RUSSIA AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH
THE ECCLESIASTICAL MONARCHY
FOUNDED BY JESUS CHRIST
Vladimir Soloviev



PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE

PART TWO
Contents

THE ECCLESIASTICAL MONARCHY FOUNDED BY JESUS CHRIST
THE ROCK OF THE CHURCH
THE PRIMACY OF ST. PETER AS A PERMANENT INSTITUTION. THE THREE ROCKS OF CHRISTENDOM
"PETER" AND "SATAN"
THE CHURCH AS A UNIVERSAL SOCIETY. THE PRINCIPLE OF LOVE
THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. THE CENTER OF UNITY
THE MONARCHIES FORETOLD BY DANIEL. "ROMA" AND "AMOR"
THE "SON OF MAN" AND THE "ROCK"
ANCIENT AND MODERN WITNESS TO THE PRIMACY OF PETER
THE APOSTLE PETER AND THE PAPACY
POPE ST. LEO THE GREAT ON THE PRIMACY
ST. LEO THE GREAT ON PAPAL AUTHORITY
THE APPROVAL OF ST. LEO'S IDEAS BY THE GREEK FATHERS THE "ROBBER COUNCIL" OF EPHESUS
THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON

CHAPTER NOTES

THE ECCLESIASTICAL MONARCHY
FOUNDED BY JESUS CHRIST

ANDREW, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who had heard what
John said and had followed Jesus. He first found his brother Simon and
said to him: We have found the Messiah (which means, the Anointed).
And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus having looked upon him said: Thou art Simon,
the son of Jona; thou shalt be called Cephas (which means, "Rock").
— (John 1. 40-42).

The Greco-Russian Church, as we have seen, claims the special patronage of St.
Andrew. The blessed apostle, inspired by goodwill towards his brother, brings him
to the Lord and hears from the divine lips the first word of Simon's future destiny
as the Rock of the Church. There is no indication in the Gospels or in the Acts of
the Apostles that St. Andrew ever felt any envy towards St. Peter or questioned his
primacy. It is because we would justify the claim of Russia to be the Church of St.
Andrew that we shall try to imitate his example and to conceive the same spirit of
goodwill and religious harmony towards the great Church which is especially
connected with St. Peter. This spirit will preserve us from local or national
egotism, the source of so much error, and will enable us to examine the dogma of
the Rock of the Church in the light of the very essence of the revelation of the
God-Man, and so to discern in that revelation the eternal truths which this dogma
expresses.

The Rock of the Church

IT would take too long to investigate here or even to enumerate all the existing
doctrines and theories about the Church and its constitution. But anyone who is
concerned to discover the plain truth about this fundamental problem of
positive religion must be struck by the ease with which Providence has ordained
that the truth may be learned. All Christians are in complete agreement on one
point, namely that the Church was founded by Christ; the question is how and in
what terms He founded it. Now, there is in the Gospels only one solitary text which
mentions the founding of the Church in a direct, explicit and formal manner. This
fundamental text becomes more and more clear as the Church itself grows and
develops the permanent features of its organic structure; and nowadays the
opponents of the truth can generally find no other way out but that of mutilating
Christ's creative word in order to adapt it to their own sectarian standpoint. (1)
"Jesus Christ, having come into the district of Cæsarea Philippi, asked His
disciples: Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they answered Him:
Some say, John the Baptist; others, Elijah; others again, Jeremiah or one of the
prophets. He said to them: And who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter
answered and said: Thou art the Christ, Son of the living God. And Jesus answered
and said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for it is not flesh and blood
which have revealed it to thee, but My Father Who is in Heaven. And I say to thee
that thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates of Hell
shall not prevail against it. And I will give thee the keys of the Kingdom of
Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven" (Matt. xvi. 13-19).
The union of the Divine and the human, which is the goal of creation, was
accomplished individually (or hypostatically) in the unique person of Jesus Christ,
"perfect God and perfect Man, uniting the two natures in a perfect manner without
confusion and without division." (2) The historic work of God enters henceforward
upon a new stage. It is no longer a matter of a physical and individual unity, but of
a moral and social union. The God-Man desires to unite humanity with Himself in
a perfect union. The human race is steeped in error and sin. How shall He set about
it? Is He to approach each human soul separately and unite it to Himself by a
purely interior and subjective bond? He answers, No: Οικοδομήσω την εκκλησίαν
μου. "I will build My Church." It is a real objective work of which we are here
told. But will He allow this work to be subject to all the divisions natural to the
human race? Will He unite Himself to individual nations as such by giving them
independent national Churches? No, He does not say: I will build My Churches,
but: My Church, την εκκλησίαν μου. Mankind united to God must form a single
social structure and for this unity a solid basis must be found.

Any genuine union is based on the mutual interaction of those who are united.
The act of absolute truth which is revealed in the God-Man (or the perfect Man)
must meet with the response of imperfect humanity in an act of irrevocable
adherence which links us to the divine principle. God incarnate does not desire that
His truth should be accepted in a passive and servile spirit. In His new dispensation
He asks of mankind a free act of recognition. But at the same time this free act
must be absolutely true and infallible. Therefore, there must be established in the
midst of fallen humanity a single, fixed and impregnable point on which the
constructive activity of God may be directly based, a point at which human
freedom shall coincide with divine Truth in a composite act absolutely human in its
outward form, but divinely infallible in its fundamental character.

In the creation of the individual physical humanity of Christ the act of the divine
Omnipotence required for its realization only the supremely passive and receptive
self-surrender of feminine nature in the person of the Immaculate Virgin. The
building up of the social or collective humanity of Christ, of His universal body,
the Church, demands less and at the same time more than that: less, because the
human foundation of the Church need not be represented by an absolutely pure and
sinless individual, since there is no question in this case of creating a substantial
and individual relation, or a hypostatic and complete union, between two natures,
but simply of forging a living moral bond. If, however, this new link (the link
between Christ and the Church) is less intimate and fundamental than the previous
link (that between the Word of God and human nature in the womb of the
Immaculate Virgin), it is humanly speaking more positive, and of more farreaching
influence: more positive, because this new bond between the Spirit and
the Truth demands a virile will to respond to God's revelation and a virile
intelligence to give a definite form to the truth which it accepts; moreover, this new
link is of wider scope because, forming as it does the creative foundation of a
collective entity, it cannot be confined to a personal relationship but must be
extended through time as a permanent function of the society so formed.
It was necessary, therefore, to find in mankind as it is such a center of active
coherence between the Divine and the human, which might form the base or rockfoundation
of the Christian Church. Jesus in His supernatural foreknowledge had
already pointed out this rock. But in order to show us that His choice was free from
all suspicion of arbitrariness, He begins by seeking elsewhere the human response
to revealed truth. He turns first of all to general public opinion; He wishes to see
whether He cannot be recognized, accepted and acclaimed by the opinion of the
mob, the voice of the people: Quem dicunt homines esse Filium Hominis? For
whom do men take Me? But Truth is ever one and the same, whereas the opinions
of men are many and conflicting. The voice of the people, which some claim to be
the voice of God, only answered the question of the God-Man with its own
erroneous and discordant opinions. There is no bond possible between Truth and
such errors; mankind cannot enter into relation with God by the way of popular
opinion; the Church of Christ cannot be founded on democracy.

Having questioned popular opinion and failed to find there man's response to
divine truth, Jesus Christ turns to His chosen, the college of the Apostles, that first
of all oecumenical councils: Vos autem quem me esse dicitis? And for whom do
you take Me? But the Apostles are silent. The moment before, when asked for the
opinions of men, the twelve all spoke together: why do they leave the word to one
of their number when it is a question of asserting divine truth? Possibly they are
not quite agreed among themselves; possibly Philip does not perceive the essential
relation of Jesus to the heavenly Father; possibly Thomas is doubtful of the
Messianic power of his Master. The last chapter of St. Matthew tells us that even
on the Galilean mountain, whither they were summoned by Jesus after His
resurrection, the Apostles did not show themselves unanimous and firm in their
faith: quidam autem dubitaverunt (Matt. xxviii. 17).

If it is to bear unanimous witness to the pure and simple truth, the council must
be in absolute agreement. The decisive act must be an entirely individual act, the
act of a single person. It is neither the multitude of the faithful nor the apostolic
council, but Simon Bar-Jona alone who answers Jesus. Respondens Simon Petrus
dixit: Tu es Filius Dei vivi. He replies for all the Apostles, but he speaks on his
own responsibility without consulting them or waiting for their consent. When the
Apostles had repeated, a moment before, the opinions of the crowd which followed
Jesus, they had only repeated what were errors; if Simon had only wished to voice
the opinions of the Apostles, he would possibly not have reached the pure and
simple truth. But he followed his own spiritual impulse, the voice of his own
conscience; and Jesus, in pronouncing His solemn approval, declared that this
impulse, for all its individual character, came nevertheless from His heavenly
Father, that it was an act both divine and human, a real co-operation between the
absolute Being and the relative subject.

The fixed point, the impregnable rock, has been discovered whereon to base the
divine-human activity. The organic foundation of the universal Church is found in
a single man who, with the divine assistance, answers for the whole world. It is
fixed neither upon the impossible unanimity of all believers, nor upon the
inevitably hazardous agreement of a council, but upon the real and living unity of
the prince of the Apostles. And henceforward every time that the question of truth
is put to Christian humanity, it will not be from the voice of the masses nor from
the opinion of the elect that the fixed and final answer will come. The arbitrary
opinions of men will only give rise to heresies; and the hierarchy separated from its
center and abandoned to the mercy of the secular power will refrain from speaking
or will speak through such councils as the robber-council of Ephesus. Only in
union with the rock on which it is founded will the Church be able to assemble true
councils and define the truth by authoritative formulas. This is no mere opinion; it
is a historic fact of such impressiveness that on the most solemn occasions it has
been averred by the Eastern bishops themselves for all their jealousy of the
successors of St. Peter. Not only was the wonderful dogmatic treatise of Pope St.
Leo the Great recognized by the Greek Fathers of the fourth oecumenical Council
as a work of Peter, but it was also to Peter that the sixth Council attributed the
letter of Pope Agatho, who was far from having the same personal authority that
Leo had. "The head and prince of the Apostles," declared the Eastern Fathers,
"fought with us . . . The ink (of the letter) was plain to see and Peter spoke through
Agatho (Και μέλαν εφαίνετο, και δι Αγαθνος ό Πέτρος εφθέγετο) (3).

Otherwise, if apart from Peter the universal Church can expressly declare the
truth, how are we to explain the remarkable silence of the Eastern episcopate
(notwithstanding that they have kept the apostolic succession) since their
separation from the Chair of St. Peter? Can it be merely an accident? An accident
lasting for a thousand years! To those anti-Catholics who will not see that their
particularism cuts them off from the life of the universal Church, we have only one
suggestion to make: Let them summon, without the concurrence of the successor of
St. Peter, a council which they themselves can recognize as oecumenical! Then
only will there be an opportunity of discovering whether they are right.

Wherever Peter does not speak, it is only the opinions of men that find utterance
— and the Apostles are silent. But Jesus Christ did not commend the vague and
contradictory opinions of the mob nor the silence of His chosen disciples; it was
the unwavering, decisive and authoritative utterance of Simon Bar-Jona upon
which He set the seal of His approval. Clearly this utterance, which satisfied our
Lord, needed no human ratification; it possessed absolute validity etiam sine
consensu Ecclesiae. (4) It was not by means of a general consultation but (as Jesus
Christ Himself bore witness) with the direct assistance of the heavenly Father that
Peter formulated the fundamental dogma of our religion; and his word defined the
faith of Christians by its own inherent power, not by the consent of others — ex
sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiæ.

In contrast to the uncertain opinions of men, the word of Peter represents the
stability and unity of the true faith; in contrast to the narrow national ideas of the
Messiah to which the Apostles gave utterance, his word expresses the Messianic
idea in its absolute and universal form. The idea of the Messiah which had sprung
from the soil of Jewish national consciousness is already, in the visions of the postexilic
prophets, growing too large for these limits. But the true meaning of these
mysterious and enigmatic visions was hardly divined by the inspired writers
themselves, while Jewish public opinion remained exclusively nationalistic and
could see no more in Christ than a great national prophet such as Elijah, Jeremiah,
or John the Baptist, or at the most an all-powerful dictator, liberator and leader of
the chosen people, such as Moses or David. This was the highest idea which the
mob which followed Jesus held of Him; and we know that even His chosen
disciples shared these popular notions up to the end of His earthly life (Luke xxiv.
19-21). Only in Peter's confession does the Messianic idea emerge freed from all
its nationalistic trappings and invested for the first time in its final and universal
form. "Thou art the Christ, Son of the living God." Here is no question of a
national king or prophet; the Messiah is not a second Moses or David.

Henceforward he bears the unique name of Him Who, though He is the God of
Israel, is none the less the God of all the nations.

Peter's confession transcended Jewish nationalism and inaugurated the
Universal Church of the New Covenant. This is yet one more reason why Peter
should be the foundation of Christendom and why the supreme hierarchical
authority, which of itself has ever maintained the universal or international
character of the Church, should be the true heir of Peter and the actual possessor of
all those privileges conferred by Christ upon the prince of the Apostles.

The primacy of St. Peter as a permanent institution.
The three Rocks of Christendom

AND I say to thee that thou art Peter . . . " Of the three attributes represented
in this crucial passage as belonging by divine right to the prince of the
Apostles — (1) the call to be the foundation of the Church by the infallible
confession of the truth, (2) the possession of the power of the keys, (3) the power
of binding and loosing — it is only the last that he shares with the other Apostles.
All Orthodox Christians (note 5) are agreed that the apostolic power of binding and
loosing was not conferred upon the Twelve as private individuals or in the sense of
a temporary privilege, but that it is the genuine source and origin of a perpetual
priestly authority which has descended from the Apostles to their successors in the
hierarchy, the bishops and priests of the Universal Church. But if this is true, then
neither can the two former attributes connected particularly with St. Peter in a still
more solemn and significant manner be individual or accidental prerogatives; (note 6) the
less so, in that it was with the first of these prerogatives that our Lord expressly
connected the permanence and stability of His Church in its future struggle against
the powers of evil.

If the power of binding and loosing conferred on the Apostles is not a mere
metaphor nor a purely personal and temporary attribute, if it is, on the contrary, the
actual living germ of a universal permanent institution comprising the Church's
whole existence, how can St. Peter's own special prerogatives, announced in such
explicit and solemn terms, be regarded as barren metaphors or as personal and
transitory privileges? Ought not they also to refer to some fundamental and
permanent institution, of which the historic personality of Simon Bar-Jona is but
the outstanding and typical representative? The God-Man did not establish
ephemeral institutions. In His chosen disciples He saw, through and beyond all that
was mortal and individual, the enduring principles and types of His work. What He
said to the college of the Apostles included the whole priestly order, the teaching
Church in its entirety. The sublime words which He addressed to Peter alone
created in the person of this one Apostle the undivided sovereign authority
possessed by the Universal Church throughout the whole of its life and
development in future ages. The fact that Christ did not see fit to make the formal
foundation of His Church and the guarantee of its permanence dependent on the
common authority of all the Apostles (for He did not say to the apostolic college:
"On you I will build My Church") surely goes to show that our Lord did not regard
the episcopal and priestly order, represented by the Apostles in common, as
sufficient in itself to form the impregnable foundation of the Universal Church in
her inevitable struggle against the gates of Hell. In founding His visible Church,
Jesus was thinking primarily of the struggle against evil; and in order to ensure for
His creation that unity which is strength, He crowned the hierarchy with a single,
central institution, absolutely indivisible and independent, possessing in its own
right the fullness of authority and of promise: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build My Church: and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."

All arguments in support of the supreme central authority of the Universal
Church would, in our view, have but little weight if they were only arguments. But
they rest upon a divine-human fact which remains essential to the Christian faith
despite all the artificial interpretations by which men have attempted to suppress it.
It is not for us to demonstrate the abstract necessity of an institution to which
Christ has given a living actuality. The arguments of Eastern theologians
demonstrating that the whole hierarchical system is essential to the Church would
not suffice to convince us, were it not for the original fact recorded in the Gospels,
namely, the choice of the twelve Apostles to teach all nations to the end of time.
Similarly, when we wish to prove that an indivisible center is essential to this same
hierarchy, it is the fact of the special choice of Peter to serve as a human point
d'appui for the divine truth in its constant struggle against the gates of Hell — it is
the fact of this unique choice which provides a firm foundation for all our
arguments.

If "the Church" is taken to mean the perfect union of mankind with God, the
absolute reign of love and truth, then there is no place in the Church for any power
or authority. All the members of this heavenly Kingdom are priests and kings and,
as such, equal with one another, and the one and only center of unity is Jesus
Christ Himself. But it is not in this sense that we speak of the Church, for it is not
in this sense that Christ spoke of it. The perfect Church, the Church triumphant, the
kingdom of glory — all this implies that the power of evil and the gates of Hell are
finally vanquished, and yet it is to contend with the gates of Hell that Christ builds
His visible Church and gives it a center of unity which is human and earthly,
though always divinely assisted.

If we would avoid the two opposite pitfalls of blind materialism and ineffectual
idealism, we must admit that the needs of actual existence and the demands of the
ideal coincide and harmonize in the order established by God. In order to show
forth in the Church the ideal of harmony among men, Jesus Christ founded as the
prototype of conciliar government the college or original council of the twelve
Apostles, equal with one another and united by brotherly love. In order that this
ideal unity might be effectually realized in every age and place, that the council of
the hierarchy might always and everywhere prevail over discord and gather up the
multiplicity of private opinions into uniform public decrees, that discussion might
issue in the living manifestation of the unity of the Church, secure from the hazards
to which the assemblies of men are exposed — in a word, that His Church might
not be built upon shifting sands, the divine Architect revealed the firm impregnable
Rock of ecclesiastical monarchy and set up the ideal of unanimity while basing it
upon an actual living authority.

Christ, we are told, is the Rock of the Church. That is true; no Christian has ever
disputed it. But it is hard to see the reasonableness, even if we admit the sincerity,
of those who in their zeal to defend Christ from an imaginary insult persist in
ignoring His express will and in repudiating the order which He established in so
explicit a manner. For He not only declared that Simon, one of His Apostles, was
the Rock of His Church, but in order to impress this new truth more forcibly upon
us and to make it more evident and striking, He gave to Simon a distinctive and
permanent name derived from this very call to be the Rock of the Church.
We have here, then, two equally indisputable truths: Christ is the Rock of the
Church, and Simon Bar-Jona is the Rock of the Church. But the contradiction, if
there be one, does not stop here. For we find this very Simon Peter, despite the fact
that he alone received from Christ this unique prerogative, declaring in one of his
epistles that all the faithful are living stones in the divine-human building (1 Pet. ii.
4, 5). Jesus is the one and only Rock of the Church; but, if we are to believe Jesus,
the prince of the Apostles is the Rock of His Church par excellence; and again, if
we would believe Peter, every true believer is the Rock of the Church.

Confronted with the apparent inconsistency of these truths, it is enough for us to
observe their actual agreement in logic. Jesus Christ, the unique Rock of the
Kingdom of God on the purely religious and mystical plane, sets up the prince of
the Apostles and his permanent authority as the fundamental Rock of the Church in
the social order for the Christian community; and each member of this community,
united to Christ and abiding in the order established by Him, becomes an organic
individual element, a living stone of this Church whose mystical and (for the time
being) invisible foundation is Jesus Christ, and whose social and visible foundation
is the monarchical power of Peter. The essential distinction between these three
factors only serves to throw into stronger relief the intimate connection between
them in the Church's actual existence, in which Christ, Peter, and the multitude of
the faithful each play an essential part. The notion of such a threefold relationship
can appear inconsistent only to those who presuppose such inconsistency by
interpreting the three fundamental factors in an absolute and exclusive sense which
is entirely inappropriate to them. What they forget is that the expression "rock
(i. e., foundation) of the Church" is a relative expression, and that Christ can only
be the Rock of the Church in that definite union of Himself with mankind which
forms the Church; and since this union is primarily brought about in the social
order through a central point of contact which Christ Himself associated with St.
Peter, it is obvious that these two Rocks — the Messiah and His chief Apostle —
so far from being mutually exclusive, are simply two inseparable factors in a
unique relationship. As regards the rock or stones of the third order — the
multitude of the faithful — though it is said that each believer may become a living
stone of the Church, it is not said that he may do so by himself or in separation
from Christ and the fundamental authority set up by Him.

The foundation of the Church, speaking in general terms, is the union of the
Divine and the human. This foundation (the Rock) we find in Jesus Christ
inasmuch as He unites the Godhead hypostatically with sinless human nature; we
find it also in every true Christian inasmuch as he is united to Christ by the
sacraments, by faith and by good works. But is it not clear that these two modes of
union between the Divine and the human (the hypostatic union in the person of
Christ, and the individual union of the believer with Christ) are not in themselves
sufficient to constitute the specific unity of the Church in the strict sense of the
word — that is, as a social and historic entity? The incarnation of the Word is a
mystical fact and not a social principle; nor does the individual religious life
provide an adequate basis for Christian society; man may remain alone in the
desert and live a life of holiness. And yet, if, in the Church, besides the mystical
life and the individual life, there exists the social life, this social life must have a
definite form based upon a unifying principle peculiar to itself. When we maintain
that this specific principle of social unity in the Church is in the first place neither
Jesus Christ nor the mass of the faithful, but the monarchical authority of Peter, by
means of which Jesus Christ has willed to unite Himself to man as a social and
political being, we find our opinion confirmed by the remarkable fact that only in
the case of the prince of the Apostles has the attribute of being the Rock of the
Church carried with it the title to a distinctive and permanent name. He alone is the
Rock of the Church in the special and strict sense of the term, that is to say, the
unifying basis of the historic Christian society.

Three times only in the whole of sacred history recorded in the two Testaments
did it happen that the Lord Himself changed a man's name. When Abraham by an
act of unlimited faith vowed himself to the living God, God changed his name and
pronounced him to be the father of all believers ("father of the multitude"). When
Jacob in that mysterious struggle pitted the whole spiritual energy of man against
the living God, God gave him a new name which marked him out as the direct
parent of that peculiar and unique race which has striven and still strives with its
God. When Simon Bar-Jona, the descendant of Abraham and Jacob, combined in
himself the powerful initiative of the human soul and the infallible assistance of the
heavenly Father in the affirmation of the divine-human truth, the God-Man
changed his name and set him at the head of the new believers and the new Israel.
Abraham, the type of primitive theocracy, represents humanity in devotion and
self-surrender to God; Jacob, the type of the national theocracy of the Jews,
represents humanity beginning its struggle with God; and lastly Simon Peter, the
type of universal and final theocracy, represents humanity making its response to
its God, freely avowing Him and cleaving to Him in mutual and indissoluble
adherence. That boundless faith in God which made Abraham the father of all
believers was in Peter united to that active assertion of the power of man which
distinguished Jacob-Israel; the prince of the Apostles reflected in the earthly mirror
of his soul that harmony between the Divine and the human which he saw brought
to perfection in his Master; and he became thereby the first-born and principal heir
of the God-Man, the spiritual father of the new Christian race, the foundation-stone
of that Universal Church which is the fulfilment and perfection of the religion of
Abraham and of the theocracy of Israel.

"Peter" and "Satan"

IT was not Simon's apostleship that involved his change of name, for the
change, though already predicted, was not made at the time of the choice and
solemn sending forth of the Twelve. All with the single exception of Simon
retained their own names in the apostleship; none of them received from our Lord
a new and permanent title of wider or higher significance. (7)

Apart from Simon, all the Apostles are distinguished from one another solely by
their natural characteristics, their individual qualities and destinies as well as by the
varieties and shades of personal feeling shown towards them by their Master. On
the other hand, the new and significant name which Simon alone receives in
addition to the apostleship shared by all, indicates no natural trait in his character,
no personal affection felt for him by our Lord, but refers solely to the special place
which the son of Jona is called to fill in the Church of Christ. Our Lord did not say
to him: Thou art Peter because I prefer thee to the others, or because by nature thou
hast a firm and stable character (which, incidentally, would hardly have been borne
out by the facts), but: Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church.
Peter's confession, which by a spontaneous and infallible act of allegiance
established the bond between mankind and Christ and founded the free Church of
the New Covenant, was not just a piece of characteristic behavior on his part. Nor
can it have been a casual and momentary spiritual impulse. For is it conceivable
that such an impulse or moment of enthusiasm should involve not merely a change
of name for Simon as for Abraham and Jacob in times past, but also the prediction
of that change long previously as something which would infallibly come about
and which held a prominent place in our Lord's plans? Was there in fact any part
of the work of the Messiah more solemn than the foundation of the Universal
Church which is expressly connected with Simon under his new name of Peter?
Moreover, the notion that the first dogmatic decree of St. Peter came from him
merely in his capacity as an individual human being is totally excluded by the
direct and explicit witness of Christ: It is not flesh and blood which have revealed
it to thee, but My Father Who is in Heaven.

This confession of Peter's is, then, an act sui generis, an act whereby the moral
being of the Apostle entered into a special relationship with the Godhead; it was
this relationship which enabled human utterance to declare infallibly the absolute
truth of the Word of God and to create an impregnable foundation for the
Universal Church. And as though to remove all possible doubt on the subject, the
inspired record of the Gospel at once goes on to show us this very Simon, whom
Jesus has just declared to be the Rock of the Church and the key-bearer of the
Kingdom of Heaven, forthwith left to his own resources and speaking — with the
best intentions in the world, no doubt, but without the divine assistance — under
the influence of his own individual and uninspired personality. "And thereafter
Jesus began to show His disciples that He must needs go to Jerusalem and suffer
much at the hands of the elders and the scribes and the chief priests and be put to
death and rise again the third day. And Peter, taking Him aside, began to rebuke
Him, saying: Far be it from Thee, Lord; this shall not happen unto Thee. And
turning about He said to Peter: Get thee behind Me, Satan, thou art an offence unto
Me, for thou understandest not that which is of God, but that which is of men"
(Matt. xvi. 21-23).

Are we to follow our Greco-Russian controversialists in placing this text in
opposition to the one before it and so make Christ's words cancel one another out?
Are we to believe that the incarnate Truth changed His mind so quickly and
revoked in a moment what He had only just announced? And yet, on the other
hand, how are we to reconcile "Blessed" and "Satan" ? How is it conceivable that
he who is for our Lord Himself a "rock of offence" should yet be the Rock of His
Church which the gates of Hell cannot shake? Or that one who thinks only the
thoughts of men can receive the revelation of the heavenly Father and can hold the
keys of the Kingdom of God?

There is only one way to harmonize these passages which the inspired
Evangelist has, with good reason, placed side by side. Simon Peter as supreme
pastor and doctor of the Universal Church, assisted by God and speaking in the
name of all, is the faithful witness and infallible exponent of divine-human truth;
as such he is the impregnable foundation of the house of God and the key-bearer of
the Kingdom of Heaven. The same Simon Peter as a private individual, speaking
and acting by his natural powers and merely human intelligence, may say and do
things that are unworthy, scandalous and even diabolical. But the failures and sins
of the individual are ephemeral, while the social function of the ecclesiastical
monarch is permanent. "Satan" and the "offence" have vanished, but Peter has
remained.

The Church as a universal society. The principle of love

SINCE the existence of every human society is determined by its ideals and
institutions, it follows that social progress and well-being depend primarily
on the truth of the predominant ideals of the society and on the good order
which prevails in its administration. The Church, as a society directly willed and
founded by God, must possess these two qualities to an outstanding degree: the
religious ideals which she professes must be infallibly true; and her constitution
must combine the greatest stability with the greatest capacity for action in any
direction desired.

The Church is, above all, a society founded on Truth. The basic truth of the
Church is the union of the Divine and the human in the Word made Flesh, the
recognition of the Son of Man as the Christ, the Son of the living God. Therefore,
in its purely objective aspect, the Rock of the Church is Christ Himself, Truth
incarnate. But if she is to be actually founded on the truth, the Church as a human
society must be united to this truth in a definite manner.

Since in this world of appearances truth has no existence which is directly
manifest or externally necessary, man can only establish contact with it through
faith which links us to the interior substance of things and presents to our
intelligence all that is not externally visible. From the subjective point of view,
then, it may be asserted that it is faith which constitutes the basis or "rock" of the
Church. But what faith, and on whose part? The mere fact of a subjective faith on
the part of such and such a person is not sufficient. Individual faith of the strongest
and most sincere kind may put us in touch not only with the invisible substance of
Truth and the Sovereign Good, but also with the invisible substance of evil and
falsehood, as is abundantly proved by the history of religion. If man is to be truly
linked by faith to the desirable object of faith, namely, absolute truth, he must be
conformed to this truth.

The truth of the God-Man, that is to say, the perfect and living union of the
Absolute and the relative, of the Infinite and the finite, of the Creator and the
creature — this supreme truth cannot be limited to a historic fact, but reveals
through that fact a universal principle which contains all the riches of wisdom and
embraces all in its unity.

Since the objective truth of faith is universal and the true subject of faith must be
conformed to its object, it follows that the subject of true religion is necessarily
universal. Real faith cannot belong to man as an isolated individual, but only to
mankind as a complete unity; and the individual can only share in it as a living
member of the universal body. But since no real and living unity has been
bestowed on the human race in the physical order, it must be created in the moral
order. The limits of natural egoism, of finite individuality with its exclusive selfassertion,
must be burst by love which renders man conformable to God, Who is
Love. But this love which is to transform the discordant fragments of the human
race into a real and living unity, the Universal Church, cannot be a mere vague,
subjective and ineffectual sentiment; it must be translated into a consistent and
definite activity which shall give the inner sentiment its objective reality. What,
then, is the actual object of this active love? Natural love, which has for its object
those beings who are nearest to us, creates a real collective unity, the family; the
wider natural love which has for its object all the people of one country or one
tongue creates a more extensive and more complex, but equally real, collective
unity, the city, state or nation. (8) The love which is to create the religious unity of the
human race, or the Universal Church, must surpass the bounds of nationality and
have for its object the sum total of mankind. But since the active relationship
between the sum total of the human race and the individual finds no basis in the
latter in any natural sentiment analogous to that which animates the family or the
fatherland, it is (for the individual subject) inevitably reduced to the purely moral
essence of love, that is, to the free and conscious surrender of the will and the
individual egoism of family or nation. Love for one's family or for one's country
are primarily natural facts which may secondarily produce moral acts; love for the
Church is essentially a moral act, the act of submitting the particular will to the
universal will. But the universal will, if it is to be anything more than a fiction,
must be continually realized in a definite being. The will of all humanity is not a
real unity, since all men are not in direct agreement with one another; some means
of harmonizing them must therefore be found, that is to say, one single will
capable of unifying all the others. Each individual must be able to unite himself
effectively with the whole of the human race (and thus give positive witness to his
love for the Church) by linking his will to a unique will, no less real and living
than his own, but at the same time a will which is universal and to which all other
wills must be equally subject. But a will is inconceivable apart from one who wills
and expresses his will; and inasmuch as all are not directly one, we have no choice
but to unite ourselves to all in the person of one individual if we would share in the
true universal faith.

Since each individual man cannot be the proper subject of universal faith any
more than can the whole of mankind in its natural state of division, it follows that
this faith must be manifested in a single individual, representative of the unity of
all. Each individual, by taking this truly universal faith as the criterion of his own
faith, makes a real act of submission to, or love for, the Church, an act which
makes him conformable to the universal truth revealed to the Church. In loving all
in one individual (since it is impossible to love them otherwise), each one shares in
the faith of all, defined by the divinely assisted faith of a single individual; and this
enduring bond, this unity so wide and yet so stable, so living and yet so
unchanging, makes the Universal Church a collective moral entity, a true society
far more extensive and more complex, but no less real, than nation or state. Love
for the Church is manifested in a constant adherence to her will and her living
thought represented by the public acts of the supreme ecclesiastical authority. This
love which is originally nothing but an act of pure morality, the fulfilment of a
duty on principle (obedience to the categorical imperative, according to the
Kantian terminology) can and must become the source of sentiments and affections
no less strong than filial love or patriotism. Those who agree with us in founding
the Church upon love and yet see world-wide ecclesiastical unity only in a
fossilized tradition which for eleven centuries has lost all means of actual selfexpression,
should bear in mind that it is impossible to love with a living and,active love what is simply an archæological relic, a remote fact, such as the seven oecumenical councils, which is absolutely unknown to the masses and can only appeal to the learned. Love for the Church has no real meaning except for those who recognize perpetually in the Church a living representative and a common father of all the faithful, capable of being loved as a father is loved in his family or
the head of the state in a kingdom.

It is of the nature of truth to draw into a harmonious unity the manifold elements
of reality. This formal characteristic belongs to the supreme truth, the truth of the
God-Man, which embraces in its absolute unity all the fullness of divine and
human life. The Church, which is a collective being aspiring to perfect unity, must
correspond to Christ, the one Being and Center of all beings. And inasmuch as this
interior and perfect unity of all is not realized, inasmuch as the faith of each
individual is not yet in itself the faith of all, inasmuch as the unity of all is not
directly manifested by each, it must be brought about by means of a single
individual.

The universal truth perfectly realized in the single person of Christ draws to
itself the faith of all, infallibly defined by the voice of a single individual, the Pope.
Outside this unity, as we have seen, the opinion of the masses may be mistaken and
the faith even of the elect may remain in suspense. But it is neither false opinion
nor a vacillating faith, but a definite and infallible faith, which unites mankind to
the divine truth and forms the impregnable foundation of the Universal Church.
This foundation is the faith of Peter living in his successors, a faith which is
personal that it may be manifest to men, and which is (by divine assistance)
superhuman that it may be infallible. We shall not cease to challenge those who
deny the necessity of such a permanent center of unity to point to any living unity
in the Universal Church apart from it, to produce apart from it a single
ecclesiastical act which concerns the whole of Christendom, or to give without
appealing to it a decisive and authoritative reply to a single one of the questions
which divide the consciences of Christians. It is, of course, obvious that the present
successors of the Apostles at Constantinople or at St. Petersburg are imitating the
silence of the Apostles themselves at Cæsarea Philippi.

To summarize shortly the foregoing reflections: The Universal Church is
founded on truth affirmed by faith. Truth being one, true faith must be one also.
And since this unity of faith has no present and immediate existence among the
whole mass of believers (for in religious matters all are not unanimous), it must
reside in the lawful authority of a single head, guaranteed by divine assistance and
accepted by the love and confidence of all the faithful. That is the rock on which
Christ has founded His Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

The keys of the Kingdom

IT seems as if Jesus wished to leave no possible doubt as to the intent and
bearing of His words regarding the rock of the Church. He therefore completed
them by explicitly committing the power of the keys and the supreme
government of His Kingdom to that fundamental authority of the Church which He
established in the person of Simon Peter. "And I will give thee the keys of the
Kingdom of Heaven." And here we must first of all clear up a contradiction which
our "orthodox" controversialists ascribe to Jesus Christ. In order to eliminate as far
as possible the distinction between Peter and the other Apostles, it is asserted that
the power of the keys is nothing else but the power of binding and loosing; after
saying, "I will give thee the keys," Jesus is supposed to have repeated the same
promise in other words. But in speaking of keys, the words "shut" and "open"
should have been used, and not "bind" and "loose," as in fact (to confine ourselves
solely to the New Testament) we read in the Apocalypse: Ό εχων τεν κλειδα του
Δαυέιδ, ό ανοίγων και ουδεις κλείει, και κλείει και ουδεις ανοίγει. (He who has the
key of David, who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens — Apoc.
iii. 7.) A room, a house or a city may be shut and opened, but only particular
beings or objects situated within the room or house or city can be bound and
unbound. The Gospel passage in question is a metaphor, but a metaphor is not
necessarily an absurdity. The symbol of the keys of the Kingdom (of the royal
dwelling — beth-ha-melek) must necessarily represent a wider and more general
authority than the symbol of binding and loosing.

The special power of binding and loosing, having been bestowed upon Peter in
the same terms as those in which it was conferred later on the other Apostles (Matt.
xviii. 18), it is plain from the context of the latter chapter that this lesser power
only concerns individual cases ("if thy brother sin against thee," etc.), which is in
entire agreement with the sense of the metaphor used in the Gospel. Only personal
problems of conscience and the direction of individual souls fall under the
authority to bind and loose which was given to the other Apostles after Peter;
whereas the power of the keys of the Kingdom conferred solely on Peter can only
refer to the whole of the Church (if we are to follow not only the exact sense of our
text, but general Biblical analogy) and must denote a supreme social and political
authority, the general administration of the Kingdom of God on Earth. The life of
the Christian soul must neither be separated from the organization of the Universal
Church, nor confused with it. They are two different orders of things, though
closely interconnected.

Just as the teaching of the Church is no mere compound of personal beliefs, so
the government of the Church cannot be reduced to the direction of individual
consciences or of private morality. Founded on unity of faith, the Universal Church
as a real and living social organism must also display unity of action sufficient to
react successfully at every moment of her historic existence against the combined
attacks of those hostile forces which would divide and destroy her. Unity of action
for a vast and complicated social organism implies a whole system of organic
functions subordinate to a common center which can set them in motion in the
direction desired at any given moment. As the unity of the orthodox faith is finally
guaranteed by the dogmatic authority of a single individual speaking for all, so
unity of ecclesiastical action is necessarily conditioned by the directing authority of
a single individual bearing sway over the whole Church. But in the One Holy
Church, founded upon truth, government cannot be separated from doctrine; and
the central and supreme power in the ecclesiastical sphere can only belong to him
who by divinely aided authority represents and displays in the religious sphere the
unity of true faith.

This is why the keys of the Kingdom have been given to none other than him
who is by his faith the Rock of the Church.

The government of the Universal Church
The center of unity

THE Church is not only the perfect union of mankind with God in Christ, but
it is also the social order established by the Divine Will in which and
through which this union of the Divine and the human may be
accomplished. Founded on eternal Truth, the Church is not only the perfect Life (in
the future), but it has also always been in the past and still is in the present the Way
which leads to this ideal perfection. Man's social existence upon Earth cannot be
excluded from the new union of the human and the Divine which is accomplished
in Christ. If the elements even of our material life are transformed and sanctified in
the sacraments, how can the social and political order, which is an essential form
of human existence, be left a prey to the warfare of selfish ambitions, the clash of
murderous passions and the conflict of erroneous opinions? Since man is
essentially a social being, the ultimate aim of the working of God in mankind is the
creation of a perfect universal society. But it is not a creation ex nihilo; for the
material of the perfect society is given us, namely society in its imperfect state,
mankind as it is; and this is neither excluded nor suppressed by the Kingdom of
God, but drawn into the sphere of the Kingdom, to be regenerated, sanctified and
transfigured. The religion which seeks to bind man's individual being to Christ is
not content with an invisible and purely spiritual communion; it desires that man
should communicate with his God throughout his entire being, even by the
physical act of feeding. In this mystical but real communion, the matter of the
sacrament is not simply destroyed and annihilated, it is transubstantiated, that is to
say, the interior and invisible substance of the bread and wine is lifted into the
sphere of Christ's ascended bodily nature and absorbed by it, while the
phenomenal reality or outward appearance of these objects remains without
sensible change that they may act in the given conditions of our physical existence
and so establish a link between that existence and the Body of God. So also must
the collective, common life of mankind be mystically transubstantiated while
retaining the "species" or outward forms of earthly society, and these very forms
must be duly ordained and consecrated to serve as the actual foundation and visible
instruments of the social activity of Christ in His Church.

The ultimate aim of the work of God in mankind, regarded from the Christian
standpoint, is not the manifestation of the divine power — that is the Moslem
conception — but the free, mutual union of mankind with God. And the proper
means of accomplishing this work is not the hidden operation of Providence
guiding individuals and nations by unknown ways to uncomprehended ends; such a
purely and exclusively supernatural operation, though always necessary, is not
sufficient in itself. Moreover, since the actual historic union of God and Man in
Christ, Man must himself play a positive part in his appointed destiny and as a
social being communicate in the life of Christ. But if mortal men here below are
actually to have a real share in the invisible and supernatural government of Christ,
then that government must assume visible and natural social forms. Some social
institution, whose origin, end and powers are divine, while its means of action are
human and adapted to the needs of historic existence, is essential to represent and
minister to the perfection of divine grace and truth in Jesus Christ that this
perfection may operate in, and co-operate with, imperfect human nature.
If the Church is to guide the common life of mankind towards the goal of divine
love, and to direct public opinion on the road to divine truth, she must possess a
universal government divinely authorized. This government must be clearly
defined so as to be recognizable to all, and permanent so as to form a standing
court of appeal; it must be divine in substance so as to be finally binding upon the
religious conscience of every instructed and well-intentioned person, and it must
be human and imperfect in its historic manifestation so as to admit the possibility
of moral resistance and allow room for doubts, struggle, temptations and all that
constitutes the merit of free and genuinely human virtue.

Though the supreme authority of the Church may admit of various
administrative forms according to differences of time and place, yet if it is to form
the primary basis of union between the social conscience of mankind and the
providential government of God, and to share in the divine Majesty while adapting
itself to the realities of human life, it must always as the center of unity preserve its
purely monarchical character. If the supreme authority of the Universal Church
were vested solely in the collective administration of a council, the unity of her
human activity linking her to the absolute unity of divine truth could only be based
on one of two things: either on the perfect unanimity of all its members, or else on
a majority of opinions, as in secular assemblies. The latter supposition is
incompatible with the majesty of God, Who would be obliged constantly to
accommodate His will and His truth to the chance convergences of human opinion
and the interplay of human passions. As for unanimity or complete and permanent
harmony, such a condition of the social conscience could, by its intrinsic moral
excellence, undoubtedly correspond to the divine perfection and infallibly manifest
the action of God in mankind. But while the political principle of a majority vote
comes short of the dignity of God, unfortunately the ideal principle of immediate,
spontaneous and permanent unanimity is equally far in advance of the present state
of man. That perfect unity which Jesus Christ in His high-priestly prayer held up
before us as the final objective of His work cannot be assumed as the present and
obvious starting-point of that work. The surest way never to achieve the desired
perfection is to imagine that it is already achieved.

Conscious unanimity and solidarity, brotherly love and free agreement, such is
the universally accepted ideal of the Church. But the difference between an idle
dream and the divine ideal of unity is that the latter has an actual foundation (the
δός μοι που στω of social mechanics) from which to gain ground little by little on
Earth and to achieve gradual and successive conquests over all the powers of
discord. A real and indivisible principle of unity is absolutely necessary to
counteract the deep-seated and active tendency to division in the world and even in
the Church itself The principle of that universal religious unity of grace and truth,
which is eventually to become the very essence of the life of each individual
believer and the perfect and indissoluble bond between him and his neighbor, must
none the less in the meantime have an objective existence and act everywhere
under the "species" of a visible and definite social authority.

The perfection of the one universal Church consists in the harmony and
unanimity of all its members; but its very existence amid actual disharmony
requires a unifying and reconciling power immune from this disharmony and in
continual reaction against it, asserting itself above all divisions and gathering to
itself all men of good will, denouncing and condemning whatever is opposed to the
Kingdom of God on Earth. Whoever desires that Kingdom must desire the only
way that will lead mankind collectively to it. Between the hateful reality of the
disharmony reigning in this world and the longed-for unity of perfect love in which
God reigns, there is the necessary road of a juridical and authoritative unity linking
human fact to divine right.

The perfect circle of the Universal Church requires a unique center, not so much
for its perfection as for its very existence. The Church upon Earth, called to gather
in the multitude of the nations, must, if she is to remain an active society, possess a
definite universal authority to set against national divisions; if she is to enter the
current of history and undergo continual change and adaptation in her external
circumstances and relationships and yet preserve her identity, she requires an
authority essentially conservative but nevertheless active, fundamentally
unchangeable though outwardly adaptable; and, finally, if she is set amid the frailty
of man to assert herself in reaction against all the powers of evil, she must be
equipped with an absolutely firm and impregnable foundation, stronger than the
gates of Hell.

Now, we know, on the one hand, that Christ foresaw the necessity of such an
ecclesiastical monarchy and therefore conferred on a single individual supreme and
undivided authority over His Church; and, on the other hand, we see that of all the
ecclesiastical powers in the Christian world there is only one which perpetually
and unchangingly preserves its central and universal character and at the same time
is specially connected by an ancient and widespread tradition with him to whom
Christ said: Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates
of Hell shall not prevail against it. Christ's words could not remain without their
effect in Christian history; and the principal phenomenon in Christian history must
have an adequate cause in the word of God. Where, then, have Christ's words to
Peter produced a corresponding effect except in the Chair of Peter? Where does
that Chair find an adequate cause except in the promise made to Peter?
The living truths of religion do not compel the reason in the manner of
geometrical theorems. Moreover, it would be unsafe to assert that even the truths
of mathematics are unanimously accepted by everyone for the sole reason of their
intrinsic proof; they meet with general acceptance because no one is concerned to
reject them. I am not so simple as to hope to convince those who are influenced by
other motives more powerful than the search for religious truth. In setting out the
general proofs of the permanent primacy of Peter as the foundation of the
Universal Church, my only aim has been to assist the intellectual task of those who
deny this truth, not from personal or emotional reasons, but from unconscious error
and inherited prejudice. In pursuance of this aim, I must now, while keeping my
eyes always fixed on the brilliant searchlight of the Biblical record, embark for a
moment on the dark and uncertain domain of universal history.

The monarchies foretold by Daniel
"Roma" and "Amor"

tHE historic life of mankind began with the confusion of Babel (Gen. xi.); it
will end in the perfect harmony of the New Jerusalem (Apoc. xxi.).
Between these two extreme limits, described in the first and last books of
Holy Scripture, takes place the evolution of universal history of which a symbolic
representation is given us in the sacred book which may be regarded as transitional
between the Old and New Testaments, the book of the prophet Daniel (Dan. ii. 31-
36).

Since mankind on Earth is not, and was never meant to be, a world of pure
spirits, it needs for the expression and development of the unity of its inner life an
external social organism which must become more centralized as it grows in extent
and diversity. Just as the life of the individual human soul manifests itself by
means of the organized human body, so the collective soul of regenerate humanity,
the invisible Church, requires a visible social organism as the symbol and
instrument of its unity. From this point of view, the history of mankind presents
itself as the gradual formation of a universal social entity or of the one Catholic
Church in the broadest sense of the term. This work is inevitably divided into two
main parts: (1) the outward unification of the nations of history, or the formation of
the universal body of mankind by the efforts, more or less unconscious, of earthly
powers under the invisible and indirect action of Providence, and (2) the vivifying
of this body by the mighty breath of the God-Man and its further development by
the combined action of divine grace and more or less conscious human forces. In
other words, we have here, on the one hand, the formation of natural universal
monarchy and, on the other, the formation and development of spiritual monarchy
or the Universal Church on the basis and in the framework of the corresponding
natural organism. The first part of this great work constitutes the essence of ancient
or pagan history; the second part mainly determines modern or Christian history.
The connecting link is the history of the people of Israel who, under the active
guidance of the living God, prepared the setting, both organic and national, for the
appearance of the God-Man, Who is both the spiritual principle of unity for the
universal body and the absolute center of history.

While the chosen nation was preparing the natural body of the individual God-
Man, the Gentile nations were evolving the social body of the collective God-Man,
the Universal Church. And since this task allotted to paganism was achieved by
purely human efforts guided only indirectly and invisibly by divine Providence, it
was bound to proceed by a series of attempts and experiments. Previous to any
effective universal monarchy we see the rise of various national monarchies
claiming universality but incapable of achieving it.

After the Assyrio-Babylonian monarchy, the head of gold, denoting the purest
and most concentrated despotism, comes the monarchy of the Medes and Persians
represented by the breast and arms of silver which symbolize a less unmitigated,
less concentrated, but on the other hand much more extensive despotism,
embracing the whole scene of contemporary history from Greece on the one side to
India on the other. Next comes the Macedonian monarchy of Alexander the Great,
the brazen belly engulfing Hellas and the East. But despite the fruitfulness of
Hellenism in the sphere of intellectual and aesthetic culture, it proved impotent in
practical affairs and incapable of creating a political framework or a center of unity
for the vast multitude of nations which it penetrated. In administration it took over
without any essential alteration the absolutism of the national despots which it
found in the East; and though it imposed the unity of its culture on the world which
it conquered, it could not prevent that world from splitting into two great semi-
Hellenized national States, the Helleno-Egyptian kingdom of the Ptolemies and the
Helleno-Syrian kingdom of the Seleucids. These two kingdoms, at one moment
engaged in bitter warfare, at another precariously allied by dynastic marriages,
were well symbolized by the two feet of the colossus in which the iron of primitive
despotism was mingled with the soft clay of a decadent culture.

Thus the pagan world, divided between two rival powers, with Alexandria and
Antioch as their two political and intellectual centers, could not provide an
adequate historic basis for Christian unity. But there was a stone — Capitoli
immobile saxum — a little Italian town, whose origin was hidden among
mysterious legends and prophetic portents, and whose real name even was
unknown. This stone hurled forth by the providence of the God of history smote
the feet of clay of the Greco-barbarian world of the East, overthrew and crushed to
powder the impotent colossus, and became a great mountain. The pagan world was
given a real center of unity. A truly international and universal monarchy was
established, embracing both East and West. Not only was it far more extensive
than the greatest of the national monarchies, not only did it include far more
heterogeneous national and cultural elements, but it was, above all, powerfully
centralized, and it transformed these varied elements into a positive, active whole.
Instead of a monstrous image made up of heterogeneous parts, mankind became an
organized and homogeneous body, the Roman Empire, with an individual living
center in Cæsar Augustus, the trustee and representative of the united will of
mankind.

But who was this Cæsar and how had he come to represent the living center of
humanity? On what was his power based? Long and painful experience had
convinced the nations of East and West that continual strife and division were a
curse and that some center of unity was essential to the peace of the world. This
vague but very real desire for peace and unity threw the pagan world at the feet of
an adventurer who succeeded in replacing beliefs and principles by the weapons of
his legions and own personal courage. Thus the unity of the Empire was based
solely on force and chance. Though the first of the Cæsars seemed to deserve his
fortune by his personal genius, and the second justified his to a certain extent by
his calculated piety and wise moderation, the third was a monster and was
succeeded by idiots and madmen. The universal State which should have been the
social incarnation of Reason itself took shape in an absolutely irrational
phenomenon, the absurdity of which was only heightened by the blasphemy of the
Emperor's apotheosis.

The Divine Word, individually united to human nature and desiring to unite
socially with Himself the collective being of Man, could not take either the
confusion of an anarchic mass of nations or the autocracy of a tyrant as the
starting-point of this union. He could only unite human society with Himself by
means of a power founded upon truth. In the social sphere we are not directly and
primarily concerned with personal virtues and defects. We believe the imperial
power of pagan Rome to have been evil and false, not merely because of the
crimes and follies of a Tiberius or a Nero, but mainly because, whether represented
by Caligula or Antonine, it was itself based on violence and crowned with
falsehood. The actual Emperor, the momentary creature of the prætorians and the
legionaries, only owed his power to crude, blind force; the ideal, deified Emperor
was an impious fiction.

Against the false man-god of political monarchy the true God-Man set up the
spiritual power of ecclesiastical monarchy founded on Truth and Love. Universal
monarchy and international unity were to remain; the center of unity was to keep
its place. But the central power itself, its character, its origin and its authority — all
this was to be renewed.

The Romans themselves had a vague presentiment of this mysterious
transformation. While the ordinary name of Rome was the Greek word for
"Might," and a poet of decadent Greece had hailed her new masters by that name:
χαιρέ μοι, Ρώμα, θυγάτηρ Άρηος — yet the citizens of the Eternal City believed
that they discovered the true meaning of her name by reading it backwards in
Semitic fashion: AMOR; and the ancient legend revived by Virgil connected the
Roman people and the dynasty of Cæsar in particular with the mother of Love and
through her with the supreme God. But their Love was the servant of death and
their supreme God was a parricide. The piety of the Romans, which is their chief
claim to glory and the foundation of their greatness, was a true sentiment though
rooted in a false principle, and it was just that change of principle that was
necessary in order that the true Rome might be revealed based upon the true
religion. The countless triads of parricidal gods must be replaced by the single
divine Trinity, consubstantial and indivisible, and the universal society of mankind
must be set up, not on the basis of an Empire of Might, but on that of a Church of
Love. Was it a mere coincidence that, when Jesus Christ wished to announce the
foundation of His true universal monarchy, not upon the servile submission of its
subjects nor upon the autocracy of a human ruler, but upon the free surrender of
men's faith and love to God's truth and grace, He chose for that pronouncement
the moment of His arrival with His disciples at the outskirts of Cæsarea Philippi,
the town which a slave of the Cæsars had dedicated to the genius of his master? Or
again, was it a coincidence that Jesus chose the neighborhood of the Sea of
Tiberias for the giving of the final sanction to that which He had founded, and that
under the shadow of those monuments which spoke of the actual ruler of false
Rome He consecrated the future ruler of true Rome in words which indicated both
the mystical name of the Eternal City and the supreme principle of His new
Kingdom: Simon Bar-Jona, lovest thou Me more than these?

But why must true Love, which knows no envy and whose unity implies no
exclusiveness, be centered in a single individual and assume for its operation in
society the form of monarchy in preference to all others? Since here it is not a
question of the omnipotence of God, which might impose truth and justice upon
men from without, but rather of the Divine love in which man shares by a free act
of adherence, the direct action of the Godhead must be reduced to a minimum. It
cannot be entirely suppressed since all men are false and no human entity, either
individual or collective, left to its own resources, can maintain itself in constant
and progressive relationship to the Godhead. But the fruitful Love of God united to
the Divine Wisdom quae in superfluis non abundat, in order to assist human
weakness while at the same time allowing human forces full play, chooses the path
along which the unifying and life-giving action of supernatural truth and grace on
the mass of mankind will encounter the fewest natural obstacles and will find a
social framework externally conformable and adapted to the manifestation of true
unity; and the path which facilitates union between the Divine and the human in
the social order by forming a central unifying organ within humanity itself is the
path of monarchy. Otherwise the creation afresh each time of a spontaneous unity
on the chaotic basis of independent opinions and conflicting wills would require
each time a new, direct and manifestly miraculous intervention of the Godhead, an
activity ex nihilo forced upon men and depriving them of their moral freedom. As
the Divine Word did not appear upon Earth in His heavenly splendor, but in the
lowliness of human nature, as today in order to give Himself to the faithful He
assumes the lowly appearance of material "species," so it was not His will to rule
human society directly by His divine power, but rather to employ as the normal
instrument of His social activity a form of unity already in existence among men,
namely, universal monarchy. Only it was necessary to regenerate, spiritualize and
sanctify this social form by substituting the eternal principle of grace and truth for
the mortal principle of violence and deception; to replace the head of an army, who
in the spirit of falsehood declared himself to be a god, by the head of all the
faithful who in the spirit of truth recognized and acknowledged in his Master the
Son of the living God; to dethrone a raving despot who would fain have enslaved
the human race and drained the blood of his victim, and to raise up in his stead the
loving servant of a God Who shed His Blood for mankind.

In the borders of Cæsarea and on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus
dethroned Cæsar — not the Cæsar of the tribute-money nor the Christian Cæsar of
the future, but the deified Cæsar, the sole absolute and independent sovereign of
the universe, the supreme center of unity for the human race. He dethroned him
because He had created a new and better center of unity, a new and better
sovereign power based upon faith and love, truth and grace. And while dethroning
the false and impious absolutism of the pagan Cæsars, Jesus confirmed and made
eternal the universal monarchy of Rome by giving it its true theocratic basis. It was
in a certain sense nothing more than a change of dynasty; the dynasty of Julius
Cæsar, supreme pontiff and god, gave place to the dynasty of Simon Peter,
supreme pontiff and servant of the servants of God.

The "Son of Man" and the "Rock"

tHE interpretation given in our last chapter helps to explain why the
prophetic vision of the great pagan powers, which is as complete and exact
as such a vision could be, makes no mention of the greatest power of all, the
Roman Empire. It was because this Empire was not a part of the monstrous
colossus doomed to destruction but was the abiding material framework and mold
of the Kingdom of God. The great powers of the ancient world were merely
passing figures upon the stage of history; Rome alone lives forever. The rock of the
Capitol was hallowed by the stone of the Bible, and the Roman Empire was
transformed into the great mountain which in the prophetic vision sprang from that
stone. And what can that stone itself mean except the monarchical power of him
who was called the Rock par excellence and on whom the Universal Church, the
mountain of God, was founded?

The image of this mysterious stone in the book of Daniel is usually applied to
Jesus Christ Himself. It is noteworthy, however, that though Jesus made
considerable use of the prophet Daniel in His preaching, yet in speaking of His
own person He did not borrow from the prophet the symbol of the stone, but
another title which He used almost as His own name: the Son of Man. It is this
very name which He employs in the crucial passage of St. Matthew: Quem dicunt
homines esse Filium Hominis? Jesus is the Son of Man seen by the prophet Daniel
(Dan. vii. 13) whereas the stone (Dan. ii. 34, 35, 45) does not directly denote Jesus,
but rather the fundamental authority of the Church, to the first representative of
which this symbol was applied by the Son of Man Himself: Et ego dico tibi quia tu
es Petrus.

The context of the prophecy of Daniel directly confirms our view, for it speaks
of a Kingdom coming from God, but nevertheless visible and earthly, destined to
conquer, destroy and replace the great pagan Empires. The appearance and triumph
of this fifth Kingdom, which in a parallel passage is called "the people of the saints
of the Most High" (Dan. vii. 18, 27) and which is obviously the Universal Church,
are symbolically represented by this stone which, after breaking the feet of the
colossus, becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth. If, then, the stone
mentioned by Daniel directly denoted Christ, it would follow that it was Christ
Himself Who became the "great mountain," or, in other words, the universal
monarchy of the Church, to which the pagan Empires gave place. But why should
we go out of our way to attribute to the truly inspired author of this wonderful
book such confused and incongruous imagery, when there is all the time a clear
and harmonious interpretation not only open to us but absolutely forced upon us by
the comparison between these prophetic passages and the corresponding passage of
the Gospel? Both in Daniel and in St. Matthew we find the Son of Man and the
Rock of the Church. Now, it is absolutely certain that the Son of Man, whether in
the prophetic book or in the Gospel, denotes one and the same Person, the
Messiah; the analogy demands, therefore, that the Rock of the Church bears in both
passages the same sense. But in the Gospel the Rock is obviously the prince of the
Apostles — tu es Petrus; hence the "stone" of the prophet Daniel must equally
foreshadow the original trustee of monarchical authority in the Universal Church,
the rock which was taken and hurled not by human hands, but by the Son of the
living God and by the heavenly Father Himself revealing to the supreme ruler of
the Church that divine-human truth which was the source of his authority.
There is a further remarkable coincidence to be noted. It was the great king of
Babylon, the typical representative of false universal monarchy, who saw in a
mysterious dream the chief representative of true universal monarchy under the
significant image of a stone which was to become his actual name. Moreover, he
saw the complete contrast between the two monarchies: the one beginning in the
head of gold and ending in feet of clay which crumble to dust, the other beginning
in a little stone and ending in a huge mountain which filled the world.

Ancient and modern witness to the primacy of Peter

GRANTED that Jesus Christ established in the person of St. Peter a central
sovereign authority over the Church; it is still not clear how and for what
purpose this authority could have passed to the Roman Church and the
Papacy." This is the reply which sincere Orthodox have been compelled by the
evidence to make to us. In other words, they admit that the stone was shaped by no
human hand, but they shut their eyes to the great mountain which has grown out of
it. And yet the phenomenon is amply explained in Holy Scripture by similes and
parables which are familiar to everyone, though for all that none the better
understood.

Though the transformation of a stone into a mountain is only a symbol, the
transformation of a simple, almost imperceptible seed into an infinitely larger and
more complicated organism is an actual fact. And it is by just this fact that the New
Testament foretells and illustrates the development of the Church, as of a great tree
which began in an imperceptible grain of seed and today gives ample shelter to the
beasts of the field and the fowls of the air.

Now, even among Catholics, we meet with ultra-dogmatic spirits who, while
justly admiring the vast oak tree which covers them with its shade, absolutely
refuse to admit that all this abundance of organic forms has grown from a structure
as simple and rudimentary as that of an ordinary acorn. According to them, though
the oak arose out of the acorn, yet the acorn must have contained in a distinct and
discernible form, if not every leaf, at least every branch of the great tree, and must
have been not only identical in substance with the latter but similar to it in every
detail; whereupon ultra-critical spirits of the opposite school set to work to
examine the wretched acorn minutely from every angle. Naturally they discover in
it no resemblance whatever to the entwining roots, the stout trunk, the leafy
branches or the tough corrugated foliage of the great tree. "What humbug!" they
exclaim, "the acorn is simply an acorn and can never be anything else; it is only
too obvious where the great oak and all its characteristics came from. The Jesuits
invented it at the Vatican Council; we saw it with our own eyes — in the book of
Janus."

At the risk of appearing to be a free-thinker to the extreme dogmatists and of
being at the same time labeled a Jesuit in disguise by the critics, I must affirm the
unquestionable truth that the acorn actually has a quite simple and rudimentary
structure and that though all the component parts of a great oak cannot be
discovered in it, yet the oak has actually grown out of the acorn without any
artificial stimulus or infringement of the laws of nature, but by its own right, nay,
even by divine right. Since God, Who is not bound by the limitations of time and
space and of the mechanism of the material world, sees concealed in the actual
germ of things all their future potentialities, so in the little acorn He must not only
have seen but ordained and blessed the mighty oak which was to grow from it; in
the grain of mustard seed of Peter's faith He discerned and foretold the vast tree of
the Catholic Church which was to cover the Earth with its branches.

Though Peter was entrusted by Jesus Christ with that universal sovereign
authority which was to endure and develop within the Church throughout its
existence upon Earth, he did not personally exercise this authority except in a
measure and in a form suited to the primitive condition of the Apostolic Church.
The action of the prince of the Apostles had as little resemblance to modern papal
administration as the acorn has to the oak; but this does not prevent the Papacy
from being the natural, logical and legitimate development of the primacy of Peter.
The primacy itself is so marked in the historical books of the New Testament that it
has never been disputed by any theologian of good faith, whether Orthodox,
rationalist or Jew. (9) We have already cited the eminent Jewish writer Joseph
Salvador as an unbiased witness to the historical foundation of the Church by Jesus
Christ and to the outstanding part allotted to Peter in its foundation. A writer
equally free from Catholic bias, David Strauss, the well-known leader of the
German school of critics, has found himself compelled to defend the primacy of
Peter against Protestant controversialists whom he accuses of prejudice. (10) As
regards the representatives of Eastern Orthodoxy, we cannot do better than quote
once more our one and only theologian, Philaret of Moscow. For him the primacy
of Peter is "clear and evident." (11) After recalling the fact that Peter was entrusted by
Christ with the special task of confirming his brethren (Luke xxii. 32), that is to
say, the other Apostles, the famous Russian prelate continues thus: "In point of
fact, although the Resurrection of our Lord had been announced to the women who
came bearing spices, this did not confirm the Apostles in their faith in the event
(Luke xxiv. ii). But when the Risen Lord had appeared to Peter, the other Apostles
(even before the appearance to them all together) declared with conviction: The
Lord is risen indeed and hath appeared to Simon (Luke xxiv. 34). Finally, when it
is a question of filling the gap left in the Apostolic band by the apostasy of Judas, it
is Peter who is the first to draw attention to the fact and to take the decisive step;
when the moment arrives, just after the descent of the Holy Spirit, for the solemn
inauguration of the preaching of the Gospel, "Peter standing up . . . "; when the
foundations of the Christian Church are to be laid among pagans as well as among
Jews, it is Peter who gives Cornelius baptism and thus, not for the first time, fulfils
the utterance of Christ: Thou art Peter, etc." (12)

In bearing this witness to the truth, the eloquent doctor of the modern Russian
Church is but the echo of the still more eloquent doctor of the ancient Greek
Church. St. John Chrysostom long ago anticipated and triumphantly refuted the
objections to the primacy of Peter which are made even today on the ground of
certain incidents in the record of the Gospel and of the Apostolic Church, such as
Simon's denial in the High Priest's palace, his relations with St. Paul, and so forth.
We refer our Orthodox readers to the arguments of the great OEcumenical Doctor. (13)
No papist could assert more forcibly and insistently the primacy of power (and not
merely of honor) which belonged to Peter in the Apostolic Church. The prince of
the Apostles, to whose care all were committed by Christ (άτε αυτος πάντας
εγχείρισθεις) had, according to this saintly writer, the power of nominating a
successor to Judas on his own authority, and if on this occasion he called in the
assistance of the other Apostles, it was by no means of obligation, but simply of his
good pleasure that he did so." (14)

Holy Scripture tells us of the primacy of Peter; his right to absolute sovereign
authority in the Church is attested by Orthodox tradition; but no one possessed of
any historical feeling or indeed of any ordinary common sense would expect to
find legally defined powers taking effect according to fixed rules in the primitive
Church, not only of the period when "the multitude of believers had but one heart
and one soul," but also long after. There is always the temptation to expect to find
in the acorn the branches of the oak. The real and living seed of the supreme
authority of the Church which we discern in the prince of the Apostles could only
be displayed in the primitive Church by practical leadership on the part of Peter in
every matter which concerned the Universal Church, and this is what we actually
find in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. (15)

Since there are actually critics who do not recognize the personality of St. Paul
in his epistles, there will always be some who will not observe the outstanding part
played by St. Peter in the foundation of the Church. We will not stay longer to
refute them, but we will pass on to the objection raised against the succession of
Rome to the position of the Galilean fisherman.

The Apostle Peter and the Papacy

tHE Apostle Peter possesses the primacy of power; but why should the Pope
of Rome succeed to this primacy?' We must confess our entire inability to
understand how such a question can be taken seriously. Once it is admitted
that there is in the Universal Church a fundamental supreme authority established
by Christ in the person of St. Peter, then it must follow that this authority is in
existence somewhere. And it seems to us that the obvious impossibility of
discovering it anywhere else but at Rome is at once a sufficient reason for
supporting the Catholic contention.

Since neither the patriarch of Constantinople nor the Synod of St. Petersburg
claims or can possibly claim to represent the rock of the Universal Church, that is
to say the real and fundamental unity of ecclesiastical authority, there is no choice
but either to abandon all idea of such a unity and accept a state of division,
confusion and bondage as the normal condition of the Church, or else to
acknowledge the claims and actual validity of the one and only existing authority
which has always shown itself to be the center of ecclesiastical unity. No amount
of argument can overcome the evidence for the fact that apart from Rome there
only exist national churches, such as the Armenian or the Greek church, State
churches such as the Russian or Anglican, or else sects founded by individuals,
such as the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Irvingites, and so forth. The Roman
Catholic Church is the only church that is neither a national church, nor a State
church, nor a sect founded by a man; it is the only church in the world which
maintains and asserts the principle of universal social unity against individual
egoism and national particularism; it is the only church which maintains and
asserts the freedom of the spiritual power against the absolutism of the State; in a
word, it is the only church against which the gates of Hell have not prevailed.
"By their fruits ye shall know them." In the sphere of religious fellowship the
fruit of Catholicism (for those who have remained Catholics) is the unity and
freedom of the Church; the fruit of Protestantism for its adherents both in the East
and in the West is division and bondage: division chiefly in the West and bondage
in the East. Think and say what you will of the Roman Church or of the Papacy;
we ourselves are very far from seeing or expecting to find in either the
achievement of perfection or the realization of the ideal. We are aware that the
rock of the Church is not the Church itself, that the foundation is not the same as
the building, nor the way the same as the goal. All that we are maintaining is that
the Papacy is the sole international and independent ecclesiastical authority, the
only real and permanent basis for the Church's universal activity. That is an
indisputable fact and in itself compels us to acknowledge the Pope to be the sole
trustee of those powers and privileges which St. Peter received from Christ. And
since the universal monarchy of the Church was not to eliminate the universal
monarchy of the political world, but to transubstantiate it, was it not natural that
the visible seat of the two corresponding monarchies should remain the same? If,
as has already been said, the dynasty of Julius Cæ,sar was in a certain sense, to
give place to the dynasty of Simon Peter, if Cæsarism was to yield to Papacy, it
was surely to be expected that the Papacy should take up its abode in the existing
center of the universal Empire.

The transference to Rome of the supreme ecclesiastical authority established by
Christ in the person of St. Peter is a patent fact attested by the tradition of the
Church and justified by the logic of circumstances. As regards the question of the
formal manner in which the authority of Peter was transmitted to the bishop of
Rome, that is a historical problem which for lack of documentary evidence can
hardly be scientifically solved. We believe the Orthodox tradition, which is
recorded in our liturgical books, to the effect that St. Peter on his arrival at Rome
definitely fixed his see there and before his death personally nominated his
successor. Later times saw the Popes elected by the Christian community of the
city of Rome until the present mode of election by the college of Cardinals was
definitely established. Furthermore, as early as the second century we have in the
writings of St. Ireneus unimpeachable evidence that the Church of Rome was
already regarded by the whole Christian world as the center of unity, and that the
bishop of Rome enjoyed a permanent position of supreme authority, though the
forms in which this authority found expression were bound to vary with the times,
becoming more definite and imposing in proportion as the development of the
whole social structure of the Church became more intricate and diversified.
"In fact" (to quote a historian of the critical rationalist school) "in 196 the
chosen heads of the churches were attempting to create ecclesiastical unity; one of
them, the head of the Roman Church, seemed to claim the rôle of executive
authority within the community and to assume the position of sovereign pontiff."(16)
But it was not merely a question of executive authority, for a little further on the
same author makes the following admission: "Tertullian and Cyprian appear to hail
the Church of Rome as the principal church and in a certain degree the guardian
and keeper of the faith and of genuine tradition." (17)

In the early days of Christianity the monarchical authority of the Universal
Church was but a seed scarcely visible, but nevertheless pregnant with life; by the
second century, this seed has visibly developed, as the acts of Pope Victor testify;
in the third century, the same witness is borne by the acts of Pope Stephen and
Pope Dionysius, and in the fourth, by those of Pope Julius I. In the following
century, we already see the supreme authority and monarchical power of the
Roman Church growing like a vigorous sapling under Pope St. Leo I; and finally
by the ninth century the Papacy is already the mighty and majestic tree which
covers the Christian world with the shadow of its branches.

That is the great fact, the main fact, the manifestation and fulfilment in history
of the divine utterance: Thou art Peter. This broad fact is the outcome of divine
law, while particular facts regarding the transmission of the sovereign power, the
papal elections and so forth concern the purely human side of the Church and have
no more than a secondary interest from the religious point of view. Here again the
Roman Empire, foreshadowing as it does in a certain sense the Roman Church,
may provide us with an analogy. Since Rome was the undisputed center of the
Empire, the individual who was proclaimed Emperor at Rome was immediately
recognized as such by the whole world without any question as to whether it was
the Senate or the prætorians or the votes of the people which had raised him to the
purple. In exceptional cases, when the Emperor was elected by the legions outside
Rome, his first concern was to hasten to the imperial city, without whose support
his election would be regarded by everyone as only provisional. The Rome of the
Popes became for universal Christendom what the Rome of the Cæsars had been
for the pagan world. The bishop of Rome was, by his very office, the supreme
pastor and doctor of the whole Church. There was no need to trouble about the
method of his election; that depended on circumstances and conditions of the
moment. There was usually no more reason for doubting the legality of the election
of the bishop of Rome than that of the election of any other bishop. And once his
election to the episcopate was recognized, the head of the central church and the
occupant of the Chair of St. Peter was ipso facto in possession of all the rights and
powers which Christ conferred upon the rock of the Church. There were
exceptional instances where doubt might be felt about the election; antipopes are
not unknown to history. But just as the usurpers Demetrius and Peter III in no way
robbed the Russian monarchy of its lawful authority, so the antipopes provide no
argument against the Papacy. Any apparent abnormality in the history of the
Church belongs to the human "species" rather than to the divine "substance" of the
religious society. If, by some chance, adulterated or even poisoned wine were used
in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, would this sacrilege have the slightest effect on
the validity of the Sacrament itself?

In maintaining that the bishop of Rome is the true successor of St. Peter and
therefore the impregnable rock of the Church and the steward of the Kingdom of
Heaven, we are putting on one side the question whether the prince of the Apostles
was ever personally in Rome. This fact is attested by the tradition of the Church
both in the East and in the West, and we ourselves feel no doubt in the matter. But
if there are Christians in good faith who are more susceptible than ourselves to the
specious arguments of Protestant scholars, we have no wish to dispute the matter
with them. We might even admit that St. Peter never went personally to Rome, and
yet at the same time from the religious point of view maintain a spiritual and
mystical transmission of his sovereign authority to the bishop of the Eternal City.
The history of early Christianity supplies us with a striking instance of an
analogous relationship. St. Paul had no natural link whatever with Jesus Christ; he
was not a witness of our Lord's life on Earth nor did he receive his commission in
any visible or public fashion; nevertheless he is recognized by all Christians as one
of the greatest Apostles. His apostolate was a public ministry in the Church and yet
its origin, in his relation to Jesus Christ, is a mystical and miraculous fact. Now, if
a phenomenon of a supernatural order formed the original link between Jesus
Christ and St. Paul and made the latter a chosen vessel and the Apostle of the
Gentiles, though at the same time this miraculous commission did not prevent his
further activity from being subject to the natural conditions of human life and
historic circumstances, then similarly that original relationship between St. Peter
and the See of Rome which created the Papacy might well depend upon a mystical
and transcendental act, which would in no way deprive the Papacy itself, once
constituted, of the character of a normal social institution acting under the ordinary
conditions of earthly life. The mighty spirit of St. Peter, guided by his Master's
almighty Will, might well seek to perpetuate the center of ecclesiastical unity by
taking up his abode in the center of political unity already formed by Providence
and thus making the bishop of Rome heir to his primacy. According to this theory
(which, let us remember, would become necessary only if it were conclusively
shown that St. Peter did not go to Rome), the Pope would be regarded as the
successor of St. Peter in the same spiritual and yet absolutely real sense in which,
mutatis mutandis, St. Paul must be recognized as a true Apostle chosen and sent by
Jesus Christ, though he had no knowledge of Him except in a miraculous vision.
St. Paul's apostleship is attested by the Acts of the Apostles and by the Epistles of
St. Paul himself; the succession of the Roman primacy from St. Peter is attested by
the unbroken tradition of the Universal Church. For an Orthodox Christian the
latter evidence is intrinsically of no less value than the former. Of the manner in
which the foundation rock of the Church was removed from Palestine to Italy, we
may well be ignorant; but that it was actually so removed and established at Rome
is an incontrovertible fact, the rejection of which would involve the denial not only
of sacred tradition but of the very history of Christianity.

The point of view which ranks fact lower than principle and lays greater
emphasis on a general truth than on the external certainty of material phenomena is
by no means peculiar to ourselves; it is the opinion of the Orthodox Church herself
Let us quote an example in order to make our meaning clear. It is absolutely
certain that the first oecumenical council of Nicæa was summoned by the Emperor
Constantine and not by Pope St. Silvester. Nevertheless the Greco-Russian Church
in the office of January 2, in which she celebrates the memory of St. Silvester, has
accorded to him special praise for having summoned the 318 Fathers to Nicæa and
promulgated the orthodox dogma against the blasphemy of Anus. This is no mere
historical error — the history of the first council was well known in the Eastern
Church — but rather the expression of a general truth far more important for the
religious conscience of the Church than material accuracy. Once the primacy of the
Popes was recognized in principle, it was natural to ascribe to each Pope all the
ecclesiastical acts that took place during his pontificate. Thus with the general
fundamental rule of the life of the Church in mind rather than the historical details
of a particular event, the Easterns assigned to St. Silvester the privileges and duties
which were his according to the spirit, if not the letter, of Christian history. And if
it is true that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life, they were right.

Pope St. Leo the Great on the primacy

tHIS is not the place to set forth the whole historical development of the
Papacy or to quote the copious testimony borne by Orthodox tradition to the
lawfulness of the papal sovereignty in the Universal Church. In order to
demonstrate the historical basis of our argument to those of our readers who are
not familiar with Church history, it will be enough to dwell upon a single epoch
memorable in the history of the Papacy, an epoch which is sufficiently primitive to
command the respect of our Orthodox traditionalists and which at the same time
stands revealed in the broad daylight of historical knowledge and documentary
evidence and so presents no obscurity or ambiguity in its essential outlines. The
epoch in question is the middle of the fifth century, the period when the Roman
Church had so worthy a representative in Pope St. Leo the Great.

It is interesting for us to note the conception which this Roman pontiff, who is
also a recognized saint of the Greco-Russian Church, had of his own authority and
how his assertions were received in the Eastern part of the Church.
In one of his sermons, after reminding his hearers that Christ is the only pontiff
in the strict sense of the word, St. Leo continues thus; "Now He has not abandoned
the care of His flock; and it is from His supreme and eternal authority that we have
received the abundant gift of apostolic power and His succor is never absent from
His work . . . For that firmness of faith which was commended in the prince of the
Apostles is perpetual, and as that which Peter believed on in Christ endures, so
does that which Christ established in Peter endure also (et sicut permanet quod in
Christo Petrus credidit, ita permanet quod in Petro Christus instituit) . . . The
dispensation of the truth therefore abides; and the blessed Peter, persevering in the
strength of the Rock wherewith he has been endowed, has not abandoned the reins
of the Church which he received . . . Thus, if we act or decide justly, if by our daily
supplications we obtain aught of the mercy of God, it is the work and the merit of
him whose power lives and whose authority prevails in his see." And speaking of
the bishops gathered at Rome for the feast of St. Peter, St. Leo says that they have
desired to honor by their presence "him whom they know not only to preside in
this see (of Rome) but also to be the primate of all the bishops." (18)

In another sermon, after expressing what may be called the fundamental truth of
the Church, that in the sphere of the inner life of grace all Christians are priests and
kings, but that differences and inequalities are necessary in the outward structure of
the mystical body of Christ, St. Leo goes on to say: "And yet out of the whole
world Peter alone is chosen to be set above the assembly of all the nations, above
all the Apostles and all the Fathers of the Church, to the end that though among
God's people there are many priests and many pastors, yet all might be duly
governed by Peter, being ultimately governed by Christ. Behold, dearly beloved,
how great a share (magnum consortium) in His own power was bestowed by the
will of God upon this man, and if God willed that the rest of the Apostles should
share aught in common with him, yet it was through him that He bestowed
whatever He did not withhold from the others . . . And I say unto thee: that is to
say, as My Father has revealed unto thee My Godhead, so I make known to thee
thy pre-eminence; that thou art Peter: that is to say, though I am the inviolable
Rock, though I am the Corner-stone Who have made both one, though I am the
Foundation other than which none can be laid, yet thou also art the Rock
strengthened by My might and so sharing in common with Me that which I
possess by My own power." (19) "The power of binding and loosing was handed on
to the other Apostles also and through them to all the rulers of the Church; but not
for nothing was a single individual entrusted with what belongs to all . . . Peter is
fortified with the strength of all and the assistance of divine grace is so ordered that
the stability bestowed by Christ on Peter is conferred by Peter on the Apostles." (20)
As Peter shares in the sovereign authority of Christ over the Universal Church,
so the bishop of Rome who occupies the see of Peter is the living representative of
this authority. "Peter does not cease to preside in his see and his consortium with
the Eternal Pontiff never fails. For that steadfastness with which he was endowed,
when he was first made the Rock, by Christ Who is Himself the Rock, has passed
to his successors, and wherever any stability is manifest it is beyond doubt the
might of the supreme Pastor which is in evidence. Could anyone consider the
renown of blessed Peter and yet be ignorant or envious enough to assert that there
is any part of the Church which is not guided by his care and strengthened by his
succor?"(21) "Though every individual pastor tends his flock with a special care and
knows that he must give account of the sheep committed to his charge,
nevertheless we alone must share the anxiety of all and our responsibility includes
the governance of each individual. For since the whole world has recourse to the
see of the blessed Apostle Peter, and since that love towards the Universal Church
which was enjoined upon him by our Lord is expected of our administration also,
therefore the greater our responsibility towards all the faithful, the heavier is the
burden which weighs upon us?" (22)

The renown of St. Peter is to St. Leo's mind inseparable from the renown of the
Roman Church, which he calls "the holy nation, the chosen people, the priestly and
royal state, which has become the head of the world through the blessed Peter's
holy see."(23) "He, the chief of the apostolic band, was appointed to the citadel of the
Roman Empire that the light of the truth which was being revealed for the
salvation of all the nations might spread more effectually from the head itself
throughout the whole body of the world." (24)


St. Leo the Great on papal authority

bELIEVING as he did that the supreme authority of Peter resided
permanently in the Roman Church, St. Leo could not regard himself
otherwise than as "the ruler of the Christian world" (25) responsible for the
peace and good order of all the Churches. (26) Constant attention to this huge task was
for him a religious obligation. "The demands of religious duty (ratio pietatis)," he
writes to the African bishops, "require that we should make every effort to
ascertain the exact state of affairs with that solicitude which, according to the
divine command, we owe to the Universal Church . . . For the stability and order of
the Lord's whole household would be disturbed if there were lacking in the head
aught of which the body had need." (27) The same ideas are found expressed in a
more developed form in his letter to the bishops of Sicily: "We are urged by divine
precepts and apostolic exhortations to keep a loving and active watch over the state
of all the Churches and if there is anything deserving of blame we must be diligent
to warn the culprit either against the rashness of ignorance or the presumption of
self-aggrandizement. Constrained by the Lord's utterance which urged upon
blessed Peter the mystical injunction, thrice repeated, that he who loves Christ
should feed Christ's sheep, we are bound by reverence for his see, which by the
abundance of divine grace we occupy, to avoid the peril of sloth so far as we may,
lest the confession of the holy Apostle, whereby he declared himself the Lord's
disciple, be required of us in vain. For he who is negligent in feeding the flock so
repeatedly entrusted to him is proved to have no love for the Chief Shepherd." (28)
In his letter to St. Flavian, the patriarch of Constantinople, the Pope assigns to
himself the task of preserving the Catholic faith intact by cutting off all
dissensions, of warning by his own authority (nostra auctoritate) the champions of
error, and of fortifying those whose faith is approved. (29)

When the Emperor Theodosius II attempted to plead with St. Leo on behalf of
the archimandrite Eutyches who was the author of the Monophysite heresy, the
sovereign pontiff replied that Eutyches could secure pardon if he recanted the
opinions condemned by the Pope, with whom lay the final decision in questions of
dogma. "What the Catholic Church believes and teaches on the mystery of the
Lord's incarnation is contained fully in the letter sent to my brother and fellowbishop
Flavian." (30)

St. Leo did not admit that the oecumenical council had any power of decision on
a dogma already defined by the Pope. (31) In the instructions which the Pope gives to
his legate, the Bishop Paschasinus, he points to his dogmatic epistle to Flavian as
the complete and final definition of the true faith. (32) In another letter to the Emperor
Marcian, St. Leo declares himself instructed by the Spirit of God to teach and
impart the true Catholic faith. (33) In a third letter to the Emperor, he states that he has
only asked for the summoning of a council in order to restore peace in the Eastern
Church, (34) and in the letter addressed to the council itself he says that he only
accepts it "so that the rights and dignity belonging to the see of the blessed Apostle
Peter be respected," and he urges the Eastern bishops "to abstain entirely from the
rashness of impugning the divinely inspired faith," as he has defined it in his
dogmatic epistle. "It is not permitted," he writes, "to defend that which it is not
permitted to believe, since in our letters sent to Bishop Flavian of blessed memory
we have already with the greatest fullness and lucidity (plenissime et lucidissime)
expounded the true and pure faith concerning the mystery of the incarnation of our
Lord Jesus Christ in accordance with the authoritative record of the Gospels, the
words of the Prophets and the teaching of the Apostles." (35) And in the following
words St. Leo informs the Gaulish bishops of the result of the council of
Chalcedon: "The holy Synod, adhering with religious unanimity to that which had
been written by our unworthy hand and reinforced by the authority and merit of my
lord, the blessed Apostle Peter, has cut off from the Church of God this shameful
abomination" (the heresy of Eutyches and Dioscorus). (36)

But it is well known that, besides this result which the Pope approved, the
council of Chalcedon was marked by an act of a different kind. In an irregular
session, the Eastern bishops subject to the patriarch of Constantinople promulgated
the famous twenty-eighth Canon by which they conferred upon their metropolitan
the primacy of the East to the prejudice of the patriarchs of Alexandria and
Antioch. It is true that they themselves declared the Canon to be provisional and
humbly submitted it to the judgment of St. Leo, who repudiated it with indignation
and seized this fresh opportunity of defining his conception of the hierarchy and
the extent of his own authority. In his letter to the Emperor, he observes in the first
place that the claims of the patriarch of Constantinople are based upon political
considerations and have nothing in common with the primacy of St. Peter which is
of divine institution. "Secular things stand upon a different footing from things
divine; and apart from the one Rock which the Lord has laid for a foundation, no
building can be stable . . . Let it suffice him" (the patriarch Anatolius) "that he has
obtained the bishopric of so great a city with the aid of your piety and the support
of my favor. He should not disdain the royal city, even though he cannot change it
into an apostolic see; and let him on no account hope to succeed in exalting his
own position at the expense of others . . . Let him remember that it is to me that the
government of the Church has been entrusted. I should be responsible if the rules
of the Church were infringed through my acquiescence (far be it from me!) or if
the will of a single brother had more weight with me than the common good of the
Lord's whole house." (38) "The agreements of the bishops which are contrary to the
holy canons of Nicæa . . . we declare to be null and void, and by the authority of
the blessed Apostle Peter we annul them completely by a general decree." (39) In his
reply to the petition of the bishops of the fourth council, the Pope confirms his
approval of their dogmatic decree (formulated on the lines of his own letter to
Flavian) as well as his annulment of the twenty-eighth Canon. "Your Holiness will
be able," he writes, "to appreciate the reverence with which the Apostolic See
observes the rules of the holy Fathers, by reading my writings in which I have
rejected the claims of the bishop of Constantinople; and you will understand that I
am, with the help of the Lord, the guardian of the Catholic faith and of the decrees
of the Fathers." (40)

Although St. Leo, as we have just seen, did not think an oecumenical council
necessary in the interests of dogmatic truth after the definitions contained in his
letter, yet he considered it very desirable for the peace of the Church; and the
spontaneous and unanimous adherence of the council to his decrees filled him with
joy. In such a voluntary unity he saw the ideal relationship within the hierarchy.
"The merit of the priestly office," he writes to Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, "gains
great luster where the authority of those in command is so maintained that the
liberty of those under obedience appears in no way diminished." (41) "The Lord has.
not allowed us to suffer harm in the person of our brethren, but what He had
already laid down through our ministry He subsequently confirmed by the
irrevocable assent of the whole brotherhood to show that it was indeed from
Himself that 'the dogmatic act' proceeded which was first promulgated by the
chief of all sees and then received by the judgment of the whole Christian world so
that in this also the members might be in agreement with the head." (42)

The learned Theodoret, as is well known, had been accused of Nestorianism, but
had been exculpated at the council of Chalcedon; he himself, however, regarded
this judgment as only provisional and applied to the Pope for a final decision. St.
Leo pronounced him orthodox "in the name of our blessed God Whose invincible
truth has shown thee to be clean from all stain of heresy according to the judgment
of the Apostolic See;" and he adds: "We acknowledge the exceeding care of
blessed Peter for us all, who not only has confirmed the judgment of his see in the
definition of the faith, but has also vindicated those who were unjustly
condemned." (43)

But while he recognized in voluntary agreement the ideal of ecclesiastical unity,
St. Leo clearly distinguished in this unity the element of authority from the element
of deliberation, the decision of the Holy See from the consent of the oecumenical
council. The ideal of the Church requires such consent on the part of the whole
brotherhood; the life of the Church is incomplete without an entire unanimity; but
even this universal consent has no real basis and can produce no result without the
decisive action of the central authority, as the history of the Church abundantly
proves. The last word in all questions of dogma and the final confirmation of every
ecclesiastical act belongs to the see of St. Peter. Hence, in his letter to Anatolius,
the patriarch of Constantinople, regarding a cleric of that city, Atticus, who was to
recant his heretical opinions and submit himself to the judgment of the fourth
council, St. Leo draws an essential distinction between his own part in the
decisions of the ecumenical council and the part played by the Greek patriarch:
"He" (i. e., Atticus) "must promise to maintain in all points the definition of faith
of the council of Chalcedon to which your charity has assented and subscribed and
which has been confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See." (44)

The fundamental principle of Church government could not be better formulated
than by drawing St. Leo's distinction between the authority which confirms and the
charity which assents. It is assuredly no mere primacy of honor that the Pope
claims in these words. On the contrary, St. Leo allows a complete equality of honor
among all bishops; from that point of view all were for him brethren and fellowbishops.
It was, on the other hand, the distinction of power which he explicitly
asserted. The brotherhood of all does not exclude for him the authority of one. In a
letter to Anastasius, bishop of Salonica, on certain matters which "have been
entrusted to his brotherly care by the authority of the blessed Apostle Peter," (45) he
sums up the conception of the hierarchical principle thus: "Even among the blessed
Apostles, there was side by side with an equality of honor a distinction of
authority; and though all were equally chosen, nevertheless pre-eminence was
given to one over the others. On the same principle, distinction is made between
bishops, and the mighty design of Providence has ordered it that all may not claim
every prerogative, but that in each province there should be someone possessing
primacy of jurisdiction" (literally: "prime judgment") "over his brethren; and again
that those presiding in the larger cities should receive a wider responsibility, that
through them the care of the Universal Church might ultimately rest upon the one
see of Peter and that no part should anywhere be separated from the head." (46)
The ultimate warrant and sanction of this "mighty design of Providence"
consists, according to St. Leo, in the fact that the one head of the Church, with
whom the rights and obligations of all are bound up, does not owe his power to the
ordinance of man or to the accidents of history, but represents the impregnable
rock of truth and justice laid down by the Lord Himself as the foundation of His
social structure. It is no mere consideration of expediency, but the ratio pietatis
which is invoked by him who has received the government of the whole Church
e divina institutione. (47)


The approval of St. Leo's ideas by the Greek Fathers
AND The "robber council" of Ephesus

iN the writings and acts of Leo I we see no longer the germ of the sovereign
Papacy, but the Papacy itself exhibiting the full extent of its powers. To
mention only the most important point, the doctrine of infallibility ex cathedra
is here proclaimed fourteen centuries before Pius IX. Saint Leo asserts that the
authority of St. Peter's Chair is of itself sufficient to resolve a fundamental
question of dogma, and he does not ask the ecumenical council to define the
dogma but to assent, for the sake of the peace of the Church, to the definition given
by the Pope who is by divine right the lawful guardian of the true Catholic faith. If
this thesis, which was merely developed by the Vatican council in its Constitutio
dogmatica de Ecclesia Christi, is a heresy as our own theologians have claimed,
then Pope St. Leo the Great is a declared heretic or rather a heresiarch, since never
before had this thesis been affirmed so explicitly, so forcibly or so insistently.
Let us see, then, the kind of reception which the Orthodox Church gave to the
authoritative assertions of Pope St. Leo; for this purpose we will take the acts of
those Greek councils which were contemporary with this Pope and read the
documents. (48) We find, first of all, a remarkable letter from the bishop Peter
Chrysologus to the archimandrite Eutyches. When St. Flavian, the patriarch of
Constantinople, had in conjunction with his synod condemned Eutyches,
archimandrite of one of the monasteries of the Greek capital, for heresy, and had
applied to the Pope for confirmation of the sentence, Eutyches, following the
advice given him at the Emperor's court, where he had many influential patrons,
attempted to win certain orthodox bishops to his side. The following is the reply he
received from one of them, Peter Chrysologus: "Above all, we advise you,
venerable brother, to adhere with the greatest confidence to the writings of the
blessed Pope of the city of Rome; since the blessed Apostle Peter, who lives and
presides in his own see, gives to those who seek it the truth of the faith. As for us,
our anxiety for peace and for the faith forbids us to decide causes which concern
religion without the assent of the bishop of Rome." (49)

Peter Chrysologus, though a Greek and writing to a Greek, was nevertheless
bishop of Ravenna and therefore half Western. But a few pages further on we find
the same doctrine from the representative of the metropolis of the East, Flavian, a
saint and confessor of the Orthodox Church. On the heresy of Eutyches he writes
thus to the Pope: "The whole question needs only your single decision and all will
be settled in peace and quietness. Your sacred letter will, with God's help,
completely suppress the heresy which has arisen and the disturbance which it has
caused; (50) and so," he continues, "the convening of a council, which is, in any case,
difficult, will be rendered superfluous."

Next to the saintly patriarch of Constantinople should be quoted the learned
bishop of Cyrus, Theodoret, who has been beatified by the Greek Church. "If Paul,
the herald of the truth and the trumpet of the Holy Spirit," he writes to Pope Leo,
"had recourse to the great Peter, we, simple and humble as we are, ought all the
more to hasten to your apostolic throne to receive at your hands healing for the
wounds which afflict the Churches. For the primacy belongs to you for every
reason. Your see is adorned with every sort of privilege and, above all, with that of
faith; to which the divine Apostle bears sufficient witness when, in addressing the
Church of Rome, he exclaims: 'Your faith is spoken of in the whole world.' It is
your see which possesses the tombs of the fathers and doctors of the truth, Peter
and Paul, enlightening the souls of the faithful. That divine and thrice-blessed pair
appeared in the East and shed their rays abroad; but it was in the West that they
chose to be delivered from this life and it is from thence that they now illumine the
whole world. They have shed manifest luster upon your throne and that is the
crown of your b1essings." (51) "As for me, I have only to await the sentence of your
apostolic see. And I beg and beseech your Holiness to give me, who am unjustly
accused, access to your lawful and just tribunal; give but the word and I hasten to
receive from you my doctrine in which I have only desired to follow in the
Apostles' footsteps." (52)

These are no mere empty words or rhetorical phrases addressed to the Pope by
the representatives of orthodoxy. The Greek bishops had cause enough to cling to
the supreme authority of the Apostolic See. The "robber council of Ephesus" had
just given them ocular demonstration of what an oecumenical council without the
Pope could be like. It is instructive to recall the circumstances of that occasion.
Since the fourth century, that part of the Church which was mainly Greek in
culture had suffered from the rivalry and continual strife of two central sees, the
ancient patriarchate of Alexandria and the new one of Constantinople. The outward
fluctuations in this struggle depended mainly on the attitude of the Byzantine
court; and if we look into the causes which influenced the attitude of the secular
power to the two ecclesiastical centers of the East, we note a remarkable fact. A
priori it might be supposed that the Byzantine Empire had, from the political point
of view, three lines of action from which to choose: she might support the new
patriarchate of Constantinople as her own creation, always within her control and
unable to achieve any permanent independence; or else imperialist Byzantium
might wish to avoid the necessity of repressing centralist tendencies at home and,
in order to rid herself of a rather too close and irksome connection, she might
prefer to have the center of ecclesiastical administration somewhere farther off and
yet within her sphere of influence; she might, with this end in view, incline to
support the patriarchate of Alexandria which satisfied both these conditions and
besides could claim, on traditional and canonical grounds, a relative primacy over
the East; or, lastly, the imperial government might choose to maintain an even
balance between the rival sees by favoring now one and now the other according to
political circumstances. It is clear, however, that actually none of these courses was
chosen. When ample allowance has been made for individual coincidences or
purely personal reactions, it must still be recognized that there was a general
motive dictating the policy of the Byzantine Emperors in the struggle between the
great sees of the East; but the motive lay outside the three political considerations
just indicated. If the Emperors varied in their attitude to the two patriarchates,
alternately giving first one and then the other their support, this variation had
nothing to do with the balance of power; the Byzantine court invariably supported,
not the one of the two rival prelates who was least dangerous at the moment, but
the one who was in the wrong from the religious or moral point of view. It was
enough for a patriarch, whether of Constantinople or of Alexandria, to be a heretic
or an unworthy shepherd of his flock, and he was assured of the active protection
of the Empire for a considerable period, if not for the rest of his career. And,
conversely, a saint or a champion of orthodoxy who ascended the episcopal throne,
either in the city of Alexander or in that of Constantine, might count at once upon
the hatred and persecution of the imperial court and often upon nothing short of
martyrdom.

This invincible tendency of the Byzantine government towards injustice,
violence and heresy and its ineradicable antipathy to the worthiest representatives
of the Christian hierarchy, was quick to show itself. Scarcely had the Empire
recognized the Christian religion before it was already persecuting St. Athanasius,
the light of orthodoxy. The whole of the long reign of Constantius, the son of
Constantine the Great, was taken up with the struggle against the renowned
patriarch of Alexandria, while the heretical bishops of Constantinople were backed
by the Emperor. Nor was it the power of the see of Alexandria which was
intolerable to the Christian Cæsar, but the moral greatness of its occupant. Half a
century later the position was reversed and the see of Constantinople was occupied
by a great saint, John Chrysostom, while the patriarchate of Alexandria had fallen
to Theophilus, a man of the most contemptible character; but the court of
Byzantium favored Theophilus and used every means in its power to bring about
Chrysostom's downfall. It may be said, however, that it was merely the
independent character of the great Christian orator which made him suspect in
imperial circles. Yet, not long afterwards, the Church of Constantinople was ruled
by Nestorius, a personality of an equally courageous and independent character;
but since he possessed the additional qualification of being a determined
propagator of heresy, he received every encouragement from Theodosius II and
could count on the Emperor's unfailing support in his struggle against St. Cyril, the
new patriarch of Alexandria and the rival of the great Athanasius, if not in personal
character, at least in his zeal for orthodoxy and his theological ability. We shall see
before long why the imperial government did not succeed in upholding the heretic
Nestorius and bringing about the fall of St. Cyril. Shortly afterwards the position
was again reversed: the patriarchate of Constantinople had in St. Flavian a worthy
successor of John Chrysostom, and the see of Alexandria was now held by a
second Theophilus, one Dioscorus, nicknamed "the Pharaoh of Egypt." Saint
Flavian was a gentle and unassuming person; Dioscorus' character, on the other
hand, was stained with every wickedness and was distinguished mainly by an
inordinate ambition and a despotic temper to which he owed his nickname. From
the purely political point of view, it was obvious that the imperial government had
nothing to fear from St. Flavian, while the domineering ambitions of the new
"Pharaoh" might well arouse justifiable apprehensions. But St. Flavian was
orthodox, and Dioscorus had the great merit of favoring the new heresy of
Monophysitism. That alone was enough to ensure him the support of the Byzantine
court (53) and an oecumenical council was summoned under imperial auspices to give
official sanction to his cause. Dioscorus had everything in his favor: the support of
the secular arm, a well-disciplined body of clergy brought with him from Egypt
and blindly devoted to him, a mob of heretical monks, a considerable following
among the clergy of the other patriarchates, and, lastly, the cowardice of the
majority of the orthodox bishops, who dared not offer open resistance to a heresy
which enjoyed the favor of "the sacred majesty of Divus Augustus." Saint Flavian
was condemned unheard, and his fall must have involved the collapse of orthodoxy
throughout the Eastern Church — had that Church been left to her own resources.
But there was, outside that Church, a religious and moral authority with which the
"Pharaohs" and the Emperors had to reckon. Though in the struggle between the
two Eastern patriarchates the Byzantine court always took the side of injustice and
heresy, yet the cause of justice and orthodoxy, whether maintained by Alexandria
or Constantinople, never failed to find vigorous support in the Apostolic See of
Rome. The contrast is, indeed, striking. It is the Emperor Constantius who
ruthlessly persecutes St. Athanasius; it is Pope Julius who takes his part and
defends him against the whole East. It is Pope Innocent who makes energetic
protest against the persecution of St. John Chrysostom and, after the death of the
saint, takes the first step towards the rehabilitation of his memory in the Church.
Again, it is Pope Celestine who backs St. Cyril with all the weight of his authority
in his courageous struggle against the heresy of Nestorius and its political
champions; and there can be no doubt that without the aid of the Apostolic See the
patriarch of Alexandria, for all his energy, would not have succeeded in
overcoming the combined forces of the imperial power and the greater part of the
Greek clergy. This contrast between the policy of the Empire and that of the
Papacy may be observed right through the history of the Eastern heresies, which
were not only invariably supported, but sometimes even invented, by the
Emperors, as the Monothelite heresy was by the Emperor Heraclius and the
Iconoclastic heresy by Leo the Isaurian. But we must pause at the fifth century
over the struggle of the two patriarchates and the instructive history of the "robber
council" of Ephesus.

Repeated experience had proved that, in the quarrel between the two princes of
the Eastern Church, the Western Pope showed no bias or partiality, but invariably
gave his support to the cause of justice and truth. Accordingly, the tyrant and
heretic Dioscorus could not count on Rome for the same assistance that his
predecessor St. Cyril had received. His plan was to secure primacy over the whole
Eastern Church by the condemnation of St. Flavian and the triumph of the
Egyptian faction, more or less Monophysite, of which he himself was the leader.
Realizing that there was no hope of the Pope's consent being given to such a plan,
he resolved to achieve his object without the Pope or, if necessary, in spite of him.
In 449 a council which was oecumenical in its composition assembled at
Ephesus. The whole Eastern Church was represented. The legates of Pope St. Leo
were also present, but were not allowed to preside over the council. Dioscorus,
guarded by the imperial officers and attended by his Egyptian bishops and a mob
of clerics armed with staves, presided like a king holding court. The bishops of the
orthodox party were cowed and silent. "All of them," we read in the Russian
Martyrology ("Life of St. Flavian"), "loved darkness rather than light and preferred
falsehood to truth, desiring rather to please their earthly king than the King of
Heaven." Saint Flavian had to submit to a farcical trial. Some of the bishops threw
themselves at Dioscorus' feet and implored his indulgence for the accused. They
were roughly handled by the Egyptians amid deafening cries of "Hack asunder
those who would divide Christ!" The orthodox bishops were given tablets on
which nothing was written and to which they were compelled to put their
signatures, knowing that a heretical formula would be immediately inscribed upon
them. The majority signed without a murmur. A few desired to sign with certain
reservations, but the Egyptian clergy tore the tablets from their hands, breaking
their fingers with blows from their staves. Finally, Dioscorus rose and, in the name
of the council, pronounced sentence of condemnation against Flavian, who was
deposed, excommunicated and handed over to the secular arm. Flavian tried to
protest, but Dioscorus' clerics fell on him and handled him so roughly that he died
within two days.

When injustice, violence and falsehood thus reigned supreme in an oecumenical
council, where was the infallible and inviolable Church of Christ? It was present
and, moreover, gave proof of its presence. At the moment when St. Flavian was
being done to death by the brutalities of Dioscorus' minions, when the heretical
bishops were loudly acclaiming the triumph of their leader, while the orthodox
bishops stood by trembling and silent, Hilary, the deacon of the Roman Church,
cried: "Contradicitur!" (54) At that moment it was certainly not the cowering, silent
crowd of orthodox Easterns which represented the Church of God. All the
immortal power of the Church was concentrated for Eastern Christendom in that
simple legal word spoken by the Roman deacon: contradicitur. We are accustomed
to find fault with the distinctively juridical and legalistic character of the Western
Church; and no doubt the principles and formu1æ of Roman law do not hold good
in the Kingdom of God. But the "robber council" of Ephesus was an express
vindication of Latin justice. The contradicitur of the Roman deacon was the
symbol of principle against fact, of right against brute force, of unshakeable moral
stability against victorious wickedness on the one hand, and cowardice on the
other; it was, in a word, the impregnable Rock of the Church against the gates of
Hell.

The murderers of the patriarch of Constantinople did not dare to touch the
deacon of the Roman Church. And in the short space of two years the contradicitur
of Rome had changed "the most holy oecumenical council of Ephesus" into "the
robber council of Ephesus," had ousted the mitered assassin, decreed the
canonization of his victim, and brought about the assembling of the true
oecumenical council of Chalcedon under the presidency of the Roman legates.

The Council of Chalcedon

tHE central authority of the Universal Church is the impregnable foundation
of social justice because it is the infallible organ of religious truth. Pope
Leo had a twofold task to accomplish: he had not only to re-establish in the
Christian East the moral order which had been subverted by the misdeeds of the
patriarch of Alexandria, but also to confirm his Eastern brethren in the true faith
which was threatened by the heresy of Monophysitism. The distinctive truth of
Christianity, the truth of the God-Man, was at stake. The Monophysites, in
asserting that the humanity of Jesus Christ was entirely absorbed by His divinity
and that, therefore, after the incarnation He was God alone, were reverting,
unconsciously, no doubt, to the inhuman God of Eastern paganism, the God Who
devours all that He has created and is nothing but an abyss unfathomable to the
human spirit. Their assertion was ultimately a disguised denial of any permanent
revelation or incarnation, but it took shelter behind the great theological reputation
of St. Cyril, who, in vindicating against Nestorius the unity of the person of Jesus
Christ, had let fall from his pen an inaccurate phrase: Μία φύσις του Θεου Λογου
σεσαρκωμένη (one incarnate nature of God the Word). And just because the denial
of the faith was so disguised, it was necessary to find a new formula to express in
clear and precise terms the truth of the Divine Humanity. The whole orthodox
world was awaiting such a formula from the successor of St. Peter. Pope Leo
himself was profoundly aware of the importance of the question. "Jesus Christ, the
Savior of mankind," he says, "in founding the faith which recalls the wicked to
righteousness and the dead to life, instilled into the minds of His disciples the
exhortations of His teaching and the marvels of His works, that the one Christ
might be acknowledged both as the Only-begotten of God and as the Son of Man.
For one belief without the other was of no avail to salvation, and it was equally
perilous to believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be God alone and not Man, or to be
Man alone and not God" — since the former belief places Him out of reach of our
infirmity and the latter makes Him unable to effect our salvation — "but both were
to be confessed, for just as true humanity existed in the Godhead, so true Divinity
existed in the manhood. In order, therefore, to confirm them in their most
wholesome (saluberrimam) knowledge of this faith, the Lord had questioned His
disciples: and the Apostle Peter, surpassing the things of the body and transcending
human knowledge by the revelation of the Spirit of the Father, beheld with the eyes
of his mind the Son of the living God and acknowledged the glory of the Godhead
because he did not look merely at the substance of flesh and blood. And Christ so
approved the sublime faith of Peter that He pronounced him blessed and endowed
him with the sacred stability of the inviolable Rock on which the Church should be
built to prevail against the gates of Hell and the jaws of death; so that in the
decision of all causes nothing shall be ratified in Heaven but that which has been
established by the judgment of Peter." (55)

Claiming, as he does, that the primary function of the authority of the Church —
that of asserting and defining Christian truth — belongs for all time to the Chair of
St. Peter, which he occupies, Leo considers it his duty to combat the new heresy by
expounding anew the confession of the Apostle. In penning his famous dogmatic
epistle to Flavian, he regards himself as the inspired interpreter of the prince of the
Apostles; and the whole orthodox East regarded him in the same light. In the
Leimonarion (56) of St. Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem in the seventh century, we
find the following legend: When St. Leo had written his epistle to St. Flavian, the
bishop of Constantinople, against the impious Eutyches and Nestorius, he placed it
upon the tomb of the chief Apostle Peter and with prayers, vigils and fasts he
entreated the sovereign Apostle in these words: "If, in the frailty of human nature, I
have been guilty of error, do thou, to whom Jesus Christ our Savior, Lord and God
has entrusted this throne and the whole Church, supply every defect in what I have
written and remove all that is superfluous." After forty days had elapsed, the
Apostle appeared to him while he was praying and said: "I have read and corrected
it." And, taking up his epistle from the tomb of blessed Peter, Leo opened it and
found it corrected by the Apostle's hand. (57)

This epistle, truly worthy of such a reviser, defined with wonderful clearness
and vigor the truth of the two natures in the one person of Christ and thenceforth
left no place in the Church for the two opposite errors of Nestorius and Eutyches.
The fact that St. Leo's epistle was not read at the robber council of Ephesus was
the main reason urged for the quashing of the decrees of the pseudo-council.
Though Dioscorus had succeeded in coercing the entire gathering of Eastern
bishops into condemning St. Flavian and putting their names to a heretical
document, he encountered unexpected opposition when he ventured on open
rebellion against the Pope. For the latter, on receiving from his legates news of
what had passed at Ephesus, at once convened a council of Latin bishops at Rome,
and with their unanimous approval condemned and deposed Dioscorus. The
"Pharaoh," who had returned to Alexandria in triumph, attempted to outwit the
Pope; he was soon to realize that it was no mere empty self-aggrandizement with
which he was confronted, but a living spiritual authority which claimed the
allegiance of the Christian conscience throughout the world. The pride and
effrontery of the usurping bishop were shattered upon the true Rock of the Church;
employing all his customary methods of violence, he succeeded in compelling only
ten Egyptian bishops to lend their names to the condemnation of Pope Leo. (58) Even
in the East this futile insult was universally regarded as an act of insanity, and it
proved the final undoing of the Egyptian "Pharaoh."

The Emperor Theodosius II, the champion of the two opposite heresies and the
patron of both Nestorius and Dioscorus, had just died, and with the accession of
Pulcheria and her nominal consort, Marcian, there began a short phase during
which the imperial government, apparently from religious conviction, ranged itself
decisively upon the side of truth. In the East this alone was enough to restore
courage to the orthodox bishops and to enlist on the side of the true faith which the
new Emperor professed all those who had only sided with heresy to please his
predecessor. But the orthodox Emperor himself had little confidence in these pliant
prelates. For him, supreme authority in matters of faith belonged to the Pope. "In
all that concerns the Catholic religion and the faith of Christians," we read in a
letter of his to St. Leo, "we have thought it right to approach, in the first place,
your Holiness, who is the overseer and guardian of the divine faith (την τε σην
άγιωσύνην επισκοπεύουσαν και αρχουσαν τες θείας πίστεως) (59) According to the
Emperor's view, it is by the Pope's authority (σου αυθεντουντος) that the
forthcoming council must banish all impiety and error from the Church and
establish perfect peace among all the bishops of the Catholic faith. (60) And in another
letter, which follows close upon the first, the Emperor asserts again that the duty of
the council will be to acknowledge and expound for the East what the Pope has
decreed at Rome. (61)The Empress Pulcheria uses the same language in her assurance
to the Pope that the council "will define the Catholic belief by your authority (σου
αυθεντουντος), as Christian faith and piety require." (62)

When the oecumenical council had assembled at Chalcedon in 451 under the
presidency of the Roman legates, the bishop Paschasinus, who was the principal
legate, rose and said: "We bear instructions from the blessed and apostolic bishop
of the city of Rome, who is the head of all the Churches, forbidding us to admit
Dioscorus to the deliberations of the council." (63) And the second legate, Lucentius,
explained that Dioscorus was already condemned for having usurped judicial
powers and having assembled a council without the consent of the Apostolic See, a
thing which had never happened before and was forbidden (όπερ ουδέποτε γέγονεν
ουδε εξον γενέσθαι). (64) After considerable discussion, the Emperor's representatives
announced that Dioscorus would not sit as a member of the council, but would
appear as an accused man, since he had incurred accusation on fresh counts
subsequently to his condemnation by the Pope. (65) Judgment upon him was withheld
until after the reading of the Pope's dogmatic epistle, which was hailed by the
orthodox bishops with shouts of: "Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo!" (66) In the
following session, several clergy of the Church of Alexandria presented a petition
addressed "to the most holy Leo, beloved of God, universal archbishop and
patriarch of great Rome, and to the holy oecumenica1 council at Chalcedon." It was
a bill of accusation against Dioscorus who, the complainants alleged, after ratifying
heresy in a council of brigands and murdering St. Flavian, "attempted a still greater
wickedness," the excommunication of the most holy and sacred Apostolic See of
great Rome. (67) The council did not think itself competent to pass fresh judgment on
a bishop whom the Pope had already judged, and it was proposed that the Roman
legates should pronounce judgment on Dioscorus. (68) Accordingly they did so, having
first enumerated all the crimes of the patriarch of Alexandria in these terms: "The
most holy and blessed archbishop of great and old Rome, Leo, through us and the
holy council here present, and together with the thrice blessed and most glorious
Apostle Peter, who is the Rock and base of the Catholic Church and the foundation
of the orthodox faith, has deprived the said Dioscorus of episcopal status and
expelled him entirely from his priestly office." (69)

The solemn recognition of the Pope's supreme authority at the council of
Chalcedon was sealed by the letter of the Eastern bishops to Leo, in which they
impute to him the merit of all that had been done at the council. "It is you," they
wrote, "who through your legates have guided and ruled (ήγεμόνευες) the whole
gathering of the Fathers, as the head rules the members (ώς κεφαλη μελων), by
showing them the true meaning of the dogma." (70) It is clear that to reject the
supremacy and doctrinal authority of the Roman See as usurped and false involves
not merely a charge of usurpation and heresy against a man of the character of St.

Leo the Great; it means accusing the oecumenical council of Chalcedon of heresy
and with it the whole Orthodox Church of the fifth century. This is the conclusion
that emerges unmistakably from the authentic evidence which the reader has had
set before him.

THE END

NOTES TO SECOND PART

1 Thus the text in question is mutilated even in the Orthodox Catechism of Mgr. Philaret of Moscow.

2 Formula of Pope St. Leo the Great and of the Council of Chalcedon.

3 Mansi, Concil. xi. 658.

4 "Even without the consent of the Church," the formula of the last Council, that of the Vatican.

5 And, among non-Orthodox, all writers who are in good faith; for instance, the eminent Jewish thinker Joseph Salvador in his book Jesus-Christ et son oeuvre.

6This conclusion is wholeheartedly accepted by the notable Jewish writer already referred to. He sees in the primacy of Peter the keystone of the edifice of the Church as designed and founded by Christ Himself.

7 I am not speaking of surnames or of casual, incidental epithets such as that of Boanerges, given to John and James.

8 The fact of dwelling in the same country or speaking a common language is not sufficient in itself to produce the unity of the fatherland; that is impossible without patriotism, that is to say, without a specific love.

9 The same sincerity is not usually found in Protestant writers. The best among them, however, admit the fact of the primacy though they make fruitless attempts to interpret it according to their liking. Take, for instance, the words of M. de Pressensé (Histoire des trois premiers siècles du Christianisme, 1st ed., vol. i. pp. 358-360): "Throughout these early years the Apostle Peter exercised a predominant influence; the part which he played at this date has been adduced as a proof of his primacy. But on closer examination of the evidence it is clear that all he did was to develop his own natural gifts (!) purified and enhanced by the Spirit of God." "Moreover St. Luke's record lends no
color to any notion of a hierarchy. Everything in St. Peter's behavior is natural and spontaneous. He is not official president of any kind of apostolic college." (M. de Pressensé is obviously confusing the accident of a more or less pronounced official status with the substance of primacy.) "He only acts on the advice of his brethren" — according to Protestant ideas, it seems, advice excludes authority — "whether in the choice of a new Apostle or at Pentecost, before the people or before the Sanhedrin. Peter had been the most humiliated of all the first Christians, hence the reason that he was promoted the most rapidly." With this kind of facetiousness, Protestantism seeks to evade explicit texts of Holy Scripture after declaring Scripture to be the one and only source of religious truth.

10 Vie de Jésus (tr. Littré, Paris 1839), vol. i. part 2, p. 584; cf. p. 378.

11 1 Sermons and Addresses of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow (1873 etc.), vol. ii. p. 214.

12 ibid.

13 The Greco-Russian Church, as is well known, specially attributes this title to three ancient Fathers: St. Basil of Cæsarea, surnamed the Great, St. Gregory Nazianzen, surnamed the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom. They have a feast in common on January 30 in our calendar.

14 Works ix. 27, 30-31.

15 Those of our Orthodox readers who find neither the authority of saintly Fathers such as John Chrysostom nor that of Russian theologians such as Mgr. Philaret sufficient to convince them of Peter's unique place in New Testament history will perhaps be amenable to what may be called statistical proof. Since it occurred to me that none of Jesus' intimate disciples had so considerable a claim to a prominent place as St. John, the beloved Apostle, I counted up the number of times that John and Peter are mentioned respectively in the Gospels and Acts, and found the proportion to
be about 1 to 4. St. Peter is mentioned by name 171 times (114 in the Gospels and 57 in the Acts), St. John only 46 times (38 times in the Gospels, including the instances where he refers to himself indirectly, and 8 times in the Acts).

16 1 B. Aubé, Les chrétiens dans l'Empire Romain, de la fin des Antonins au milieu du troisième siècle, p. 69.

17 ibid., p. 146.

18 Works (ed. Migne, Paris 1846 etc.), i. 145-7.

19 ibid., 149.

20 ibid., 151-2; cf. 429-32.

21 ibid., 155-156.

22 ibid., 153.

23 ibid., 423.

24 ibid., 424.

25 The designation given him in the Constitution of the Emperor Valentinian III; v. Works i. 637.

26 ibid., 664.

27 ibid., 646.

28 ibid., 695-6.

29 ibid., 733.

31 1 ibid., 783.

32 ibid., 918: Letter to the Emperor Marcian.

33 ibid., 927.

34 ibid., 930.

35 ibid., 932.

36 ibid., 937-9.

37 ibid., 987.

38 1 ibid., 995.

39 ibid., 1000.

40 ibid., 1027 sqq.

41 ibid., 1048.

42 1 ibid., 1046-7.

43 ibid., 1053.

44 ibid., 1147.

45 1 ibid., 668.

46 ibid., 676.

47 ibid., 646.

48 1 Mansi, Concil., vols. v., vi. and vii.

49 Mansi, Concil., V. 1349.

50 1 ibid., 1356.

51 ibid., vi. 36, 37.

52 ibid., 40.

53 A curious fact and one which strikingly confirms our theory of the partiality of the Byzantine Emperors for heresy as such is that the same Emperor Theodosius II, who had favored the Nestorian heresy and had seen it condemned by the Church in spite of his efforts, became subsequently the enthusiastic supporter of Eutyches and Dioscorus who held the view diametrically opposite to that of Nestorius, though no less heretical.

54 Mansi, vi. 908.

55 Works (ed. Migne), i. 309.

56 A kind of chrestomathy composed of edifying stories.

57 v. the life of St. Leo the Pope in the Russian Martyrology.

58 1 Mansi, vi. 510.

59 ibid., 93.

60 loc. cit.

61 ibid., 100.

62 ibid., 101.

63 1 ibid., 580-1.

64 ibid., 645.

65 loc. cit.

66 ibid., 972.

67 ibid., 1005-9.

68 ibid., 1045.

69 ibid., 1048.

70 ibid., 148.

Electronic Format and Graphics Copyright © by The Kolbe Foundation August 14, 1999
Represented by The Ewing Law Center and Guardian Angel Legal Services