Chapter II: The Slaves' Feast (5)

But there is something more to be said in regard to this twenty-eighth canon of the council of Chalcedon. The council is generally accepted as the fourth general council, but only by virtue of the papal confirmation, and only so far as the pope confirmed its acts. In many respects the council was a scandalous assembly, almost wholly controlled by the emperor and the Byzantine lawyers or magistrates, who have no authority in the church of God. The part taken by the emperor and civil magistrates wholly vitiated it as a council of the church, and all the authority its acts had or could have for the church was derived from their confirmation by St. Leo the Great. But bad as the council was, the twenty-eighth canon never received its sanction. {582} It was introduced by the civil magistrates, and when only one hundred and fifty bishops, all orientals, out of the six hundred composing the council, were present, and no more subscribed it. It was resisted by the legates of the Roman pontiff and protested against; the patriarchal churches of Alexandria and Antioch were unrepresented. Dioscurus, bishop of the former, was excluded for his crimes, and Macarius of Antioch had just been deposed by the emperor and council for heresy and expelled; a large number of prelates had withdrawn, and only the rump of the council remained. It is idle to pretend that the canon in question was the act even of the council, far less of the universal church.

Now, either Leo the Roman pontiff had authority to confirm the acts of the council of Chalcedon, and by his authority as supreme pastor of the church to heal their defects and make them binding on the universal church, or he had not. If he had, the controversy is ended, for that is precisely what Mr. Guettée denies; if he had not, as Mr. Guettée contends, then the acts of Chalcedon have in themselves no authority for the church, since through the tyranny of the emperor Marcian and the civil magistrates it was not a free council, and, though legally convoked and presided over, was not capable of binding the church. The author may take which horn of the dilemma he chooses, for the pope refused to confirm the twenty-eighth canon, and declared it null and void from the beginning.

The fathers of the council, or a portion of them, in the name of the council, addressed a letter to the Roman pontiff in which they recognize him as the constituted interpreter of the words and faith of Peter for all, explain what they have done, the motives from which they have acted, and pray him "to honor their judgment by his _decrees_"--that is, confirm their acts. St. Leo confirmed those of their acts that pertained to the definition of faith, but refused to confirm the twenty-eighth canon, which he annulled and declared void, as enacted without authority, and against the canons.

Mr. Guettée says, pp. 97, 98, that the council did not ask the Roman pontiff to confirm the canon in question, "but by his own decrees to honor the judgment which had been rendered. If the confirmation of the bishop of Rome had been necessary, would the decree of Chalcedon have been a judgment, a promulgated decision, before that confirmation?" An authoritatively "promulgated decision" certainly not; but the author forgets that the canon had not been promulgated, and never became "a promulgated decision." As to its being a judgment, a final or complete judgment it was not, and the council, by calling it _nostrum judicium_, do not pretend that it was. They present it to the Roman pontiff only as an inchoate judgment, to be completed by his confirmation. They tell the pope that his legates have protested against it, probably because they wished to preserve to him its initiation, and that in adopting it they "had deferred to the emperor, to the senate, and the whole imperial city, thinking only to finish the work which his holiness, who always delights to diffuse his favors, had begun." The plain English of which is, We have enacted the canon out of deference to the civil authority and the wishes of the imperial city, subject to your approval. "Rogamus igitur, honora et tuis sententiis nostrum judicium. We pray you, therefore, to honor our judgment by your decrees." [Footnote 178] If this does not mean asking the pope to confirm their act or judgment, we know not what would so mean. It is certain that St. Leo himself, who is one of the author's anti-papal authorities, so understood it, as is evident from his replies to the emperor, the empress, and Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople, the assertion of M. Guettée to the contrary notwithstanding.

[Footnote 178: Opp. S. Leo, tom. i. col. 960-962. Migne's edition.]

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The Emperor Marcian wrote expressly to St. Leo, begging him to confirm by his apostolic authority the acts of the council, and especially the twenty-eighth canon, because without his confirmation they would have no authority. The Empress Pulcheria wrote him to the same effect, and finally Anatolius did the same. To the emperor the Roman pontiff replied, and set forth the reasons why he could not confirm the canon in question. He makes short work with M. Guettée's doctrine, broached in the second council, and extended in the twenty eighth canon of Chalcedon, that the rank and authority of the see derive from the rank, authority, or importance of the city in which it is established. He denies that the fact that Constantinople was the second capital of the empire, or the new Rome, was any reason for elevating its bishop to the patriarchal rank and authority. "Let, as we desire, the city of Constantinople have its glory, and, protected by the right hand of God, may it long enjoy the reign of your clemency; but different is the reason of secular things from the reason of divine things, and no edifice will be stable unless it is built on that rock (St. Matthew xvi. 18) which the Lord has laid for a foundation. Who covets what is not his due shall lose what is his own. Let it suffice this man, (Anatolius,) that by the aid of your piety and my assent and favor, he has obtained the episcopate of so great a city. Let him not disdain the imperial city because he cannot make it an apostolic see; and let him by no means hope to enlarge his power at the expense of others."

It is very clear from this that St. Leo did by no means concede that the bishop of Constantinople was entitled to be clothed with patriarchal power and take precedence of the patriarch of Alexandria, because he had his see in what had become the second capital of the empire. "Alia ratio est rerum secularium, alia divinarum; nec prater illam petram quam Dominus in fundamento posuit, stabilis erit nulla constructio;" that is, only what is built on Peter, the rock, will stand, and in vain do you build on the greatness, splendor, and dignity of earthly cities. [Footnote 179] If M. Guettée had remembered this, he would never have turned from the chair of Peter, or allowed himself to be seduced by the nationalism of the Greek sophists, and the misguided ambition of the bishop of Constantinople. Alas! he left his father's house, and, famished in the far country to which he has wandered, he is forced to feed on husks with the swine he tends. What can that man think of the church of God who holds that the dignity and authority of its prelates have only a secular origin?

[Footnote 179: Ibidem, ad Marcianum Augustum, epist. civ.]

St. Leo unequivocally refuses, in his reply to the solicitations of the emperor, to confirm the twenty-eighth canon. "And why," asks the author, p. 98, "did he refuse his assent? Because the decree of Chalcedon took from the bishop of Alexandria the second rank, and the third from the bishop of Antioch, and was in so far forth contrary to the sixth canon of Nicaea, and because the same decree prejudiced the rights of several primates or metropolitans," that is, of Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace. This we think was reason enough, and proves that the Roman pontiff was not only the chief custodian of the faith, but also of the canons. "The bishop of Constantinople," says St. Leo, as cited by the author, "in spite of the glory of his church, cannot make it apostolic; he has no right to aggrandize it at the expense of churches whose privileges, established by the canons of the holy fathers, and settled by the decrees of the venerable council of Nicaea, cannot be unsettled by perversity nor violated by innovation." St. Leo in the whole controversy appears as the defender of the canons against innovation, and of the catholicity of the church against Greek nationalism.

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The author continues, same page, "In his letter to the Empress Pulcheria, St. Leo declares that he has 'annulled the decree of Chalcedon by the authority of St. Peter.' These words seem at first sight to mean that he claimed for himself a sovereign [supreme] authority in the church in the name of St. Peter." Undoubtedly, not only at first sight, but at every sight. The Pope uses the strongest terms to be found in the Latin language, and terms which can be used only by one having the supreme authority, _irritus_ and _cassare_. He refuses to ratify it, declares it null, and says, "per auctoritatem Beati Petri apostoli," he makes it void. He could make no greater assumption of authority. "But," adds the author, upon a more careful and unbiased examination of his letter and other writings, "we are convinced that St. Leo only spoke as the bishop of an apostolic see, and that in this character he claimed the right, in the name of the apostles who founded his church, and of the Western countries which he represented, to resist any attempt of the Eastern Church to decide alone matters of general interest to the whole church," pp. 98, 99. If he is convinced, we are not. If such was St. Leo's meaning, why did he not say so? Why did he annul when he only meant that the canon was null, because decreed by Orientals alone; or why did he not assign that reason for annulling it, and not the reason that it was repugnant to the canons of the holy fathers and the decrees of the Council of Nicaea?

"The proof that he regarded matters in this light," (p. 99,) "is that he does not claim for himself any personal authority of divine origin, descended to him from St. Peter, but that, on the contrary, he presents himself as the defender of the canons, and looks upon the rights and reciprocal duties of the churches as having been established by the fathers and fixed by the council of Nicaea. He does not pretend that his church has any exceptional rights, emanating from another source." This proof is inconclusive. St. Leo had no occasion to claim personal authority for himself, for whatever authority he had was official, not personal, and inhered in him as the successor of Peter in the apostolic see of Rome, and in this capacity he most assuredly did claim to have authority, when he declared to the Empress Pulcheria, as we have seen, that, "by authority of Peter, he annulled and made void and of none effect," the decree of Chalcedon. What the author says he did not do, is precisely what he did do. He does not annul and make void the decree by authority vested in him by the canons, or which he holds by ecclesiastical right, but "by the authority of Peter." He, moreover, was not defending the rights and prerogatives of his own see, nor his authority as metropolitan, patriarch, or supreme pontiff, for this was not called in question; the council most fully recognized it, and in his letter defining the faith against Eutyches, it professed to hear the voice of Peter. He was defending the canons, not for himself, nor for churches subjected to him as patriarch of the West, but for Alexandria, Antioch, and the metropolitans of Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace, which the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon sought to subject to the bishop of Constantinople; and he therefore had no occasion to dwell on the exceptional rights, or rights not derived from the canons, but from God through Peter, of the Roman Church. It sufficed him to exercise them, which he did do effectually.

"By ecclesiastical right he is the first bishop of the church," the author continues; "besides, he occupies the apostolic see of the West; in these characters he _must_ interfere and prevent the ambition of one particular church from impairing rights that the canons have accorded to other bishops too feeble to resist." Wherefore must he do so? In these characters he might offer his advice, he might even refuse his assent to acts he disapproved; but he could not authoritatively interfere in any matters outside of his own particular diocese, or his own patriarchate, far less to annul and make void acts which did not concern him in either of these characters. {585} He had no right to interfere in the way he did, except as supreme pontiff and head of the whole church, and Roman theologians have never claimed for the Roman pontiff greater power than St. Leo exercised in the case of the council of Chalcedon.

"After reading all that St. Leo has written against the canon of the council of Chalcedon, it cannot be doubtful what he meant." We agree to that, nor is it doubtful what he did. He annulled and made void by authority of Peter an act of a general council, and null and void it remained.

"He does not claim for himself the autocracy which Roman theologians make the groundwork of the papal authority." Very likely not, for nobody claims it for the Roman pontiff, as we showed in our former article. He is the supreme pastor, not the autocrat, of the church. "In his letter to the fathers of the council of Chalcedon he only styles himself 'guardian of the Catholic faith and of the constitutions of the fathers,' and not chief and master of the church by divine right." Does he deny that he is chief and master by divine right? Certainly not, and no one can read his letters without feeling that in every word and syllable he speaks as a superior, in the language and tone of supreme authority. His reply to Anatolius is such as could be written only by a superior not only in rank, but in authority, and while replete with the affection of a father, it is marked by the majestic severity of supreme power.

The refusal of St. Leo to confirm the twenty-eighth canon gave rise to the report that he had refused to confirm the acts of the council, and the Eutychians, against whom its definitions of faith were directed, began to raise their heads and boldly assert that they were not condemned, that the definitions of the council against them counted for nothing, since the Roman pontiff had refused to confirm them, as he refused to confirm the doings of the Ephesian Latrocinium. The imperial court became alarmed, and the emperor wrote to St. Leo for an explicit statement of what he had done. St. Leo answers that he has confirmed all the decrees of Chalcedon defining the faith, but that he has not confirmed the decree erecting the church of Constantinople into a patriarchal church. This fact does not seem to favor the author's theory that the Roman pontiff was held to have only a primacy of honor, nor that St. Leo did not claim universal jurisdiction.

It will have been observed that the council of Chalcedon undertakes to support, very illogically indeed, the twenty-eighth canon on the authority of the third canon of the first council of Constantinople, which gave the bishop of Constantinople simply the primacy of honor after the bishop of Rome. But St. Leo, in the letter to the empress just cited, denies the authority of that canon, on the ground that it had never been communicated to Rome, and therefore could have no effect.

We have dwelt at great length on the sixth canon of Nicaea, the third canon of Constantinople, and twenty-eighth of Chalcedon, because they are the author's three strongholds, and we have wished to show that they do not in the least aid him--do in no sense contradict the papal authority, but, as far as they go, tend to confirm it. The author claims St. Leo as a witness against the Catholic doctrine of the papal supremacy, and we have thought it well to show that he has in him about such a witness as he had in St. Cyprian, or as he would have in our holy father, Pius IX., now gloriously reigning. Leo Magnus is our ideal of a pope, or visible head of the universal church, and we cannot sufficiently admire the hardihood or the stupidity that would claim him as a witness against the primacy he adorned, and the papal authority which he so gracefully and so majestically wielded, and with such grand effects for the church and the empire. {586} No nobler man, no truer saint, no greater pontiff ever sat in the chair of Peter, and no higher or more magnificent character is to be found in all history. _Sancte Leo Magne, ora pro nobis_.

The author says, p. 102: "The canons of the first oecumenical councils throw incontestably a strong light upon the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome. They are the complement to each other. The twenty-eighth canon contains nothing less than the doctrine we defend, even though the opposition of the West in the person of the bishop of Rome should strip it of its oecumenical character, as certain theologians maintain." M. Guettée finds but two canons that in any respect favor his doctrine, the third of the second general council, and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, neither of which was ever accepted by the universal church, and both of which have remained from the first without Catholic authority. A doctrine sustained or favored only by irregularity and violent innovation needs no refutation. "St. Leo," the author continues, "did not protest against it, (the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon,) as opposed to the divine and universal authority of the see of Rome, _for which he claimed only an ecclesiastical primacy_, but simply because it infringed upon the sixth canon of the council of Nicaea." That he claimed only an ecclesiastical primacy for his see is not true, for he claimed to annul the canon _by authority of Peter_. Nor did he object to it only because it infringed the sixth canon of Nicaea, but because it contained a grave innovation in the constitution of the church, and attempted to found the authority of bishops on a temporal instead of a spiritual and apostolic basis. It proposed to change entirely the basis of the pontifical authority, which had hitherto rested on Peter, and to make it rest on the empire. The church of Constantinople was not an apostolic see, and only the bishop of an apostolic see could be clothed with patriarchal authority. This seems to us to be the great objection of St. Leo. Therefore, he writes to the emperor, as already cited: "Let not the bishop of Constantinople disdain the imperial city, which he cannot make an apostolic see." Hitherto only apostolic sees, and indeed only sees founded by Peter, had been clothed with the authority of patriarchal sees; and to give to a non-apostolic and non-Petrine church authority over other metropolitan churches was to strike at apostolic authority itself, and especially at that of Peter. The whole organization of the church was from the first based on Peter as the immediate representative of Christ and prince of the apostles. The twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon was therefore aimed at Peter, and in the name and by the authority of Peter, whom he fully represented, St. Leo annulled it, and declared it void, and the author, without knowing well what he concedes, says: "St. Leo was right."

"One fact is certain, that they (the Roman pontiffs) did not convoke the first four oecumenical councils, that they did not preside over them, and that they did not confirm them." This is certain only of the second general council, or first of Constantinople. But suppose it, what follows? Simply that they were not councils of the church at all--which will be very pleasant news to Unitarians and Rationalists, who wish a Christianity without Christ--and can have the authority of general councils only by the _ex-post facto_ sanction of the universal church; but, as the two canons on which the author bases his anti-papal theory have never received that sanction, they have no authority, and never have had any. Hence, the author's theory, on any ground he chooses, has nothing in the church to sustain it. We shall, therefore, pass over what he adduces to prove the part taken by the civil authority in the councils, with the simple remark that the acts of several of them depend entirely on the confirmation of the Roman pontiff and the _ex-post facto_ sanction of the church for their authority.

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M. Guettée's proofs are not seldom proofs of the contrary of what he alleges. "It is undeniable fact," he says, p. 118, "that the dogmatic letter addressed by St. Leo to the fathers of the council was there examined, and approved for this reason: that it agreed with the doctrine of Celestine [his predecessor] and Cyril, confirmed by the council of Ephesus." That the letter was read in the council, and that the council adopted its definitions of faith, is true; but that it was approved for the reason alleged does not appear from the proofs the author adduces. He continues, pp. 118, 119: "At the close of the reading, the bishops exclaimed: 'Such is the faith of the fathers; this is the faith of the apostles. We all believe thus. Anathema to those who do not thus believe. Peter has spoken by Leo. Thus taught the apostles. Leo teaches according to piety and truth, and thus has Cyril taught.'" Any one not bent on proving the papacy schismatic would gather from this that the bishops approved of the letter because they recognized in it the doctrine of the apostles and the tradition of the fathers.

The author imagines that he gets an argument against the papacy from St. Leo's refusal to accept the title of _universal bishop_ offered him by the council of Chalcedon, as we learn from Pope St. Gregory the Great. He also thinks the argument is strengthened by the fact that St. Gregory himself disclaimed it; and he therefore claims both of these great pontiffs and great saints as witnesses against the pretensions of the bishops of Rome. If they had believed in their jurisdiction by divine right over the whole church, would they have refused the title of universal bishop?

John the Faster, Bishop of Constantinople, on some occasion summoned a particular council, and signed its acts, which he transmitted to Pope Pelagius II. as universal patriarch, for which, as St. Gregory says, Pelagius, "in virtue of the authority of the apostle St. Peter, nullified the acts of the synod." Gregory succeeded Pelagius, and immediately on his accession to the pontificate wrote to the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, condemning the title, and warning them and the whole church of the danger it threatened; and also he wrote to John the Faster himself, admonishing him of the impropriety of the title, not only as savoring of pride and vanity, but as involving a most serious error against faith, and beseeching him to lay it aside, lest he be obliged to cut him off from the communion of the church, and depose him from his bishopric. He does not at all disclaim his own authority as supreme pastor and governor of the universal church, but quietly assumes it. Thus, he writes to the emperor Maurice, as cited by the author: "All who know the gospel know that the care of the whole church was confided by our Lord himself to Peter, the first (St. Gregory says _prince_) of all the apostles. Indeed, he said to him, 'Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.' Again he said to him: 'Satan has desired to sift thee as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.' It was also said to him: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' He thus received the keys of the celestial kingdom; the power to bind and loose was given him; the care of all the church and the primacy [_principatus_--principality, or primacy of jurisdiction] were committed to him, and yet he did not call himself _universal apostle_. But that holy man John, (bishop of Constantinople,) my brother in the priesthood, [cosacerdos,] would fain assume the title of _universal bishop_! O tempora! O mores!" (Pp. 212, 213.)

"It is certain," St. Gregory continues, "that this title was offered to the Roman pontiff by the venerable council of Chalcedon, to honor Blessed Peter, prince of the apostles. {588} But none of us has consented to use this particular title, [title of singularity,] lest by conferring a special matter on one alone, all priests would be deprived of the honor which is their due. How, then, while we are not ambitious of the glory of a title which has been offered us, does another, to whom no one has offered it, have the presumption to take it?" (Pp. 214, 215.)

In his letter to Eulogius of Alexandria and Anastatius of Antioch, St. Gregory is more explicit still, "As your holiness, whom I particularly venerate, well knows, this title of _universal_, was offered by the council of Chalcedon to the bishop [pontiff] of the apostolic see, which by God's grace I serve. But none of my predecessors would use this impious word, because in reality, if a patriarch be called _universal_, it takes from all others the title of patriarch." The author, after quoting a passage from another letter to Eulogius, adds: "Thus did Pope Gregory condemn even in the person of the bishops of Rome the title of pope and universal." But in this he is mistaken, as his own quotation shows. Eulogius answers that he will not give the title of universal patriarch to the bishop of Constantinople, but that he gives that of universal pope to the Roman pontiff. "No," says St. Gregory, "if your holiness calls me universal pope, you deny yourself what I should then be altogether." The author interpolates in his quotation the copulative _and_, which is not in St. Gregory's text. It is not to the title of pope that St. Gregory objects, which was and is applied to simple presbyters, but the title _universal_, which he will not permit to be applied to any man, because it excludes others from all participation in the hierarchy, or even the priesthood. If you call a man a universal presbyter, you deny that any others are presbyters; if you call any one universal bishop, you exclude all others from the episcopate; if you call any one universal patriarch, you deny the patriarchate to all others; and if you call the bishop of Rome universal pope, since as such he possesses the priesthood, and both the apostolate and the episcopate in their plenitude, you exclude all others from sharing the priesthood, the episcopate, or the apostolate, even the pope himself from the church, and deny the solidarity of apostles, bishops, and presbyters, asserted, as we have seen, by St. Cyprian.

Eulogius was priest, bishop, and patriarch, and as such was the brother of the Roman pontiff. This brotherhood remained all the same, whether the Roman pontiff had or not supreme jurisdiction over the whole church. When Eulogius called St. Gregory, not, as the author says, pope _and_ universal, but universal pope, he denied this brotherhood, and deprived himself of his own priestly, episcopal, and apostolic character. Hence, St. Gregory, after saying to him and other bishops. "I know what I am, and what you are; by your place or office, you are my brothers, by your virtues, my fathers," he adds, in reference to the title of universal which Eulogius had given him, "I beseech your holiness to do so no more in future, for you take from yourself what you give in excess to another. I do not ask to increase in dignities, but in virtues. I do not esteem that an honor by which my brethren are deprived of theirs. For my honor is the honor of the universal church, my honor is the unshaken firmness of my brethren. Then am I truly honored when to no one is denied the honor that is his due. For, if your holiness calls me universal pope, you deny that you are yourself what I should be confessed to be universally. Sed absit hoc, Recedant verba quae vanitatem inflant, et charitatem vulnerant." [Footnote 180]

[Footnote 180: Opp. S. Gregorii Magni, lib. viii. epist. xxx. Migne's
edition, tom, iii. col. 953.]

We may call the bishop of Rome pope of the universal church, but not universal pope, nor universal bishop, because he only possesses in its plenitude what is possessed in a degree by every member of the hierarchy, and even now, as always, the pope addresses the bishops in communion with him as "Venerable Brethren." {589} The argument against the claim of the bishop of Rome to jurisdiction in the universal church, which the author attempts to build on the refusal of the title of universal bishop by St. Leo, and that of universal pope, _papa universalis_, by St. Gregory, is refuted by St. Gregory himself, as cited in the volume before us, pp. 212, 213. The holy pontiff and doctor, after asserting that our Lord had given to Peter the primacy of jurisdiction, and confided to him the care of the universal church, adds that Peter "did not call himself _universal apostle_." Peter was not the only apostle, and the others could not be excluded from the apostleship. He was prince of the apostles, their chief, the centre of apostolic unity and authority, as St. Cyprian explains, and had the care and jurisdiction (_principatus_) of the universal church, as Gregory asserts, but inclusive, not exclusive of the other apostles. Peter held in relation to the other apostles and the whole church all the supremacy claimed by Catholics for the bishop of Rome. If, then, the refusal of the title of universal apostle by St. Peter did not negative his supreme authority, why should the refusal of the title of universal bishop or universal pope by the bishops of Rome negative their supremacy, or their primacy of jurisdiction in the whole church? Peter held that primacy, and yet was not universal apostle, and why not, then, the bishop of Rome, without being universal bishop or universal pope?

The author is unhappy in his witnesses, and they are all too decidedly Roman to testify otherwise than against him. He cites other eminent fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, but he raises no new questions, and makes no points in his favor not already met and disposed of; and we may, therefore, pass over what he adduces, since, as we continue to remind our readers, we are not adducing our proofs of the papal authority, but refuting his arguments or pretended arguments against it.

In his fifth division, chapter, or section, the author examines "the authority of the bishop of Rome in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries." We have anticipated him in regard to St. Gregory the Great, the most prominent papal figure in these centuries, and shown that this great pontiff and doctor, who justly ranks along with St. Leo, offers no testimony in support of the author's vain attempt to prove the papacy schismatic. We have read this section of his book with care, but we find that, while he shows very clearly that the Roman pontiff, to save the faith and the constitution and canons of the church from the attacks of the heretics and schismatics of the East, was obliged to intervene with his supreme authority in the affairs of the Eastern churches more frequently than in earlier ages, he brings forward nothing different from what has already been refuted to prove that they did not possess the authority which they exercised by divine right. We may say, then, that the author has totally failed to establish his first conclusion, that "the bishop of Rome did not for eight centuries possess the sovereignty of divine right which he has since sought to exercise." The facts he adduces prove that during those centuries the popes did exercise all the authority they have as supreme pontiffs since exercised, and that they professed to exercise it by divine right, and without any contradiction by the universal church. No doubt the author has adduced instances in which general councils have recognized it, and made it the basis of their action; but this does not prove that the papal authority was conferred by the church, and was held only by ecclesiastical right. No doubt the civil authority on more than one occasion recognized it and made it the law of the empire, but this does not prove that it was held as a grant of the emperor, but the reverse rather. {590} The author, then, has not refuted the argument from possession, turned the presumption against the papacy, or proved that he and his friends the Non-united Greeks are not decidedly schismatics in resisting the council of Florence, in which both the East and West were represented and united.

The author, having failed to establish his first conclusion, notwithstanding his misquotations, mistranslations, and misrepresentations of facts, which are numerous and barefaced enough to excite the envy of his editor, the Protestant Episcopal bishop of Western New-York, cannot prove his second conclusion, namely: The pretension of the bishops of Rome to the sovereignty of divine right over the whole church was the cause of the division. This depends on the first, and falls with it; for it is necessary to deny the divine authority of the pope to govern the whole church before his assumption and exercise of that authority can be held to be a usurpation, and the cause of the divisions which result from resistance to it. Resistance otherwise is illegal, unauthorized, and conclusive evidence of schism, or, rather, is undeniably itself schism. The resistance on the part of the Eastern bishops and prelates to the Roman pontiff in the exercise of his legitimate authority was schism, as much so as an armed insurrection against the political sovereign is rebellion, and the rebels cannot allege that the sovereign in the exercise of his legitimate authority is the cause of their rebellion, and hold him responsible for it.

The author, forgetting that the pope is in possession, and that throughout the presumption is in favor of his authority, argues as if the presumption was on the other side, and the _onus probandi_ was on us. He, therefore, concludes that every exercise of papal jurisdiction beyond the patriarchate of the West is a usurpation, and resistance to it justifiable, unless we are able to prove the contrary. We deny it, and maintain that it is for him to prove that jurisdiction is usurped, and not held by divine right. The laboring oar is in his hands. It is always for those who resist authority to justify their resistance. The author can justify his resistance to papal authority only by producing some law of God or some canon of the universal church that restricts the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff to the Western patriarchate, and forbids him to exercise jurisdiction over the whole church. A law or edict to that effect of the empire or canon of the Eastern churches alone, could it be produced, would not avail him; it must be a decision of the universal church, even according to his own doctrine. He alleges no such act or canon, and can allege none, for all the acts or canons of the universal church bearing on the question, unhappily for him, are the other way.

The author adduces the third canon of the second general council, and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, but these canons, having never been assented to by the West, are without the authority of the universal church. And, besides they do not distinctly deny the supreme authority of the bishop of Rome, and only profess to confer the first rank and authority after the Roman pontiff on the bishop of Constantinople. It is a strong presumption against the author that he does not even allege any law or canon of the universal church which the popes have violated, and his charge against them is that of presenting themselves as defenders of the canons against innovation, as in the refusal of St. Leo to accept the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon.

But the author, with his usual facility, refutes himself, and shows that it was not the pretension of the bishops of Rome, but the pretensions of the bishop of Constantinople and of the secular government that caused the division. We have seen that the third canon of the second general council, and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, which was annulled by St. Leo, were in violation of the canons, but were prompted by the ambition of the bishop of Constantinople and the secular authority. {591} "We can perceive," says the author, p. 100. "in the struggles between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, respecting the twenty-eighth canon of the council of Chalcedon, the origin of the dissensions which afterward led to an entire rupture." And why did these dissensions lead to an entire rupture? Certainly because the same parties continued to maintain the same claims in relation to each other. The ground of the dissension remained always the same. The question, then, is, which party in the beginning was in the right, and which was in the wrong? "In principle," says the author on the same page, "St. Leo was right;" that is, right in defending the canons of the holy fathers and the decrees of the venerable council of Nicaea against their violation and subversion by the innovations of Constantinople and Chalcedon. St. Leo, the author himself says, presented himself as the defender of antiquity and the canons of Nicaea; he must, then, have been right not only in principle, but in fact. The real cause of the division was not the pretension of the bishops of Rome to an authority which they did not possess, but their refusal to assent to the violent and shameless usurpations of Constantinople. The attitude of the popes and the ground on which they resisted from first to last, were distinctly taken by St. Leo in his letter to the emperor, Marcian, already cited: "Privilegia ecclesiarum, sanctorum Patrum canonibus instituta et venerabilis Nicaenae synodi fixa decretis, nulla possunt improbitate convelli, nulla mutari novitate." [Footnote 181]

[Footnote 181: Ad Marcianum Augustum, epist. 105, edit. Migne.]

But St. Leo "could not deny," says the author, "that one general council had the same rights as another that had preceded it." But, even if so, none of the innovations proposed by the East and opposed by the bishops of Rome have ever had the authority of a general council. There is and can be, even according to the author and his schismatic Greek friends, no general council without the bishop of Rome; and the canons on which the author relies were from the first resisted by the Roman pontiff, and, therefore, could not override or abrogate the decrees of the council of Nicaea.

The whole controversy originated in the attempt to raise the see of Constantinople, which was not an apostolic, a patriarchal or even a metropolitan see, to the rank and authority of the first see in the church after that of the see of Rome, contrary to the sixth canon of Nicaea, to the constitution of the church, to ancient usage, and to the prejudice of the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, and the metropolitans of Pontus, Asia, (Minor.) and Thrace. On what ground does the author seek to defend this attempt, always resisted by the Roman pontiffs and the whole West? Simply on the ground that the rank and authority of a see are derived from the splendor and importance of the city in the empire. He assigns and pretends to assign no other ground. "The Nicaean council," he says, "in consecrating the usage by which the bishop of Rome was regarded as the first in honor in the church, had in view not as much the apostolic origin of his see as the splendor which he acquired from the importance of the city of Rome. ... Why, then, should not the bishop of Constantinople have been received as second in rank, Constantinople having become the second capital of the empire; since the bishop of Rome was first in rank, only because of its position as the first capital?" (Pp. 100, 101.)

The argument is worthless, because its premises are false. In the first place, the question is one of authority as well as of rank. In the second place, the council of Nicaea did not consecrate the usage by which the primacy, whether of honor or jurisdiction, was ascribed to the bishop of Rome, but confirmed the usage by which the bishop of Alexandria, the bishop of Antioch, and other metropolitans held a certain rank, and enjoyed certain privileges, and gave as their reason that a like usage or custom obtained with the bishop of Rome. {592} In the third place, the council says not one word about the splendor acquired by the Roman pontiff from the importance of the city of Rome; and we have proved that, whatever his rank and authority, he derived it from the fact that his see was held to be the see of Peter, and he the successor of Peter, the prince of the apostles. Finally, the author has no ground for his assertion, except the third canon of the second general council and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, the latter authoritatively annulled and the former declared to be without effect by St. Leo, and neither ever receiving the sanction or assent of the universal church. The ground on which the bishop of Constantinople based his ambitious pretensions, that of being bishop of the second capital of the empire, is wholly untenable. "Alia ratio est rerum secularium, alia divinarum," says St. Leo. "We laughed," says Pope St. Gelasius as cited by the author, p. 198, "at what they (the Eastern bishops) claim for Acacius (bishop of Constantinople) because he was bishop of the imperial city. ... The power of the secular empire is one thing, the distribution of ecclesiastical dignities is quite a different thing. However small a city may be, it does not diminish the greatness of the prince who dwells there; but it is quite as true that the presence of the emperor does not change the order of religion; and such a city should rather profit by its advantages to preserve the freedom of religion, by keeping peaceably within its proper limits."

From first to last, one is struck, in reading the history of the controversy, not only with the superior calmness and dignity of the Roman pontiffs, but with their profound wisdom and catholic sense. They defend throughout the catholicity of the church against Greek nationalism, and the independence of the kingdom of Christ on earth against its subjection to the secular empire, which was attempted and finally succeeded at Constantinople, and is the case in Russia, Great Britain, and all modern schismatical and heretical states and empires. The author sees and appreciates nothing of this; he comprehends nothing of the church as the mystic body of Christ, the continuous representation of the Incarnation; his ideas are external, political, unspiritual, and, as far as appears from his book, pagan rather than Christian. The church he recognizes, as far as he recognizes any, is national, not catholic, and holds from the imperial authority, not from Christ, and has no completeness in itself.

It was precisely in nationalism, in regarding the church as organized for the Roman empire, not for the whole world, and in recognizing the authority of the civil power in theological and ecclesiastical matters, as the author himself unwittingly shows, that the Greek schism originated. The bishop of Constantinople, having in the hierarchy no apostolic, patriarchal, or metropolitan rank or authority beyond that which is held by every suffragan bishop, was obliged, in order to defend his ambitious aspirations to the second rank in the church, to give the hierarchy a secular origin, and to fall back on the imperial authority to support him. The idea was pagan, not Christian, and was but too acceptable to the Byzantine Caesars. In pagan Rome the emperor was at once imperator and pontifex maximus, and held in his own person the supreme authority in both civil and religious matters. He preserved the tradition of this in Christian Rome, and continually struggled to be under Christianity what he had been under paganism. In the West the imperial pretensions were in the main successfully resisted, though not without long and bitter struggles, which have not even yet completely ended; but in the East, owing to the ambition and frequent heresy of the bishop of Constantinople, rarely faithful to the church after Constantinople became an imperial capital, and the great patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, weakened by the Arian, Nestorian, monophysite, and monothelite heresies, and betrayed by the heretics, had fallen, through the pride, treachery, and imbecility of the Byzantine court, under the power of the Mohammedans, those bitter enemies of the cross, the emperor was enabled to grasp the pontifical power, to bring the administration of religion under his despotic control, to make and unmake, murder or exile bishops at his will or the caprices of the ladies of his court. Hence the Greek schism.

{593}

And this is what M. Guettée defends; and because the Roman pontiffs did all in their power to resist such open profanation and secularizing of the church, he has the impudence to contend that it was the usurpations of Rome that caused the schism, and he has found a Protestant Episcopal bishop in Western New-York ignorant enough or shameless enough to endorse him, and to assure us that he is a Catholic in the true sense of the word!

Notwithstanding the author defends the usurpations of the imperial authority and the ambitious pretensions of the courtly bishops of Constantinople, and maintains that all the general councils held in the East were convoked and presided over by the emperors, he does not blush to object to the council of Florence on the ground that the reunion effected in that council was brought about by the ambition of a few Eastern prelates and the undue pressure of the emperor of Constantinople. If the intervention of the emperor did not in his judgment vitiate the third canon of the first council of Constantinople, or the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon, or the fifth or sixth general council, what right has he to pretend that a far less intervention on the emperor's part vitiated the canons of the council of Florence? On the principles he has defended throughout, the emperor may convoke, preside over a council, dictate and confirm its acts, without detriment to its authority as a general council. He is by his own principles, then, bound to accept the canons of Florence as the voice of the universal church, for they were adopted by the East and West united, and are and have been constantly adhered to by the West and the Eastern churches proper, and resisted only by heretics and schismatics, who have no voice in the church.

We need proceed no further. We have said enough to refute the author in principle, and are tired of him, as must be our readers. We said in the beginning that he had told us nothing in his book that we did not know before; but we are obliged to confess that the examination of authorities into which it has forced us has made us feel as we never felt before how truly the church is founded on Peter, brought home to us the deep debt of gratitude the world owes to the Roman pontiffs, and enabled us to see more clearly than we ever had done the utter groundlessness, the glaring iniquity, and the open paganism of the Greek schism. The author has made us, we almost fear, an ultra-papist, and certainly has strengthened our attachment, already strong, to the Holy Apostolic See. He has served to us the office of the drunken Helotae to the Spartan youth. It is in relation to its purpose the weakest and absurdest book we have ever read, and has not, so far as the author is concerned, a Christian thought from beginning to end. If this book fairly represents the Christian intelligence and sentiments of the Non-united Greeks, it is hard to see wherein they are to be preferred to the Turks, or why Christendom should seek their deliverance from the Mohammedan yoke.

If M. Guettée's readers will weigh well the arguments for the papacy he reproduces for the sake of refuting them, and his quotations from the fathers and the Roman pontiffs for the sake of blunting their force, they will find that, in spite of misquotations, mistranslations, and misrepresentations, the book carries with it its own antidote. It can do real harm only to those who cannot weigh testimony, who never think, and are utterly unable to reason.

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Impressions of Spain.

By Lady Herbert.

Excursions Near Seville.

The excursions in the neighborhood of Seville are full of beauty and interest of various kinds. One of the first undertaken by our travellers was to the ruins of Italica, the ancient Seville, formerly an important Roman city, and the birthplace of Trajan and of Adrian. In the church, half convent and half fortress, are two very fine statues of St. Isidore and St. Jerome, by Montanés. Here St. Isidore began his studies. He was hopelessly dull and slow, and was tempted to give up the whole thing in despair, when one day, being in a brown study, his eye fell on an old well, the marble sides of which were worn into grooves by the continual friction of the cord which let down the bucket. "If a cord can thus indent marble," he said to himself, "why should not constant study and perseverance make an impression on my mind?" His resolution was taken, and he became the light of his age and country. The well which gave him this useful lesson is still shown near the south door of the church. Here also is the monument of Doña Uraca Osorio, a lady who was burnt to death by order of King Pedro the Cruel, for having resisted his addresses. The flames having consumed the lower part of her dress, her faithful maid rushed into the fire, and died in endeavoring to conceal her mistress. In the sacristy is a very curious Byzantine picture of the Virgin. Leaving the church our party went on to the amphitheatre, which has recently been excavated, and must have contained ten or twelve thousand people. A fine mosaic has lately been discovered, which evidently formed part of the ancient pavement. The custode was a character, and lived in a primitive little cabin at the entrance of the circus: a moss bed and a big cat seemed the only furniture. He was very proud of his tiny garden, poor old man! and of his wall-flowers, of which he gave the ladies a large bunch, together with a few silver coins which had been dug up in the excavations.

On their way home they passed by a cemetery in which was a very beautiful though simple marble cross. On it were engraved these three lines:

Creo en Dios.
Espero en Dies.
Amo á Dios.