, who, being a convert from Protestantism, was, of course, extravagant on the other side. Then, at the close of the century, we have Roccaberti, archbishop of Valentia, unsparing in his condemnation of the Gallicans, and calling on the pope to put them down. While Bossuet, on the other hand, affirms that the doctrine which he maintained had always been held in the Church; though he does not attempt to prove that there had not been another distinct line of teaching.”

SURCINGLE. The belt by which the cassock is fastened round the waist.

SURETY. (See Sponsors.)

SURPLICE. A white linen garment, worn by the Christian clergy and other ministers of the Church, in the celebration of Divine services, and also, on certain days, by members of colleges, whether clerical or lay. It is, in Latin, superpelliceum, a name which Cardinal Bona says was not older than 600 years before his time, (the middle of the seventeenth century,) and was so called from the white garment which was placed by ecclesiastics, super pelles, over the garments of dressed skins worn by the northern nations.

This habit seems to have been originally copied from the vestments of the Jewish priests, who, by God’s own appointment, were to put on a white linen ephod at the time of public service. And its antiquity in the Christian Church may be seen from Gregory Nazianzen, who advised the priests to purity, because a little spot is soon seen in a white garment; but more expressly from St. Jerome, who, reproving the needless scruples of such as opposed the use of it, says, “what offence can it be to God, for a bishop or priest to proceed to the communion in a white garment?” The ancients called this garment, from its colour, Alba, the Albe, a word in later times applied to a surplice with close sleeves.

The surplice is white, to represent the innocence and righteousness with which God’s ministers ought to be clothed. As for the shape of it, it is a thing so perfectly indifferent, that no reason need to be assigned for it; though Durandus has found out one: for that author observes, that, as the garments used by the Jewish priesthood were girt tight about them, to signify the bondage of the law; so the looseness of the surplices used by the Christian priests signifies the freedom of the gospel.

It is objected by dissenters from the Church of England, against the use of the surplice, that it is a rag of Popery, and has been abused by the Papists to superstitious and idolatrous uses. But this is no just objection against it; for, if the surplice, or some such white garment, was in use among the primitive Christians, the Church is justified in following their example, notwithstanding the abuses thereof by those of the Romish or any other communion.

Whether the surplice should be worn by the preacher in the pulpit is a question which has given rise, of late years, to much unprofitable controversy. On the side of wearing the surplice, it is said that the preacher is nowhere in the Prayer Book directed to change his dress; and therefore his dress should be, as before prescribed, the surplice. On the other hand it has been shown that, before the Reformation, the preachers were accustomed to wear their ordinary dress in the pulpit, except in cathedrals and collegiate churches, which custom has come down to us; and to adhere to inherited customs is to act on the catholic principle. On these facts it is obvious to remark, first, that the ultra-Protestants who are very violent against the use of the surplice by the preacher,—are, in this instance, the Romanizers; and secondly, that if the surplice be not worn, since no preacher’s dress is appointed by the Church, the preacher would be more correct who should appear in his ordinary costume. But those who are wise on either side, will, in regard to a thing so purely indifferent, follow the customs of the place in which they are called to officiate.

SURPLICE DAYS, or times. According to the 17th canon, “all masters and fellows of colleges or halls, and all the scholars and students in either of the universities, shall in their churches and chapels, upon all Sundays, holy-days, and their eves, at the time of Divine service, wear surplices according to the order of the Church of England; and such as are graduates, shall agreeably wear with their surplices such hoods as do severally appertain unto their degrees.” Saturday evening, it is to be observed, as the eve of Sunday, has always been considered as coming within this rule. The colleges in the universities of Cambridge and Dublin construe this rule as applying to all their members; those of Oxford, Christ Church excepted, to the foundation members only; and there noblemen are deprived of the privilege of wearing the surplice. By the 25th canon, the use of the surplice is prescribed daily to the dean, masters, heads of collegiate churches, canons, and prebendaries. The short surplice adopted in the Roman Church is a corruption, as Cardinal Bona confesses. He says that “Stephen of Tonmay, who lived A. D. 1180, shows that the surplice formerly reached to the feet;” and so likewise “Honorius de Vestibus Clericorum:” and that in the course of time it was shortened, as it appears from the Council of Basle, sess. 21, which commanded the clergy to have surplices reaching below the middle of the leg. He adds, that they are now so much shortened as scarcely to reach to the knee. Hence it is evident that the Church of England retains the correct and ancient fashion.—Jebb.