The primitive church and the primacy of Rome

Front matter

The pig itive Ch wd and the Primacy of Rome

_G Bartoli -

WRN xe

Contents

Or tHe Unity oF THE CHURCH ACCORDING

TO THE SCRIPTURES . } 3 :

Is Prerer THE Rock anpd CENTRE OF

CHAPTER I THE TRUE CHURCH OF CHRIST “H ddnbea éNevdepwoe vbuds.—Iway. viii. 32

BOUT five hundred and fifty millions of the human race profess Christianity. Of those five hundred and fifty millions all that can think for themselves and are truly Christians, not only nominally so, admit the following Christian doctrines: They recognise the divinity of Christ. ‘They hold that Christ established a religious society which is called a Church. They recognise that Christ left certain truths or doctrines to that Society or Church. Finally, they admit that the acceptance of Christ’s doctrines and the practice of the Christian life are the bonds which unite the members into one society, one Church, one body formed by Him.

One fact, however, stares them in the face. They cannot close their eyes to the stern B reality that many distinct institutions claim the right of being called the Church of Christ, each one of them holding a special doctrine which they put forward as the doctrine of Christ, but which, nevertheless, disagrees with the doctrine held by any other of the institutions.

Hence the difficulty which besets the inquirer, religiously inclined, is twofold. He asks himself: “1. To what society does the name ‘Church of Christ’ really and by right belong? 2. How far is unity in doctrine necessary to the unity of the Church?”

To these two questions the Church of Rome has one answer only. She alone, of all Churches, is the true Church of Christ—and she alone, exclusively of all other Christian institutions, possesses in its purity and entirety the doctrine of Christ, and is its legally appointed and authorised teacher.

The Roman Church holds herself to be the only, the unique and true Church of Jesus Christ. She declares all other Churches heretical, schismatical, false; and their followers out of the fold, cut off from the living Christ, and condemned to the everlasting fire of hell.

The Church of Rome has stated this awful belief in an almost infinite number of official documents, from the early Middle Ages down to our own times. Nay, since the days of the Lutheran Reformation her voice has become, if possible, even sterner and louder in proclaiming herself the only true Church of Christ. In consequence, she “not only forbids the Catholic to profess that religion which he, led by the natural light of reason, believes to be true,” but, moreover, “ forbids him to hope for the eternal salvation of such as do not live in the bosom of the true Church of Christ, which is only the Roman Churech.”* Hwvtra Ecclesiam, nulla salus. Out of the Church (Roman) there is no salvation.

Here is, for instance, the definition of the Fourth Lateran Council (cap. F%rmiter). “The Universal Church of the faithful is one (the Roman), out of which not even one’ gets salvation”: nwllus omnino salvatur. And Innocent III., in the Profession of Faith prescribed to the Waldenses: “ We believe with the heart and profess with the mouth one Church only: not the Church of the

1 Pius IX., in the Syllabus, Propos. XV., XVII. 3 heretics, but the holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church, out of which, we believe, not one finds salvation.” And Eugenius IV. in the Bull Cantate Domino: “(The Church) firmly believes and professes that not one who is not in the Church (not Pagans, not even Jews, heretics, or schismatics) shall ever partake of life eternal, . . . if before his death he does not jom the same Church; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so very necessary that the sacraments help towards eternal life only those that live in the bosom of the Church.” The same doctrine was several times proclaimed by Pope Gregory XVI., by Pius TX. in his Encyclical of August 10, 1864, and elsewhere in the Syllabus, as above referred to. I add here a few words of Pope Pius IX.’s Encyclical, because they are very significant : ‘“‘ We must again and again,” he says, “mention and condemn the most grievous error which is entertained by some Catholics, who think that heretics, who live far away from the true faith and Catholic unity, may yet arrive at eternal life. This opinion is absolutely contrary to the Catholic doctrine.”

I know that many a Roman theologian

4, has turned his mind and pen to soften the rigidity of this doctrine ; but their efforts have, on the whole, proved abortive. As long as words have a definite meaning, the official words of the Church, referred to above, will for ever proclaim that “out of the Roman fold there is no salvation.” And that this is their genuine meaning may be gathered also from the fact that, as often as a Roman theologian has ventured to print a book upholding the milder doctrine, or explaining away the more rigid one, he has immediately been silenced, and his book put on the Indew Heapurgatorius as infected with liberalism and laxity of opinions. This fate befell, a few years ago, Rev. Fr. Castelein, S.J., who wrote a book to show that, after all, there was some hope for Pagans, heretics, and schismatics. He was immediately ordered to hold his peace, and a ferocious Redemptorist Father, F. X. Godts, wrote an awful book, De Paucitate Salvandorum, against him, and showed, to his own immense satisfaction, that the Roman Church has always taught that the majority of men “go literally to the devil.” And he adds that this doctrine is deemed by certain theologians to be of the 5 essence of faith (dicitur esse de fide); by others ‘“‘more than true, common, certain,” and that it was upheld by universal tradition, by twenty-three Fathers of the Church, doctors, and saints; by seventy-four theologians and commentators on Holy Writ; in fine, that it can quote for itself all the Church documents.’

It is true that Roman divines, in treating of Justification, are forced to grant that “an act of perfect charity will justify a man,” even if he be out of the Roman fold. The Scrip- _ tures are too explicit on this subject to be — gainsaid. However, when they pass on to explain how a heretic may make an act of perfect charity they cause it to be so difficult as to render it wellnigh impossible. First of all, an invincible ignorance is necessary to the heretic, that he may be thereby excused from joining the Roman Church, which alone is the true Church of Christ, and in which alone salvation is possible. Moreover, if the heretic be a sinner and wants to repent of his sins, he must excite himself to perfect contrition; because imperfect contrition may

suffice to Roman Catholics, when they confess their sins ; but perfect contrition is demanded from all those that are out of the Roman fold. But then who can get perfect contrition ? Perfect charity and perfect contrition are so difficult, according to the majority of Roman divines, that the Roman Church logically, if somewhat cruelly, forbids the faithful to “hope for the eternal salvation of those that live and die out of her fold” (Pius IX., Syllabus, Propos. XVII.).

In pondering over this awful doctrine, which is not the doctrine of this or that Roman theologian, but the official doctrine of the Church, one might think the non- Catholics to be very few in number, so as to matter very little, after all, if they go to hell. De minimis non curat preetor.

But, just the reverse is the real truth. The Christians not in communion with Rome, when all told, surpass the Roman Catholics by almost eighteen millions; as will be made clear from the following tables, compiled by the Rev. Fr. Krose, S.J., for Die Katholischen' Missionen, in 1904. The learned author has followed in his statistics Die Bevilkerung der Erde, Das Diplomatisches Jahrbuch (Gotha),

Les Missions Catholiques, the statistics published yearly by the Propaganda Fide, and other reliable sources.

Orthodox Oriental

If we put together the Protestants and the orthodox and oriental Greeks, we get the sum of 282,329,295, 2.e. 17,843,368 non-Catholics more than the Roman Catholics. Taking these statistics for probable, if not for certain, because others skilled in statistics reckon the non-Catholics at over 300 millions, I thus continue my argument. Is it possible, or even credible, that 282 millions of non- Roman Catholics are out of the true Church of Christ, and thereby destined, as well as the Pagans, to Gehenna? If that be so, then to what is the Church of Christ reduced ? To a very small minority of mankind indeed, because, though numerically Roman Catholics are reckoned at 264 millions, yet very few millions are nowadays to be found amongst them that profess the whole body of the Roman doctrines and live up to the religious practices of their Church. -This is no gratuitous assumption on my part; it is a fact as widely known in Roman ecclesiastical circles as it is admitted and regretted by all thinking men of that Church. Our age is the age of liberalism, and a liberal education brings with it a more or less complete divorce from the doctrines held sacred by the Roman Church. The Roman hierarchy still holds her own, yet the mass of the educated people falls away from her. France is not the only well-known instance. Italy very closely follows the sister Latin country. Austria is more than half gone, and even Ireland, Catholic Ireland, nurses the seed of future rebellions. Half her children that leave her green shores fall away from the Roman Church, or give up the practice of their religion. Very significant, moreover, is the fact that the classes that thus forsake their mother, the Church, are chiefly the educated ones, 2.e. those in whose hands is, or is likely to be, the government of their countries, 9

If, therefore, the only true Church of Christ is the Roman, we are forced to say that Christianity nowadays is reduced to a few millions of men and women, most of whom, moreover, profess rather the religion of a renovated Paganism than the true religion of the Gospel of Christ.

The difficulty is a weighty one, and has of late attracted a good deal of attention from thinking men of the Roman communion. Most theologians of the Church of Rome, whilst admitting the difficulty, confess their utter inability to solve it, and shelter themselves behind the dark shadow of mystery. They prefer openly to profess their ignorance rather than widen the limited horizon of their church-view. Others explain it away by having recourse to half a dozen systems of theology, veritable stumbling-blocks to faith, rather than helps to a pious and inquiring intellect. A few, finally, do not hesitate to admit that Christ has actually failed in His mission, and strengthen their position by quoting two or three Scriptural texts of difficult and dubious interpretation.

All these answers are downright blasphemy, sheer want of faith, or supine ignorance.

The solution of the proposed difficulty is at hand. The Roman Catholic Church is a local Church, not the wrversal Church of Christ. The truly Catholic or universal Church of Christ is invisible, and to her by right belong all the chosen ones, though on earth they worship God and His Christ in different local Churches, by various rites and tongues, and under several Christian denominations.

Of course, the Roman Church rejects the theory of an invisible Church, which is, after all, the only true and universal Church of Christ. Yet surely every sane man must admit it. In fact, no one can say, with any semblance of truth, that a true and earnest Christian is in spiritual communion with the wicked and sinful members of his Church. The latter are indeed in the Church, but they are in it as the dead are in a town, 2.é. with their bodies only, not with their souls. Moreover, the idea of an invisible Church, to express the body of true believers, who alone are the Church, to whatever community they belong, is very ancient. When our blessed Lord said, “ Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. xvii. 20), He spoke clearly and unmistakably of His invisible Church on earth. And St. Ignatius Martyr expressed the same idea when he wrote: “ Where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church ” (Ubi Christus est, 1b2 Catholca est Ecclesia) (Eipistula ad MSmyrneos, cap. vii.). On which Dr. Gerardus Rauschen, a Roman Catholic scholar, remarks that “the words, Catholica Ecclesia, which occur here for the first time in Christian literature, mean the universal Church, of which Christ is the Head.” *

Indeed from the first there was obviously a distinction between true and untrue Christians, between the spiritual and the carnal, between the vessels to honour and the vessels to dishonour. “It is better,” says St. Ignatius . Martyr, “for a man to be silent and be a Christian, than to talk and not be one. The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.”* ‘The tree is known by its fruit: so those that profess themselves to be Christians are to be recognised by their conduct. For

1 Gerardus Rauschen, Florilegium Patristicum. Bonne, 1904. 1 St. Ignatius’ Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. xv.

there is not now a demand for mere profession, but that a man be found continuing in _the power of faith to the end.”’ “ It is fitting, then, not only to be called Christians, but to be so in reality. For it is not the being called so that renders a man blessed.” *

The Didache teaches no other doctrine. ** All true Christians are one, though scattered over the world, and God, the Head of the Church, will gather them all from the four winds into His kingdom.”* 'The theology of the Didache is clear. ‘The Church is manifold, and will pass away, with its various organisations ; the kingdom of God is one and will last for ever, here as a kingdom of grace, there as a kingdom of glory. When, therefore, Roman Catholic and High Church Anglican theologians maintain that “the idea of an invisible Church to express the body of true believers, who alone are the Church, to whatever community they belong, is an idea entirely at variance with Scripture and all pre-Reformation teaching,” * they assert a thing which they cannot prove. If the early

1 St. Ignatius’ Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. xiv.

* Id., Epistle to the Magnesians, chap. iv.

3 Didache, ix. 4; x. 5.

* Cf. Lux Mundi, “The Church,” by Rev. W. Lock, p. 275. 13

Christian literature distinguishes between true and untrue Christians, between the Church and the kingdom, it distinguishes between a visible and an invisible Church. ‘True, the words ‘visible and invisible Church” do not occur ; but it matters little. We do not look for the words where we have the idea. The visible Church was to the first Christians, as it is for us, “the Church” simply: they called the invisible Church, “kingdom.” To the latter belong the Christians who live in_ perfect righteousness according to the Gospel, the true children of God, and all those who persevere to the end. All these form the kingdom of God upon earth.

This difference between the Church and the kingdom, z.e. between the visible and invisible Church, is likewise very apparent in those parables of our Lord which teach about the kingdom, and in such passages as “to them [to the poor in spirit, to the children] belongs the kingdom of heaven,” and to “enter the kingdom,” in) Mattiwiv. 3) nxvl lay ae Mark x. 14; John ii. 5; or “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom. xiv. 17). Finally, it is very significant that Christ uses éxkx\noia only twice (in Matthew and nowhere else), but Bacudcia twenty-three times in Matthew alone.

I answer, in the second place, the Church of Rome not only denies the great truth of the invisibility of the Church, but she also gives a wrong definition of the visible Church. According to her, “the true Church of Christ is the society of the faithful, believing the doctrine of Christ, sharing in His sacraments, and in communion with the Pope of Rome.” Now, this view of the Church of Christ is completely at variance with Holy Writ. Even when applied to the visible Church this definition is too limited and narrow; it excludes too many earnest and real Christians from the Church of Christ, and at most it may be said only of the local Church of Rome. Stern, real facts compel us to admit that “the visible Church of Christ consists of the sum-total of all Churches and believers that profess the essential doctrines of Christ and employ the most important, if not all, of the means of grace which He left for our eternal salvation.”

The Christian Churches are thereby placed on a certain graduated scale of perfection and of intrinsic excellence. Those that drink more abundantly at the living fountain of the doctrine of Christ, and adhere more closely to His divine Gospel, stand at the top of the scale; others somewhat lower ; others, finally, which have adulterated the divine message of Christ, so long as they do not reform themselves, are at the bottom of it.

As long, however, as the different Churches believe and practise what is essential to salvation both with regard to doctrine and to Christian life, they, although not strictly in communion with one another, are branches of the same tree, off-shoots of the same mother-root, vines of the same vineyard, brooklets from the same source, rays of the same sun—Christ the Lord.

A Roman divine will object at this point: “Your definition of the true Church of Christ destroys the unity of the Church. The Church, according to you, is nothing more than a congeries of Churches, often at war with one another on capital points of Christian doctrine, and differing from one another in manner of worship, in charity, in all. Such is not the true Church of Christ. She is one, because she professes the same faith, accepts the same sacraments, obeys the same Bishops, and chiefly the Roman Pontiff.”

To this I rejoin: The definition you give of the true Church of Christ defines the Roman Church, not the universal Church. The primitive Church never possessed the fancied unity which the Roman divines now claim for her. If she did not possess it when newly born, why should it be necessary now? If, when already grown up, she could exist and prosper without that strict monarchic unity, why should she be in danger of perishing now? But more about this in the following chapters.

Chapter II Of The Unity Of The Church According To The Scriptures

AN are all familiar with the arguments with which Roman theologians demonstrate the monarchical unity and organisation of the Church of Christ. The Church is “the kingdom of Christ,” “the city of the great King,” “ His rest and habitation for ever, the “house of the living God,” the “fold of which Christ is the Shepherd,” the “ body of which Christ is the Head,” the “spouse of which He is the bridegroom,” “the temple of God,” “the family of Christ.” All these metaphors, they say, imply in the Church of Christ a perfect unity, the unity which is possessed by the Roman Church only—z.e. unity of faith, unity of love, unity of sacraments, unity of government. My answer is that in this, as in other matters, 18 the Roman theologians stretch their argument a little too far. The epithets lavished by the prophets of the Old Covenant, or by our Lord, upon the Church are, after all, metaphors, not strictly scientific definitions. They can be explained, each one of them, with regard to other characteristics or notes of the Church. The “kingdom of God,” for instance, may refer to the greatness and influence to which the Church was, in the course of time, to attain ; the “temple of God” to the dealings of God with each individual soul; “the household of Christ” to the activity of the members of the Christian community; the “fold” to the docility ot Christians towards their supreme Shepherd, Christ. They imply also a certain unity, we readily grant it. But what kind of unity? Uniform or multiform?

Is the unity of a kingdom of the same kind as that of a “ city,” of a “‘fold,” of a ‘family,’ of a ‘‘ temple,” of a “body”? Who can say so? Moreover, is the word “kingdom” in the Gospels so specific as to mean a monarchy rather than a federation of republics, a democracy rather than an oligarchy? Who can solve this problem with certainty? Suppose Jesus meant 19 all this, comprehensively not exclusively, collectively not singly, so as to include in His Church such absolute monarchies as the Church of Rome, moderate ones like the Greek, Oriental, and English Churches, and quasi-republics, like many other of the Christian Churches? But what if those metaphors meant a prophecy of the future ? Certainly the evidence of St. Paul’s Epistles shows us a very different scene in real life, that is, “a household” torn asunder by _intestine discords, “a family” whose members were at variance amongst themselves, a “body ” with tendencies to divisions, to selfishness, to sin. And what St. Paul saw in his days, that is, in the dawn of Christianity, we see likewise in our times. ‘Those metaphors, therefore, may after all mean an ideal state of the Church to be attained in future, when, all races of mankind having become civilised, and men’s minds being fully developed, all Christians will convince themselves that unity is to be sought in variety, peace in the union of hearts, fellowship of Christ in the love of God, of our Lord, and of their fellow-men. Furthermore, the metaphors referred to may indicate also a state 20 or mode of being of the Church in the different periods of her earthly career, or in various parts of the world. ‘lhe Church may be, for a time, in one country, “a household,” 2.€. a scene of active work; in another “a family,” all love and peace; elsewhere a “temple of God,” owing to the holiness and fervour of her children; in this soul she may become the “bride of Christ”; for a time, all over the world, the kingdom of God, for her grandeur and power ; and so forth. Neither may Roman divines, to prove the unity of the Church as conceived by them, have recourse to the sublime petition of our blessed Lord; addressed on the eve of His crucifixion to His Eternal Father: ‘“ Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me; that they may be one, as We are. ... Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us.” ‘This prayer, apparently, has only one meaning: Jesus asked his Eternal Father that all Christians that believe in Him should be one in charity as He is one with His 21

Kternal Father—one in love, though distinct from His Father in person: and so all the Churches, though distinct amongst themselves, should love one another and be one in the charity of the Lord. All the ancient Fathers of the Church—all, none excepted—explained this prayer of our Lord by the love and charity we owe to one another, never by the monarchical and absolute unity of the Church.

St. Cyprian, to prove the unity of the Church, often quoted the words which occur in’) the’) Song?,/of }) Solomon (vis 8) 30 7 aay dove, my undefiled, is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the chowce one of her that bore her.” Now, apart from the mere word one, there is nothing in this text that may warrant an argument in favour of the unity of the Church; and one wonders at the simplicity of the great African Bishop, as also at the intellectual level of many of the Fathers of the early Church.

Even the Church of Rome and the majority of the Roman divines hold that two dogmatic texts only are to be found in the Bible with regard to the unity of the Church: one in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians (iv. 3-6), the other in St. Matthew (xvi. 13-19). Moreover, only St. Paul deals directly with the unity of the Church, St. Matthew’s text being at most a valuable auxiliary to the former, not establishing by itself and alone the unity of the Church.

Now about St. Paul’s very mysterious words a few remarks will suffice. First, it is simply marvellous that St. Paul, when speaking ex professo of the unity of the Church, should omit to mention the promise of Christ to St. Peter, and the prerogative granted to him of being, in the Roman sense, the rock upon which the Church was to be built, the centre, the origin, and the bond of unity. Did St. Paul believe that an actual union of the several Churches with Peter was essential to the unity of the Church? If so, why did he not mention it? He is content with saying, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” He never dreamt of saying, “One government, one organisation, one ruling Church, one monarchy, one empire.”’ How does that agree with the Roman claims ?

1Cf. J. Corluy, S.J., Spicilegium Dogmaticum Biblicum, tom. 1. p. 13. Gandavi, 1884.

But there is something more. If words are to be taken in their obvious sense, the text of St. Paul favours the broader conception of the Church. The apostle exhorts the Ephesians to “keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” To this end he reminds them that in the Church there — is but “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.”

There is “one Lord,” 2.e. Jesus Christ, received and worshipped alike by all Christian denominations. These are at variance often amongst themselves about minor points of Christian doctrine; but no Christian Church, even to this day, has ever rejected our Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever one did so she ceased being a Christian Church.

There is “one faith,” z.e. fazth an the Lord, for the word fazth in this verse cannot have any other meaning. St. Paul does not speak of the faith in general, of the doctrines of Christianity, as we might speak of them nowadays. For St. Paul, and for the early Christians, Jesus, the Lord, was all. Everything centred in Him. AIl who worshipped Him as Lord were held for Christians, even when, in other points of doctrine not directly connected with Christ, they differed from the received opinions of the leaders of this or that Church. And the faith of the first Christians in our Lord was of the simplest kind. They believed Him to be true man and true God: God according to the Spirit, kata mvedpa, i.e. the heavenly part, the invisible, the spiritual aspect ; man xara odpxa, 2.¢e. the earthly and visible part. Later on the Fathers of the Church borrowed from the Jew Philo the distinction between the anterior word, doyos évd.abetos, and the uttered word, dyos mpodopixds; and thus, little by little, Platonic or Aristotelian philosophy made its entrance into the Church and got mixed up with its creed. This, however, did not please St. Irenzus, who in several places of his works complains that “frivolous talk (minutiloguum) and subtilty of disputation, being of Aristotelian origin, they [the heretics] try to bring into the faith” (Contra Her., ibe lit.) cap. xiv.. $2):

It is not, therefore, preposterous to say that all Churches, whether or not in communion with Rome, have even now one faith in the Lord, 2.e. they-all believe Him to be true God and true Man, which is what St. Paul, in this verse, requires the faithful to believe. Nothing more. |

““Qne Lord, one faith, one baptism.” One baptism. This is absolutely in favour of a wider conception of the Church. Since the controversy between St. Cyprian and Pope Stephen about the validity of baptism conferred by heretics, all the Christian world holds that their baptism is valid. There is therefore one baptism only, the baptism of the Lord: the baptism that enlists a Christian In? the army, of “the; Ghurch,))\(hhis: is ine official doctrine of the Roman and of the universal Church.

The inference is obvious and may be stated in the very words of St. Cyprian: “If the baptism conferred by heretics is valid, then heresy, as well as the Catholic Church, brings forth children to Christ.” St. Cyprian stopped here, but we may go further: ‘Therefore Christ is abiding in any single Church which confesses His divinity and bestows His baptism.” Therefore that Church, although not in actual communion with the Church of Rome, is a part of the true Church of Christ, is a true branch of the Vine, the Body and Bride of Christ. Take, for instance, the Greek, the Oriental, and the Russian Churches. All these Churches, as granted by Rome, have valid orders, and in consequence have valid sacraments. They validly baptize, validly administer the sacrament of Penance, validly consecrate the Body and the Blood of the Lord, validly ordain for the holy priesthood, and, finally, are validly recognised as channels of divine grace. What more is wanted to make them parts and living branches of the true Church of Christ? If communion with Rome and submission to the Pope were essential to the Church, they would not be Churches at all: they would be dead, not living Churches. If Peter were the only necessary rock of the Church, those Churches, not founded on Peter, could not stand. If Peter were the only fountain through which Christ’s grace flows, they would be without grace. If in the house of Peter only one could eat the Pascal Lamb, they would be long dead of starvation. And yet they are living. There is no gainsaying this.