De Ecclesia Christi

« Christ Jesus so established his kingdom on earth that, both in the immediate preparation (Matt. XVI.; Luke XXII.) and in the corresponding execution (John XXI.), he chose one Simon Peter from the rest and above the other Apostles, and invested him with supreme and universal power, both over the individual parts and individual members of the Church and over the whole body of the Church. This power is vicarious, derived from Christ; immediate, with an immediacy of power, over the whole and over the parts; full with respect to the proper object of the kingdom of heaven on earth. For this reason, by this very power, there is constituted the principle forming and holding together the visible unity of the Church, from the institution of Christ the founder himself, and therefore by divine right. »

After, in the first appearance (John XX. 21), the mission was given by Christ to the Apostles according to the analogy of Christ's mission from the Father, and the apostolic power was thus instituted as a whole in the kingdom of God on earth, the Lord, in the two later epiphanies as the Evangelists relate them, now distinctly determines and declares the order and manner of power in the Church, and by this very fact determines and declares the form of his visible Church.

According to the Evangelists (Matt. XXVIII. 7, 10; Mark XVI. 7) the disciples, and in Mark expressly Peter, are bidden to await the Lord's manifestations in Galilee: « tell his disciples and Peter that he goes before you into Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you » (l. c.). From this admonition it can rightly be conjectured that these appearances in Galilee would be the more notable, and of the greatest importance, for the Apostles and especially for Peter.¹ In fact, since by far the chief aim of these manifestations was to complete the institutions and constitution of the kingdom of God, we see this kingdom fully constituted in its fundamental principles in these two epiphanies which the Gospels relate as having taken place in Galilee, John XXI. and Matt. XXVIII.: with one supreme shepherd instituted over all the sheep of Christ, and power over all nations handed over to the college of Apostles and explained.

John deliberately notes that the manifestation he narrates in chapter XXI was the third among those made to the disciples (τοῖς μαθηταῖς). From this, first of all, it is understood that the Evangelist had a special way of counting the appearances made to the college of Apostles; for if all the other appearances narrated in the Gospels were counted, this would not be the third but the seventh. Further, we learn that appearances are counted as made to the whole college, whether all the Apostles were present, as in the second, or some were absent, as in the first and this third. Whence again is demonstrated both that the Apostolic college is constituted as one body, and (which follows from this) the principle of representation², inasmuch as not only those present but also those absent are included in the rights conferred and the offices imposed, as we have already noted above from Saints Cyril and Augustine. Lastly, from this numbering of John it is clear that this manifestation, directed to the establishment of the visible head both for the Apostles and for the whole fold of Christ Jesus, was prior to the other in Matthew XXVIII.; in that later one, therefore, the power and mission to all nations can be understood as given to the Apostolic college now constituted under one head, and not except in union and subordination under that same head. It is well worth noting that the Founder of the Church observed this same order constantly in the promise of power in Matt. XVI. and XVIII. Whence it is also plain that in the mission given to the Apostolic college, with Peter included, of which we treated in the preceding thesis, the internal constitution and subordination within the college itself was presupposed and reserved by the Saviour, from the earlier promise (Matt. XVI.) and from the institution about to follow (John XXI.); so that there was no need to state it explicitly in that mission, which he there determined only in general terms from his own mission by the Father.

With these things noted in passing, we come to consider the institution itself made in this third manifestation of Christ, so far as a more distinct understanding of the institution of the Church requires. For we are not now writing about the principate of Peter and his successors in its full extent. But since the divine founder of the Church expressly declared the reasons for the visible head he had established in Peter, not only in the institution itself, which we are now considering, but also in a really parallel explanation, under another and different scheme, in the promise for the future (Matt. XVI.; Luke XXII. 31, 32), therefore, as we forewarned above, it is necessary to join these divine testimonies together, so that one may illuminate the other for our understanding.

Certainly between the promise and the institution itself there is a manifest parallelism. Everywhere the same person testifies and institutes, Christ the founder of the Church; the same person, to whom alone, above all others, both the testimony and the institution refer, Simon Peter; the same term of persons, in preference to whom and over whom Peter is constituted, namely the college of Apostles and the universal Church of Christ, under different names: « my Church, the kingdom of heaven; your brethren, my sheep and my lambs; » the same real object, namely the same power, promised and instituted, under the differing metaphors of the rock of the Church, the keys of the kingdom, the firmament of faith, the pastorate of the fold of Christ; and finally the same end in both promise and institution. The end, I say, is the proper form, the unfailing security, the visible unity of the Church.

« He asked his disciples... but you, who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answering said..... And Jesus answering said to him: you are blessed, Simon Bar Iona.... and I say to you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church... and to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven » Matt. « Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired you... but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, once converted, strengthen your brethren » Luke. « This is now the third time that Jesus has appeared to his disciples, after he rose from the dead. So when they had dined, Jesus says to Simon Peter: Simon, son of John³: do you love me more than these?..... He says to him: feed my lambs... feed my sheep » John.

Four things come into consideration, determined by the promise and institution of Christ the founder of the Church: the subject of the power; the terminating object, or extension of the power; the formal object, or intension of the same power; and finally, and for our present purpose most of all, the end of the power, which is the form of visible and indefectible unity, constituted through this supreme power by Christ and inserted into the universal Church.

I. As to the subject, it is clearer from the explicit words of both the promise and the institution than to admit of further demonstration that it is one Simon, son of John, to whom are promised and conferred the things contained in the three passages cited, and who is formally constituted Peter: namely, « Peter, called the rock on which the Church is to be built, who obtained the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the power of loosing and binding in heaven and on earth » (Tertullian, Prescriptions, c. 22.). Equally clear is that he alone is the subject above the other Apostles, since he is evidently chosen alone from all, considered together in the manner of one body or college, in whose presence, and in which college, the office expressed there is promised and conferred on that one Simon Peter. Nevertheless, two points deserve some clarification: first, what is held in the double passage of Matthew and John about the fitting disposition of the subject of promise and institution; and second, certain sayings of the holy Fathers which, if taken in a backward sense, could introduce obscurity.

1°. As a fitting disposition for the promise, the profession of faith in Christ, the Son of the living God, made by Peter before all the Apostles, with charity included, is elicited by the Saviour himself. « But you (all the Apostles, with Peter viewed among them), who do you say that I am? » Above all the rest, « Simon Peter answering said (by a special revelation of the Father who is in heaven): you are Christ, the Son of the living God. » In the same way, the very conferral of the promised power is preceded by a threefold solemn challenge to Peter, above the other Apostles, to a profession of charity in Christ, the Son of the living God, certainly with faith supposed as its foundation. « Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He answered him: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. » Faith is laid first as the groundwork for the promise, charity then for its execution: « faith and charity are the beginning and the end of life; the beginning is faith, the end is charity; these two, joined in unity, are of God » (ἀρχὴ μὲν πίστις, τέλος δὲ ἀγάπη. τὰ δὲ δύο ἐν ἑνότητι γενόμενα θεοῦ ἐστιν), St. Ignatius Martyr, Letter to the Ephesians n. 14. To this double profession, therefore, of faith in charity and of charity in faith, proclaimed by Peter alone among all and above all the Apostles, the Lord responded directly with the words of his promise and institution: « You are Christ, the Son of the living God; and I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. » « You know that I love you: feed my lambs... feed my sheep. » Now you see what weight belongs to the difficulty usually raised: that Peter made the profession in the name of all the Apostles, and so what is given by Christ in return for the profession pertains equally to all, so that just as they were equal in profession, so too they should be made equal in power. But this profession supposed to be made in the name of others is explicitly excluded in the very conferral of the office in John; for there the Lord asks about the love of Peter alone, and about his love above all the other Apostles: « Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? » Hence, since the promise certainly corresponds to the execution, and the office is conferred on the profession of love of Peter alone, it must necessarily be held that the office promised was also promised to the profession of faith of Peter alone. As for the profession of faith itself in Matthew, Christ had indeed asked all, « you, who do you say that I am? » and after the profession was made « he commanded his disciples that they should tell no one (for that time) that he is Christ; » nevertheless the profession was Peter's alone; nor did he answer, as he had a few months earlier in John VI. 70, « we have believed and known that you are the Christ, the Son of God » ⁴; but he testified simply concerning the firmness and fervour of his own faith: « you are Christ, the Son of the living God; » indeed Christ himself declared that this special gift of faith comes from the revelation of the Father, and declared it for Peter alone at that time, and for that very reason pronounced him blessed above the other Apostles: « blessed are you, Simon Bar Iona, because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. » Moreover, even if, with all these things taken into account, we were to suppose altogether the same disposition of faith in all the Apostles, and concede besides that Peter wished to express not only his own faith but that of all, as their leader in the confession ⁵, it would still be utterly absurd to conclude equality of office from supposed equality of faith. For the promise of office is not a promise of wages owed to all who would be in the same disposition; but a profession of faith cannot be conceived except as a fitting disposition, to which, freely and evidently not to all but to Peter alone, with clear distinction from all the others, the office of the rock and foundation of the whole Church is promised (as a gift freely given).

Although, however, theologians customarily bring forward this profession, by which the one Peter is distinguished from all the other Apostles and is himself disposed to the promise and conferral of the office, as an evident argument, on the basis of certain sayings of the Fathers, to demonstrate that Peter himself is the immediate subject of the office, nevertheless the divine Saviour, in requiring so solemn a profession in the very foundation of the Church, undoubtedly wished to signify something greater, by which the end, dignity and property of the office he was instituting in Peter might be made manifest. « The Lord asks (do you love me more than these?), not in order to learn, but to teach, whom he was leaving to us as vicar of his love, about to be raised up into heaven » Ambrose, on Luke, Bk. X, n. 175. Clearly a profession of faith and charity is required, because the office itself is constituted as the foundation of the unity of faith and of the communion of charity in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. For upon the rock is founded « the congregation of the holy Church, which rises as one connected and compact body (cf. Eph. IV. 16) by the unity of faith and charity » Ambrose, On the Duties III, c. 3, n. 19. Explicitly we are taught about Peter's own profession, that he confessed Christ the Son of the living God with the Spirit of the Father working in the heart of the believer, « so that, prepared for the governance of the whole Church, he might first learn what he was to teach, and for the stability of the faith he was to preach, might hear: you are Peter » etc. St. Leo the Great, Sermon 60 (al. 62), c. 2. « Therefore blessed Peter, who confessed Christ with true faith, and followed him with true love, specially received the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the principate of judicial power, so that all believers throughout the world might understand that whoever in any way separates themselves from the unity of faith or the fellowship of it, such persons..... cannot enter the gate of the heavenly kingdom » Bede, on Matthew XVI. 19. This same thing, about the special Church of Peter, certainly on account of Peter, in whom the privilege of the see is identified in faith and charity while he presides (on which we shall speak later), the most ancient Fathers have already said: that in the faith handed down « all the Church must come together to it, » and that it « presides over charity » (προκαθημένη τῆς ἀγάπης). St. Ignatius, Letter to the Romans; Irenaeus III. 3.

For one must carefully distinguish the personal disposition through the profession of faith and charity, and the exercise of that same profession, as it is contained in the office itself promised and instituted. For when faith and charity are regarded as referred to the visible Church, and so in the visible external exercise, it is not a personal disposition but the property of the office that comes from Christ's own institution. This property of the office is declared when the Church is said to be built upon the rock in such a way that the consequent effect follows from this very thing, that « the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; » likewise when the author and finisher of faith promises Peter: « I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail, » to the end that is subjoined: « and you, once converted, strengthen your brethren; » and when finally he appoints Peter to « feed his sheep, » to whom he had already testified that a fold would never fail (« one fold and one shepherd »): « no one shall snatch them out of my hand..... out of the hand of my Father » (John X. 16, 28, 29.).

2°. From what has been said, that the subject of the promises in Matthew, as of the institution in John, is the one Peter is so clear that it can in no way be believed that there were among the Fathers any who denied that the words of the promise pertain to that same Simon, son of Jonah, named and to be constituted from his office Peter of the Church of Jesus Christ. If, therefore, some seem at times to have said otherwise, it can easily be shown that they did not disagree in substance, but, for some special aim of their own, in their manner of explanation.

There are very many Fathers who say that the Church is promised to be built upon the faith or confession of Peter (see the Fathers as cited by Ballerini, On the Primacy, c. 12). Clearly they mean that the foundation of the Church is constituted not by faith taken generally or abstractly, but by the faith of Peter in concrete, and that faith as proposed in confession and teaching; which is the same as saying that Peter, under the formal aspect of one who professes and teaches the faith, is constituted the rock upon which the Church is built, the kingdom of truth, whose inner form uniting and enlivening it is faith itself. Not the man, son of Jonah, in his natural order, but Peter in the supernatural order of faith is placed as the foundation of the Church, which is chiefly to be built in faith, so that, from the solidity imparted to the foundation by Christ the builder, the gates of hell may not prevail against the Church itself. « Faith therefore is the foundation of the Church; for it was not said of the flesh of Peter but of faith that the gates of death shall not prevail against him; but the confession conquered hell (namely the confession of Peter, on account of which it was said to him: you are Peter, and the gates of hell shall not prevail).... for since the Church is often beaten by many waves, like a good ship, the foundation of the Church must hold against all heresies » Ambrose, On the Incarnation c. 5. It is not an abstract confession, you are Christ, the Son of the living God, that is the foundation holding against all heresies, but Peter confessing, made in this confession⁶ the rock of the Church. « Peter had confessed him the Son of God, and in that confession had been called a rock, upon which the Church would be built » Augustine, on Ps. 69, n. 4. « He who for an hour had denied, the holy Peter, the supreme prince of the Apostles, has become for us a truly solid rock, founding the faith of the Lord, upon which the Church has been built in every way (Peter made the rock, the foundation of faith, upon which, the faith being thus firmed, the Church is built, that is, built upon a rock, the foundation of faith, derived and ministerial). First indeed, because he confessed Christ, the Son of the living God, and heard: upon this rock of infallible faith I will build my Church » ⁷ Epiphanius, Heresies 59, n. 7 (T. I, p. 500, ed. Patav.). « I think that by a derived name he called nothing else the rock than the unshakable and firmest faith of the disciple, upon which the Church of Christ has been established and fixed, without falling, and remains unconquerable even by the gates of hell itself... Peter was adorned with such excellent gifts (so that he might be the rock of the Church, which he had called a little before the reward, ἀντέκτισιν, of the confession), having confessed him to be the Son of God » ⁸ Cyril of Alexandria, Dialogue on the Trinity IV, T. V, P. I, p. 507. « Although I am an inviolable rock..., yet you too are a rock, because you are made firm by my power... upon this strength I will build an eternal temple, and the sublimity of my Church, to be carried to heaven, will rise in the firmness of this faith » St. Leo, Sermon 3, n. 2, on his assumption.

If at any time, by a certain consequence drawn from the firmness of faith and confession, some faithful person is called a rock, nevertheless he cannot be called the rock upon which the Church is built, except by transferring the name Church to some quite different and allegorical meaning. This once pleased Origen ⁹; but he would certainly be laughable who inferred from this that this sense is proper to those words of Christ, or at least was supposed by Origen.

3°. When the Fathers treat of the power of the keys promised to Peter, in order to show that it was not so personal to Peter as to end in him (which the Montanists, and with them Tertullian, asserted), but that a perpetual power of loosing and binding must be understood to exist in the Church, they sometimes say that Peter, in the promise and receipt of the keys, bore the person of the Church. Three things are contained in this doctrine. a) The Church indeed received the keys, but only in Peter, insofar as they were promised to and conferred on Peter as bearing the person of all his successors; so the subject of the power is Peter, and in the same way each of his successors in the whole series, as long as the Church, or the kingdom of God on earth, shall endure. β) The whole power was promised and conferred for the Church, that is, for the good of the Church. Therefore the Church received it in two ways: if taken as a whole, the body with its visible head, the Church received it as subject, but in its head as in the immediate subject, as man is the subject of intellect and will, though these faculties are in the soul as their immediate subject. If, on the other hand, the Church is considered in distinction from its visible head, it received the power as the object for which it was conferred, whose subject is the visible head of the Church itself. Thus God promised and conferred an everlasting kingdom on David and on the people of Israel, but in different ways. Lastly, γ) the power instituted in Peter is the plenitude and archetype, of which all the lesser powers instituted in the Church by the same divine founder are participations and derivations. In accordance with these reasons, therefore, when the Fathers said that Peter bore the person of the Church in receiving the power, they not only did not deny but more expressly explained that the one Peter, and in Peter each of his successors, is and has been the subject of the promised and entrusted power of the keys.

The ancient author of the Questions on the Old and New Testament (q. 75) compares the representation of the Church in Peter as Supreme Shepherd with that by which Christ himself, as head, while still in mortal life, represented the Apostles. « As in the Saviour all were contained by reason of his magisterium, so after the Saviour all are contained in Peter; for he appointed him to be their head, that he might be shepherd of the Lord's flock » (Augustine, Opp. T. III, appendix, p. 61.). St. Leo the Great, reciting the words « I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven », etc., explains how the archetypal and exemplary institution in the one Peter is extended, by participation of the power, from that one to others also. « The right of that power indeed passed also to the other Apostles, and the constitution of this decree went out to all the leaders of the Church; but it is not in vain that what is made known to all is entrusted to one; for this is entrusted singularly to Peter, because the form of Peter is placed before all the rulers of the Church » Sermon 3 on his assumption; cf. letter 10, c. 1, to the bishops of the province of Vienne.

Augustine sometimes, in the words of Christ about the power of the keys, supposes a twofold sense: so that in the literal sense they pertain indeed to Peter and « the primacy of his apostolate », but by a certain extension, and in a somewhat typical sense, they are also referred to the Church, or to the universality of the faithful, of which he was the archetype by reason of the primacy of his apostolate. And so he understands the signification of the words, or the thing signified by the words, as one thing in the literal sense of « the first Apostle », and another in that extended sense in the universality of the faithful. Thus in Tractate 124 on John he considers Peter as a figure of the Church, in which the solution of sins is given, and John as a figure of blessed contemplation. The keys are promised to Peter for loosing sins, but in another sense they pertain also to the universality of the faithful, signified in Peter, insofar as these concur by prayer and good works in loosing sins. But who does not see that this method of interpretation is akin to that accommodation we noticed above in Origen? « Because even those walking in the way itself are not without sins, which creep in through the weakness of this life, he gave saving remedies of almsgiving, by which their prayer is aided, when he taught them to say: forgive us our debts... This the Church does in blessed hope in this sorrowful life, of which Church the Apostle Peter, on account of the primacy of his apostolate, bore the person, by a figured generality. For what pertains to him properly, he was by nature one man, by grace one Christian, by a more abundant grace one and the same first Apostle; but when it was said to him (surely in his primacy of apostolate): I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven... he signified the universal Church... The Church therefore, founded in Christ, received from him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in Peter, that is, to bind and loose sins... Therefore to all the saints who inseparably belong to the body of Christ, for the steering of this most stormy life, the first of the Apostles, Peter, received the keys of the kingdom of heaven to bind and loose sins; and to these same saints, by reason of that most sacred and quietest bosom of that life upon the breast of Christ, John the Evangelist reclined. For neither he alone, but the whole Church (though in different ways) binds and looses sins; nor did he alone drink from the fountain of the Lord's breast, the Word, God with God, in the beginning, and the rest about divinity..., but the Lord himself poured out the Gospel itself, for each one's capacity, to be drunk by all his own throughout the whole world. » By a nearly similar method of interpretation, to prove that « in the person of Peter the good are signified in the Church, as in the person of Judas the wicked in the Church », he brings in the keys by which in the Church one is loosed and bound: « if this is done in the Church (though in different ways), Peter when he received the keys signified the holy Church » (Tractate 50 on John).

4°. Lastly, as to those words of Christ, « upon this rock I will build my Church », it is well known that Augustine (whom afterwards some others followed, such as Isidore of Seville, Origines, Bk. VII, c. 9; the author of a homily on the feast of St. Peter, sometimes thought to be Eucherius of Lyons; the Synod of Friuli under Paulinus of Aquileia) more often referred them to Christ himself, as if it were said: upon this rock, which you confessed by your faith as the Son of God, I will build my Church. This interpretation, if separated from the manner in which Augustine insists upon it, could perhaps be reduced to that by which we have seen many Fathers teach that the Church was built upon the faith of Peter. So Adrian I joined these together (letter to the bishops of Spain, Harduin T. IV, p. 867): « Upon this, he says, rock which you confessed, and from which you received the dignity of your name, upon this solidity of faith I will build my Church. »

Augustine is also accustomed, to recommend his interpretation, to use an argument from philology which is certainly not very suitable ¹⁰; but the chief reason of the holy Doctor was certainly that in those passages he took up and described the building of the Church not according to the visible body but according to the spirit, treating namely of faith from its principal object, of the merits of redemption, of the virtue of the sacraments and of grace, by which the Church is built in Christ as in the foundation, besides which no one can lay another. Therefore Peter himself, with the whole Church which he, « holding the principate of the apostolate, was figuring », is built on the rock Christ. « Because you said to me, you are Christ, the Son of the living God, and I say to you, you are Peter... This name was imposed on him by the Lord that he should be called Peter, and this so that by that figure he might signify the Church. For since Christ is the rock, Peter is the Christian people. For the rock is the principal name; therefore Peter is named from the rock, not the rock from Peter, just as Christ is not called Christian from Christian, but Christian from Christ. You are therefore, he says, Peter; and upon this rock, which you confessed, which you knew... I will build my Church; that is, upon myself, the Son of the living God, I will build my Church, I will build you upon me, not me upon you. For men wishing to be built upon men said: I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I indeed of Cephas, he is Peter; and others who did not wish to be built upon Peter but upon the rock; but I am of Christ. But the Apostle Paul, when he learned that he was chosen and Christ scorned, said: is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? In the same way, not in the name of Paul, nor of Peter, but in the name of Christ, so that Peter might be built upon the rock, not the rock upon Peter. The same Peter, therefore, named from the rock, blessed, bearing the figure of the Church, holding the principate of the apostolate... In that one Apostle, that is, Peter, in the first and principal place among the Apostles, the Church was figured » Augustine, Sermon 76, n. 1 (al. On the words of the Lord, sermon 13; cf. on John, tractate 124.).

From these reasonings of Augustine we hold the following. α) Augustine openly acknowledges in Peter « the principate of the apostolate », both in this and in several other places; wherefore he professes theologically the very truth that the visible Church is built upon Peter as a relative foundation, by derivation from Christ the absolute foundation. Indeed he even interpreted hermeneutically more than once, and elsewhere granted that the words of Christ in Matt. XVI. could be understood, and were understood by the faithful, in such a way that Peter is the rock upon which Christ promised that the Church would be built. « Count the priests, or from the very see of Peter, and see in that order of fathers who succeeded whom: it is the rock, which the proud gates of hell do not overcome » Augustine, Psalm against the party of Donatus; cf. letter 53, n. 2, to Generosus. « Peter, who a little before had confessed the Son of God, and in that confession had been called the rock, upon which the Church would be built » Id., on Ps. 69, n. 4. Certainly, against the schism of Novatian and Donatus, the Fathers Cyprian, Pacian, Optatus, and after them Augustine, appealed to the rock in which the visible unity of the Church is founded. Nor does he indicate, in the books of his Retractations, that this opinion ever needs correction or is to be set below the other, about Christ the rock; which itself is evidence that the thing itself was always theologically ratified and certain to Augustine, and that his doubts could be referred only to hermeneutics and the mode of interpreting, for the reasons indicated above. « In the book (against the letter of Donatus, now lost) I said in a certain place about the Apostle Peter that upon him as upon a rock the Church is founded, which sense is also sung by the mouth of many in the verses of the most blessed Ambrose, where he says of the cock-crow: by this very rock of the Church crowing, he washed away the fault ¹¹. But I know that afterwards I very often expounded it thus... so that upon this rock might be understood as whom Peter confessed... as if Peter, named from this rock, bore the person of the Church, which is built upon this rock, and received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. For it was not said to him, you are rock, but you are Peter; the rock, however, was Christ, confessing whom, as the whole Church confesses him, Simon was called Peter. Which of these two opinions is the more probable, let the reader choose » Id., Retractations I, 21.

β) In that interpretation by which Augustine refers the rock to Christ, the direct sense of the words is indeed inverted into the indirect; yet by this very thing theological truth is preserved, though the order of the statement is changed. For Augustine certainly felt that not only the empty name of Peter, but the reality signified by the name, is given by Christ to « the first and principal of the Apostles ». But from the doctrine repeated so often by Augustine, the name Peter, and therefore the reality or property expressed by the name, is a derivation: a property derived into Peter from the principal rock of the Church, Christ. These are Augustine's words: « because you said to me, you are Christ; and I say to you, you are Peter. » « For the rock is the principal name; therefore Peter from the rock. » Therefore in Augustine's doctrine the word of Christ, « you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church », is equivalent to this sentence: I, the rock of the Church by my own virtue and principal, say to you, for your confession: you are the rock of the Church by participation, derived from me: « Peter from a rock. » St. Leo the Great later explained this very thing most clearly, circumscribing the words of Christ thus: « You are Peter, that is, since I am the inviolable rock... yet you too are a rock, because by my virtue you are made solid, so that what is by power proper to me may be in common with me by participation to you (Peter from a rock) » St. Leo, Sermon 4, c. 2. So also other Fathers, both before and after Augustine: « Christ is the rock..... he did not deny to his disciple the grace of this name, so that he himself might be Peter, because he has from the rock the solidity of constancy and the firmness of faith » (namely in relation to the Church to be built upon him), Ambrose, on Luke VI, n. 97. « When he heard, you are a rock, he was ennobled by the proclamation. Although he is a rock, it is not as Christ is rock, but as Peter is rock; for Christ is essentially an immovable rock, but Peter through the rock (Χριστὸς γὰρ ὄντως πέτρα ἀσάλευτος, Πέτρος δὲ διὰ τὴν πέτραν). For Christ bestows his dignities, and is not exhausted, but what he gives, he keeps. He is light: you are the light of the world; he is priest: he makes priests... he is rock, he makes rock » Homily on Penance, n. 4 (among the works of St. Basil, T. II, p. 606). « As he himself gave light to the Apostles, that they might be called the light of the world... so also to Simon, who believed in the rock Christ, he gave the name Peter; and according to the metaphor of the rock it is rightly said: I will build my Church upon you » Jerome, on Matthew, Bk. III, c. 16 (T. VII, p. 124). « Who does not know this most strong rock, which from that principal rock took the communion both of its power and of its name? » On the Calling of the Gentiles (among the works of St. Leo, T. II, p. 241). « For who does not know that the holy Church is established in the solidity of the chief of the Apostles, who drew firmness of mind in his name, so that he was called Peter from the rock? » St. Gregory the Great, Bk. VII, letter 40, to Eulogius of Alexandria.

Nor does this bear against the true sense of Augustine, as we set it forth in this commentary, that the holy Doctor sometimes seems to place the reason for the name Peter in this: « so that this figure might signify the Church; for since Christ is the rock, Peter the Christian people. » For he considers two things connected in Peter, as is clear from everything said so far. The first is that Simon himself was constituted Peter, that is, in the property of the rock of the Church, participated and derived from the principal rock Christ, so that by this participated property he might form the visible unity of the Church or of the Christian people; the second is that Peter, by reason of this principate, figured, or juridically represented, the Church to be built together with him upon the principal rock Christ. In one way, therefore, the Church is built in its visible unity upon Peter, « who was called the rock on which the Church would be built »; and in another way Peter himself, with the Church, is built in all his visible and invisible gifts upon the principal rock Christ: « so that Peter should be built upon the rock, not the rock upon Peter; the same Peter, therefore, named from the rock, bearing the figure of the Church, holding the principate of the apostolate; in that one Apostle, in the first and principal place among the Apostles, the Church was figured. »

Therefore none of the holy Fathers denied what is most manifest in the very words of the Gospel: that the one Peter is the immediate subject of the promises which Matt. XVI. records as made by Christ the Saviour for the founding of the Church. In the passages usually opposed, they either considered¹² the firmness of Peter's faith and his confession, and this in relation to the Church, which was to be built upon Peter not as considered according to flesh and blood, but formally as one who confesses and teaches the faith; or they regarded the relation and connection of Peter with Christ, the principal rock, and taught that everything by which the rock by participation is formed depends upon the proper virtue of this rock, as upon an exemplary and efficient cause.

II. The object of the power committed to Peter alone, as to its extension, or terminating object, to which he is referred as to what is subject to him, is clearly the Church of Christ, both in its individual parts and members and as a whole considered together as one body. It is indeed possible for power to be given to someone over individuals who constitute one moral body, without its necessarily following that the same power is valid over all taken together, formally as one body; but a power given over the moral body itself, considered in its totality, cannot be or be conceived without comprehending all and each who inhere in it as members, or who are bound to that whole body to which the power is said to be given. Now, both in the promise and in the institution of the power given to Peter, the terminating object is expressly declared by the Lord Christ: his Church, considered as one body. Therefore this power, by Christ's institution, comprehends both the whole Church in its unity, and all and each who pertain to the Church or are bound to it. Certainly, when the words of promise and institution are compared together, Christ first designates as the object, by the express name, his Church; then he sets it forth under a threefold scheme by which the Church is also commonly signified in other places: house or city of God, kingdom of heaven, his fold; lastly, he names the unity of brethren (the fraternity that is in the world, as the Apostle later called it, 1 Pet. V. 9). In the first way, the Church of Christ simply so called, and therefore the whole Church on earth, is built by Christ the founder himself upon the rock, which is the one Peter; in the second way, the keys to bind and loose everything that pertains to the kingdom of heaven on earth are given to that same one Peter, and this power of the keys therefore has as its object the whole kingdom of heaven on earth; in the third way, to the one Peter is committed the power and office of feeding the lambs and sheep of Christ, that is, the whole flock or fold of Christ considered in its entirety. « My sheep, he says; who does not see that he designated not some, but assigned all? Nothing is excepted, where nothing is distinguished; and perhaps his fellow disciples were present when, in committing it to one, he was entrusting unity to all in one flock and one shepherd » (Bernard, On Consideration II, 8.). To this metaphorical locution, feed my sheep, at least as regards the extension of which we are now speaking, there clearly corresponds another, proper one: strengthen your brethren. So Chrysostom (In John, hom. 88, n. 1) has one equivalent to the other: « feed my sheep..... He was outstanding among the Apostles, and the mouth of the disciples and the head of that chorus..... the denial now being removed, he entrusts to him the leadership of the brethren..... and he says to him: if you love me, preside over the brethren » ¹³.

Therefore, in the first place, the whole Church considered as one body (city or house of God, kingdom of heaven, fraternity in the world, fold of Christ) is, by the institution of the divine founder, held together by the rock as its foundation; it lies under the keys of Peter; as one fraternity it is to be confirmed in faith by Peter; as the flock of the one Christ ¹⁴ it is to be fed by Peter. Hence there are no parts of the city of God on earth, no members of the universal Church, that do not depend by divine right upon the rock, because the divine builder has erected his whole Church upon it as a foundation; no one can pertain to the kingdom of heaven or the fraternity on earth, or to the fold of Christ, or be bound to this kingdom and fold, without thereby being, by divine institution, subject to the keys given to Peter to bind and loose, and to the right and duty of confirming in faith and feeding entrusted to him.

Specifically, therefore, the Apostles themselves, whether considered singly or in the college, either were not part and members of that which the Lord calls his Church, the city of God, the kingdom of heaven, the fraternity, the flock of Christ; or, together with the whole Church, they depended on the rock by the institution of Christ, and were subject to the keys and pastoral office of Peter. As certain as it is that the Apostles and the Apostolic college were by far the chief part of the Church built by Christ upon the rock, the firstfruits among the sheep of Christ, of all of whom one shepherd, Peter, was constituted before all the Apostles, so certain is it that they, both singly and all together, and in themselves, and even more in their successors, were subordinated to Peter and his successors.

As for the Apostles themselves: the extraordinary gifts of the apostolate, that is, those not transmissible to successors, of which kinds are the revelation of truth and a mission of governance not restricted to individual churches but extended to founding and ruling churches among all nations, given to individuals immediately by Christ and the Holy Spirit; the infallibility of individuals in faith against errors, and impeccability in charity against schisms: these gifts of the apostolate, I say, did not abolish the right divinely instituted in the visible head, Peter. But because of the perfection of the members, they made the directive and coercive exercise of the rights on Peter's side less necessary and rarely, or never, to be brought into act; and on the side of the Apostles they made the recognition of these rights indefectible. This is nearly analogous to that right (if the comparison were not unbecoming) which the Son of man had conceded over himself to the Virgin Mother and St. Joseph: « subject to them. » Hence the Apostles, by divine right instituted in Peter and by indefectible recognition of the instituted right, both themselves and all the Churches to be founded and ruled by them united and subordinated themselves, as members, to one universal Church under one visible head, Peter, « so that unity might be kept by all in one chair, lest the other Apostles should each defend a separate (divided) chair for himself, so that he who set up another chair against the single chair would already be schismatic and a sinner » St. Optatus, Against Parmenian, Bk. II, c. 2. But when those extraordinary gifts of the apostolate ceased in apostolic succession, for whose sake especially the perpetual right and office of the rock of the Church was instituted, that the gates of hell may never prevail against it, then just as the right itself and the office have persisted, so the application of the exercise, though at different times not always in the same way, has been made due and necessary.

III. When a principate is declared committed to one over all, considered both singly and in unity, from this extension it can indeed be deduced, but it has not yet been sufficiently explained, of what kind in intension that power is, from which it is manifest that the visible form of the Church itself depends. This, therefore, as far as the present place is concerned, still remains to be inquired into.

1°. The power communicated to Peter is first, as in a source, original and exemplary in Christ himself. He himself is and remains the good shepherd of his sheep according to a threefold mode: of priesthood, in the sacrifice of redemption and in the sacraments of sanctification: « and I lay down my life for my sheep... and I give them eternal life; » of teaching, in the doctrine of saving truth: « and they will hear my voice, and there will be one fold and one shepherd; » of rule, in the law of holy conduct ¹⁵: « and I know them, and they follow me... and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. » He himself is placed in Sion, the city of God, as the chief cornerstone, precious, in whom all the faithful, like living stones, are built up into one spiritual house; and the same stone is a stone of offence: « whoever falls upon that stone (made the head of the corner of the whole Church) will be broken; but upon whomever it falls, it will crush him » (1 Pet. II. 1-9; Matt. XXI. 42-44; Acts IV. 11, 12; Rom. IX. 32, 33; Eph. II. 20-22.). He himself is « holy and true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shuts; shuts and no one opens » (Apoc. III. 7; cf. Is. XXII. 22.) ¹⁶

One who considers will see that these properties, by which Christ the founder and head of the Church is called the cornerstone of the whole spiritual house, and holds the key of the house of David with absolute power to shut and open, as they are referred to the Church on earth, ultimately resolve into those which we said belong to Christ the good shepherd, although in three different schemes one or another notion predominates. For the cornerstone, in which the whole Church is built up as a spiritual house and by which hostile assailants are crushed, is understood as Christ, insofar as the Church derives its origin from him, and has in him indefectible firmness and unity in faith and doctrine, in holiness and the means of sanctification, in discipline of conduct and in government. Further, the key, to shut and open by absolute power in the house of David of the New Testament, generally expresses supreme government or rule; but particularly, for the very end and character of this house of David, it signifies the power of shutting and opening in saving doctrine and in all institutions of sanctification. And these are precisely the things which we have seen Christ assume for himself as the offices of the good shepherd.

Christ the Word incarnate feeds, sustains, strengthens and unites, shuts and opens, in a twofold manner: first indeed according to the divinity, by invisible work of illumination, direction or motion, and sanctification through the Holy Spirit, whom therefore he promised and sent as another Paraclete, and whom, in this sense, Tertullian (Prescriptions c. 28.) called « Christ's vicar », and Irenaeus (III. 24.) called « the communication of Christ ». Then, according to the humanity, Christ perennially remains the good shepherd, the rock, the confirmer of his brethren, holding the key of David « in his house » (Heb. III. 6.), by visible work through a visible vicar and minister.

For to this end, that these same offices, which always remain his own originally and exemplarily, may persist without interruption and be manifested even in visible form, as the visible Church requires, he promised participation in the rock, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the confirmer of his brethren; and he comprehended and fulfilled the whole communication of his power by instituting the pastorate of all his sheep in the one Peter. « The Word had been made flesh and was already dwelling among us, so that in restoring the human race Christ would give himself wholly; nothing was ill-disposed to wisdom, nothing was arduous to power; the elements were subservient, the angelic spirits served... and yet out of the whole world one Peter is chosen, who is placed before both the calling of all nations and all the Apostles and all the fathers of the Church, so that although there are many priests among the people of God, yet Peter properly rules them all, whom Christ also rules principally..... And I say to you, that you are Peter; that is, since I am an inviolable rock, I the chief cornerstone who make both one, I the foundation beside which no one can lay another, nevertheless you too are a rock, because you are made solid by my power, so that what is by power proper to me may be common to you with me by participation » St. Leo, Sermon 3, c. 2. This firmness of the rock through Christ the rock is declared without metaphor in the other promise, Luke XXII. 31, 32: « I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; » then is added the end to which this unfailing firmness is established, namely the function of the rock, the keys, the pastorate toward the brethren: « and you, once converted, strengthen your brethren ¹⁷ ». « Finally, Peter is placed before the Church after he was tempted by the devil; and therefore the Lord signified beforehand what it was that he later chose him as shepherd of the Lord's flock; for to him he said: but you, once converted, strengthen your brethren » Ambrose, on Ps. 43, n. 40 (cf. Questions on the New Testament q. 75, among the works of Augustine, T. III, appendix, p. 61.). Nevertheless, what is said in more general terms in the scheme of rock, keys and pastorate is here stated directly about the function of the divinely enjoined teaching office, for the confirmation of faith and doctrine. « A special care of Peter is undertaken by the Lord, and for Peter's faith especially supplication is made, as if the state of the others would be surer if the mind of the prince were not overcome: in Peter therefore the strength of all is fortified, and the aid of divine grace is so ordered that the firmness which is given to Peter through Christ (in his perpetual office) is conferred on the Apostles through Peter » (representing their whole succession) St. Leo, Sermon 4, c. 3.

2°. Since from all that we have said about the congruence and connection of the various formulas by which the power of Peter is described in the Gospels, and still more from the fact that to all the promises of the Son of God, who is « the Amen, the faithful and true witness » (Apoc. III. 14; 2 Cor. I. 19, 20.), there necessarily corresponds the fulfilment, it is abundantly clear that all and each of the things he had promised concerning the rock, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the confirmation of his brethren were fully comprehended by the divine founder in the institution itself: « feed my lambs, feed my sheep. » It now remains for us to consider the words of the institution itself more distinctly.

a) Christ (as we have already shown) is the good shepherd toward his sheep and the one shepherd toward his one fold; and he not only invisibly feeds the Church himself, according to his divinity and through the Holy Spirit, but he also willed to exercise this office of feeding visibly in the visible Church, through a power derived from him and instituted in Peter: « feed my sheep. » Therefore Peter receives this office of shepherd of Christ's sheep to be exercised by vicarious power, on behalf of Christ, the shepherd of his sheep.

b) Since, from what has been demonstrated above, one man receives, above all others, the office of feeding toward all and over all the sheep of Christ, and over the whole fold as one; and therefore both individuals within the whole, and the whole in its individuals, or the whole unity, are subject to him as to a shepherd: consequently this power of Peter can be subject to Christ alone, the prince of shepherds, before whom he himself remains indeed a sheep to be fed, and to no one of the sheep, nor to the whole fold. It is therefore, in the whole fold and over the whole fold, a visible power, supreme.

c) This power of feeding is indeed « supreme, but not alone » (St. Bernard, Consideration III, c. 4, n. 17.), and in no way excludes the powers, to be instituted by Christ, in other pastors, whether singly or in the unity of the whole, as we shall see shortly in another thesis; these, however, both in individuals and in the whole body of pastors, insofar as this is distinguished from its visible head and supreme shepherd, are necessarily subordinated to that one supreme shepherd. But since this supreme pastorate has been instituted by Christ so as to reach the whole, considered as all together, and also each of his sheep, therefore the subordinate powers of feeding, though intermediate in degree and amplitude by Christ's institution between the supreme shepherd and the flock to be fed, are not, however, intermediate by mediation of power in this sense, as if that supreme power reached the whole flock and could be exercised over it only through these inferior powers, and the sheep, whether all or each, were subject to it only through these intermediate powers. « Feed (you whom I asked, do you love me more than these? you therefore, by your own power, not only through another) my lambs, my sheep. » So Bernard, with others (cited above in the note), reasons from these words: « Bishops have assigned to them flocks, each his own; to you all are entrusted, one to one; nor only of sheep but also of pastors, you are the one shepherd of all. You ask how I prove this? From the word of the Lord... feed my sheep » (On Consideration II, c. 8.). Therefore the power of feeding in Peter, as supreme and universal, is so instituted by Christ as immediate over all and each of Christ's sheep.

d) From these same things it is understood that it is an ordinary power in the juridical sense ¹⁸, and this not only in that it is not exercised by the delegation of another man, but is held by virtue of the divinely instituted office, to be exercised in the place and name of Christ; indeed also in the sense that it is not only put forth in extraordinary circumstances and as a support of the inferior powers, should they perhaps fail; but, with divine norms preserved, it is always valid and puts itself forth, with due duty, whenever the good of the sheep requires.

e) The amplitude of this power in relation to its real objects, or as considered intensively, is determined by the very fact that it is the supreme, vicarious power of visibly feeding the sheep of Christ, communicated by him who is and perpetually remains the good shepherd and the one shepherd of his sheep. Now Christ feeds his sheep, as we have seen above, both invisibly and visibly: by the doctrine of truth in faith, by the law of conduct in hope, by the gifts of sanctification in charity. But now, at least according to the ordinary economy, the Prince of shepherds himself exercises this pastorate visibly in the visible Church wholly and uniquely, through the vicarious and ministerial powers instituted by him. Whence there can indeed be in the Church inferior powers, restricted as to the extension of persons, and in intension as to real objects within certain limits, now wider, now narrower; but a universal, supreme and immediate vicarious power of Christ for feeding his whole fold can neither exist nor be conceived without comprehending all the things by which Christ visibly feeds his sheep in the visible Church. Therefore the vicarious power in Peter, according to the threefold object of the pastorate of Jesus Christ (in doctrine, in law, and in the means of sanctification), comprehends the power of supreme teaching for feeding the whole fold with the doctrine of salvation; of supreme governing, to rule the whole fold ¹⁹; and of supreme priesthood, or the liturgical power to guard and regulate the holy administration of the mysteries of salvation in the sacrifice and sacraments and in divine worship, for the whole fold ²⁰. The power instituted in Peter is therefore also universal in its real object, and in this its object is not limited by other inferior powers but is valid in itself, having those powers subject to it; that is, it is full power. « For this is the plenitude of power: to be able to do all things for edification » (Robert of Lincoln, anno 1253, quoted by Matthew Paris).

f) Hence the same pastoral power is also called, by a name derived from the Scriptures, episcopal (Acts XX. 28; 1 Pet. V. 2, in the Greek text), just as Christ himself is called, synonymously, the pastor and bishop of his sheep (1 Pet. II. 25.). It is therefore the same to say that the power of feeding the sheep of Christ was instituted in Peter as to say supreme, universal, immediate and full episcopal power; and just as Christ, by his own and principal power, so Peter, by derived and vicarious power, is constituted pastor and bishop of the whole visible Church. See the Council of the Vatican, session IV, ch. 3.

IV. All that has been said so far, considered together, demonstrates what is chiefly asked of us: how, namely, the supreme pastorate communicated to Peter by Christ, the prince of shepherds, constitutes the centre and uniting principle, and so determines the visible form of the whole visible Church.

1°. The Lord himself declared expressly that the Church of all nations would become one fold because there would be one shepherd of the whole fold: « And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold (of Israel); but I must bring them, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one fold and one shepherd » (μία ποίμνη, εἷς ποιμήν.) John X. 16. Christ himself is indeed the one shepherd, and by his pastorate the effector both of visible and invisible unity: « I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one » (ibid. XVII. 23.); but just as all the visible offices in the Church, so also his one and unifying pastorate, in order that there may come to be and remain one fold and one shepherd now that he is no longer in the world (ib. XVII. 11–13), he exercises visibly only through vicarious powers instituted by him, as the elements of visibility and the principles of unity of his Church.

The Church is therefore one body, compact and connected in its head and from its head, Christ; but the connection is supplied through manifold visible joints (of which we shall speak deliberately further on): « for he himself gave some as Apostles, some as Prophets, others as Evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, for the perfecting (καταρτισμόν) of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ » (Eph. IV. 11–16; 1 Cor. XII. 12–28.). Hence, since in an organic whole the individual parts as it were absorb and show forth the nature of the whole, first the particular Churches, as members of the universal Church, each have unity in themselves through their particular pastor: « feed that which is among you, the flock of God, providing for it » (ἐπισκοποῦντες) (1 Pet. V. 2.). Individual pastors therefore feed the individual flocks in which they are placed, and they give to those who are in them the form of a flock and the unity or perfection (καταρτισμόν, intimate connection) proper to the parts and members of the whole body. But precisely because they are members of the whole, the pastors themselves must all constitute one among themselves; for individuals do not form separated Churches separately. But just as individuals form the unity of the parts, so all together, cohering, bring all the parts into one universal Church as one body of pastors; and thus, considered in unity, pastors and teachers are given for the building up of the whole body of Christ, and are placed there by the Holy Spirit to rule the whole Church of God, which he acquired with his own blood (Acts XX. 28.). « They are the Church, the people joined to the priest, and the flock adhering to its shepherd; whence you must know that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop, and if anyone is not with the bishop, he is not in the Church; and in vain do those flatter themselves who, not having peace with the priests of God, creep in and secretly believe that they communicate with some, when the Church, which is catholic and one, is not split nor divided, but is certainly connected and joined together by the glue of priests cohering with one another » Cyprian, letter 69 to Florentius Pupianus, p. 123. « Where the bishop appears, there let the multitude also be; just as where Christ Jesus is (in the whole episcopate, and in the individual bishops, insofar as they are united with the whole), there is the catholic Church » St. Ignatius Martyr, letter to the Smyrnaeans c. 8.

Many pastors, then, singly, are the form of unity in each of their particular Churches, that is, in parts of the whole; all together they are not the glue forming the visible unity of the whole catholic Church, except insofar as they themselves have visible unity among themselves and constitute one body. Now, for this visible cohesion of the pastors among themselves, and of all the partial flocks, by which they constitute one catholic Church, there is need, as the form and visible glue of catholic unity, of one supreme pastor of the whole Church; or, as Cyprian and other Fathers speak, of one chair. « God is one and Christ is one, and one Church and one chair founded upon the rock by the voice of the Lord » Cyprian, letter 40, p. 53. In fact, that in the supreme power of the one Peter this principle of unity was established by Christ is already clear from what has been demonstrated above. For in the words of the promise it is declared that the Church of Christ, simply so called, is to be built upon one rock; this Church, which is therefore understood as universal of all nations and by this very fact one. Wherefore, just as all the faithful, so first of all all the pastors, as partial joints, are united and contained in the unity of the catholic Church ²¹ through that one foundation, to which Christ communicates his own property of rock in relation to the whole visible Church. This very principle of unity is exhibited both by the supreme power of the keys over the whole kingdom of heaven on earth, and by the indefectibility of faith by which one man is constituted confirmer of his brethren, that is, of the whole fraternity which is in the world (1 Pet. V. 9.). Yet all these things, which are contained in the promises, are fulfilled (as has been shown above), though in another verbal form, in the institution itself. For all the sheep of Christ, to which indeed also belong those who, in relation to other sheep, are pastors, are subordinated, for the unity of the flock of Christ, to one supreme and universal shepherd.

The sum of all this is: just as individual particular flocks have their uniting bond in each one's own pastor, so the supreme and universal pastoral power instituted in Peter, according to its threefold function of teaching, governing and priesthood, joins all these flocks with their particular pastors into one flock and one fold: « feed my sheep. » The original shepherd is one, Christ, whose own sheep they are; the one shepherd instituted by Christ is Peter, to whom all these same sheep are committed. No one is in the one fold of Christ, and no sheep is fed by Christ, who is not to be fed by Peter. This universal and supreme power, subordinated to Christ alone, in Peter by Christ's institution is therefore the « glue » and visible principle by which both the flocks and the pastors are formed and held together as one body and one flock. You have this same thing clearly expressed in the words of Bernard cited above (n. III, c.).

2°. In this way the visible form of the unity of the Church was understood, from the very words of Christ the Institutor, throughout the whole Christian antiquity. But since we shall have to speak of the doctrine of the Fathers when we treat of the perpetuity of Peter's power, here we may be content with fewer.

The complete explanation of the principle of unity which we have given stands in the celebrated passage of Cyprian (On the Unity of the Church, pp. 194, 195) ²². There Cyprian declares the unity not only of a particular but of the universal Church ²³, which, with the unity of the body remaining, « stretches its rays over the whole world, and extends its branches into the whole earth in abundance of fruitfulness. » In it alone, he says, is the true Christian faith and salvation found; it must therefore be sought how this Church is constituted both as one and one in itself, and is distinguished by its own unity from all sects, as branches broken and streams cut off from the source. For knowing both the genuineness and the unity of the Church, and in it the whole doctrine of faith, « the proof is easy by the compendium of truth » ²⁴. Now this compendium of easy proof Cyprian places in this: that Christ, both by the promise of Matt. XVI. and by the institution of John XXI., founded his whole Church in one Peter, as in the beginning and foundation, from which unity flows and is made, both of all pastors as one body, one episcopate, and of the whole Church extended throughout the earth, one mother abundant in the successes of fecundity. Just as, therefore, by those words of Christ, by which he constituted the apostolate, addressed indiscriminately to all the Apostles, equal power was conferred on all, so by the words pertaining to the one Peter, as the beginning and foundation containing the unity of the episcopate and of the Church, this special power, forming and conserving visible unity, was instituted not as common to the others but as proper to the one Peter. That this is the genuine sense of Cyprian's words will be plain from the reading itself, provided they are not twisted to an alien meaning that contradicts the context. They read thus, in the recension of Maranus:

« This (that heresies and schisms rend unity under the very title of the Christian name) happens when one does not return to the origin of truth, nor seeks the head (the origin and fontal principle of unity), nor keeps the doctrine of the heavenly teacher. Whoever considers and examines these things (here enumerated: origin, head, doctrine of the heavenly teacher) has no need of a long treatise or of arguments. The proof is easy for faith by the compendium of truth. The Lord speaks to Peter: I say to you, he says, that you are Peter... and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven... And again to him after his resurrection he says: feed my sheep. Upon that one he builds his Church, and to him he entrusts his sheep to be fed. And although after his resurrection he gives equal power (of apostolate) to all the Apostles and says: as the Father sent me, so I send you... yet in order to manifest unity (to make it manifest and visible), he disposed by his own authority the origin of that unity, beginning from one (not merely presenting a symbol of unity, as if theoretically, but by the act of his authority disposed, that is, instituted, the origin, the fountain and effective principle of unity). Indeed the other Apostles were also what Peter was, endowed with equal fellowship of honour and power (of apostolate), but the beginning proceeds from unity (not only a beginning in time in conferring power, but a permanent and effective beginning for maintaining the unity of the Apostles and of their successors and of the whole Church, as Cyprian immediately explains), and the primacy is given to Peter, so that one Church of Christ and one chair may be shown. And all are pastors, and one flock is shown (shown effectively through that beginning of unity), which is fed by all the Apostles with unanimous consent, so that the Church of Christ may be shown as one... he who resists and opposes the Church, who abandons the chair of Peter, upon which the Church is founded, does he trust that he is in the Church?... This unity we must firmly hold and defend, especially we bishops who preside in the Church, so that we may also prove the episcopate itself one and undivided... The episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each in solidum ²⁵ The Church too is one, which spreads out in multitude by the increase of its fruitfulness. As the sun has many rays but one light (he soon calls it the body of the sun), and the branches of a tree are many but one strength, fixed in a tenacious root; and when from one fountain many streams flow forth, though the multitude seems diffused by the overflowing abundance, the unity is nevertheless kept in the origin. Sever a ray of the sun from its body, and the division of light does not admit unity; break a branch from a tree, and the broken branch cannot sprout; cut a stream from its fountain, and the severed one dries up. So too the Church of the Lord, bathed in light, extends its rays over the whole world (through the particular Churches); yet it is one light which is spread everywhere, nor is the unity of the body separated; it extends its branches into the whole earth in abundance of fruitfulness, it spreads its flowing streams more widely, yet there is one head and one origin, and one mother abundant in the successes of fecundity. »

Cyprian therefore recognizes a twofold series of biblical texts. In one, which pertains to all the Apostles, equal honour and power of apostolate is given to all; the other pertains to the one Peter, where Christ builds his Church upon that one and gives him the primacy, and this for the purpose that by his own authority he might set in Peter the origin and beginning, the head, the tenacious root for holding unity together, both of the Apostolic college in its perpetual succession, that is, of the whole episcopate, and of the universal Church; so that the rays, with one origin in the body of the sun, the streams with one head in the fountain, and the branches with one strength in the root, are brought back to unity.

This principle of unity so clung to Cyprian's mind that he scarcely ever mentions either the unity of the episcopate and of the universal Church, or on the other hand Peter and the chair of Peter, without at once proclaiming that this principle of unity was established in Peter and his perpetual chair, and the effect of perpetual unity in the episcopate and the Church. « Our Lord, arranging the honour of bishops and the constitution of his Church, speaks in the Gospel to Peter: I say to you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church... thence, through the succession of times and the course of successors, the ordination of bishops and the order of the Church run on, so that the Church is constituted upon the bishops, and every act of the Church is governed by these same leaders » (letter 27, to the lapsed, p. 37.). « To Peter first the Lord, upon whom he built the Church, and whence he instituted and showed the origin of unity, gave this power, that what he should loose on earth would be loosed in heaven... The Church, which is one, is founded by the Lord's voice upon one, who also received its keys » (letter 73, to Jubaianus, pp. 131, 132.). « God is one, and Christ is one, and one Church and one chair founded upon the rock by the voice of the Lord » (letter 40, to the people, p. 53.). « One baptism, and one Holy Spirit, and one Church founded by Christ the Lord upon Peter, as to the origin and principle of unity » (letter 70, to Januarius, p. 125.) ²⁶ cf. letter 69 to Florentius, p. 123; On the Dress of Virgins, p. 176.

Other Fathers agree with Cyprian, and if anything in him were obscure, they illuminate this same ordering of unity, instituted by Christ in Peter, in the clearest words: « The Lord spoke to Peter, to one, that he might found unity from one » Pacian, letter 3 to Sympronianus. « You cannot deny (Donatist Parmenian) that you know that in the city of Rome the episcopal chair was first conferred on Peter, in which sat Peter, the head of all the Apostles, whence he was also called Cephas, in which one chair unity might be kept by all, lest the other Apostles should each defend a separate chair for himself (divided from the unity of the whole, or from the solid), so that he who would set up another chair against the single chair would already be schismatic and a sinner » Optatus, Bk. II, c. 2, against Parmenian. « There is a reading about the person of the most blessed Peter, from which a form for retaining or making unity is recited..., by the good of unity blessed Peter... and merited to be preferred to all the Apostles, and alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven to be communicated to the others... so many innocent stand, and the sinner receives the keys²⁷, so that the business of unity might be formed » ibid. Bk. VII, c. 3. « He says to Peter, in whom alone he forms the Church: Peter, do you love me? feed my sheep » Augustine, sermon 137, c. 3. This form of unity and this formation of the Church in the one Peter Ambrose expressed in other words: « He is Peter, to whom he said: you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. Where Peter is, therefore, there is the Church » (on Ps. 40, n. 30.).

What Cyprian says, that from Peter, upon whom the Church is built, the ordination of bishops and the constitution of the Church run down; and more explicitly, what Optatus says, that Peter alone received the keys for the good of unity, to be communicated to the others: other Fathers repeat this very thing. « Through the holy Apostle Peter both apostolate and episcopate in Christ took their beginning » Siricius, letter 4 to the bishops of Africa; Innocent I, letter 2 to Victricius. « From the Apostle (Peter) the principate itself and all the authority of this name emerged » Innocent I, letter 24 to the Council of Carthage; letter 25 to the Council of Milevis. « The sacrament of this office the Lord willed to pertain to the office of all the Apostles, in such a way that in the most blessed Peter, the chief of all the Apostles, he principally placed it, and wished his gifts to flow from him as from a kind of head into the whole body » St. Leo the Great, letter 10 to the bishops of the province of Vienne. « The divine condescension granted this man (Peter) a great and wonderful partnership in his power; and if he wished anything to be common with him to the other princes, it never gave, except through him, whatever it did not deny to the others » Id., Sermon 3 on his assumption.

Lastly, the other Fathers, in those same places in which they demonstrate more zealously the primacy in Peter as the foundation of unity, also profess the dignity of the apostolate as common to all, which Cyprian preaches together with the power in the one Peter for forming unity. « The connection of the whole body makes one health, one beauty; and this connection of the whole body requires unanimity, but especially demands the concord of priests. Although they have a common dignity, there is not a general order; since even among the most blessed Apostles, in the similitude of honour, there was a certain discretion of power; and although the election of all was equal, yet it was given to one that he should excel the others » St. Leo the Great, letter 12, c. 11, to Anastasius of Thessalonica. Citing first the words of promise and institution, Matt. XVI., Luke XXII., John XXI., St. Gelasius I draws this conclusion: « Why, then, is the Lord's speech so often directed to Peter? Were not the other holy and blessed Apostles girded with similar virtue? Who would dare to affirm this? But so that, a head being established, the occasion of schism might be removed ²⁸, and one structure of the body of Christ might be shown (cf. Eph. IV. 16), which might come together to one head in the most glorious society of love, and so that there might be one Church, to which faithful credence might be given... Certainly there were twelve Apostles, supported by equal merits and endowed with equal dignity; and although all shone equally with spiritual light, yet Christ wished one of them to be the chief » Gelasius, letter 8, or treatise against the Acacian schism (Harduin T. II, p. 893 ff.).

3°. All that we have demonstrated in the thesis is summed up in this. The divine Saviour, preparing to found his Church, foreshadowed by clear promises, and in the foundation itself, fulfilling the promises in clear words, instituted this and no other visible form of the Church: so that she, both in all her parts and members, and insofar as she constitutes one body, should be subject to be governed and fed by a certain power, supreme in intension, universal in extension, immediate, ordinary, and from these very things full; and that this power should reside in one man, whom he himself, from among all and over all the Apostles, endowed with that power. Not indeed that they should be deprived of their power and dignity of apostolate, either extraordinary or ordinary, but that, subordinated to this supreme head, they should be united both with him and among themselves. For in one Peter, as a rock, the Church of Christ simply so called is built, and so the universal and whole Church on earth as one « spiritual house »; to him alone is given the supreme power of keys, so that by binding and loosing the visible kingdom of heaven may be administered by him as one « holy nation and royal priesthood »; and finally he alone is appointed who feeds the sheep and lambs, so that in visible form also « there may be one shepherd and one fold. » This supreme and universal pastorate of one, therefore, was in the very foundation, and by the divine founder himself, inserted into the Church to form and hold together her visible unity in all her constituting elements: so that there may be « one body and one spirit » under the supreme rule of one head; « one faith », and the teaching of the faith under the supreme teaching of the same head; « one baptism », and the lawful administration of the sacraments and sacred worship under the same supreme priesthood. For these are the things by which the Church is perennially built and the sheep of Christ are fed. Now all these offices, as participations, are derived into the visible head, instituted and substituted for himself by Jesus Christ himself, who yesterday and today is himself and remains for ever « the cornerstone », holding « the key of David », « the author and perfecter of faith », « the great priest and mediator of the New Testament », « the head of his body, the Church. »

Just as certainly as it is established that the Church was instituted by Christ, so certain is it that its visible form was not left to human disposition but was determined by the divine founder himself, and that this form is monarchical; for the visible institution of the Church and the determination of its form coincide and converge into one. To what extent aristocracy is, not mixed, but joined with the monarchy, we shall consider below. Meanwhile, it is now clear from what has been demonstrated that the form of which we have spoken, since it is of divine and unchangeable law, and therefore essential to the Church of Jesus Christ, must necessarily also be perpetual, and to be propagated and preserved as long as the Church itself persists, all days even to the consummation of the age. Nevertheless, this perpetual propagation, and the mode of propagation, still require special consideration.