The Myth of Moderate Islam

The following video, produced by Islam Net Video, explodes the myth of "moderate" Islam.

This is not anti-Muslim, Islamophobic propaganda. This is a calm and rational demonstration of a simple fact by Muslims themselves: there is no such thing as "moderate" Islam. 

Kicking out a few "fundamentalist" preachers, as was recently done in Australia to Farrokh Sekaleshfar, the senior Shiite Muslim cleric who preached in Orlando that homosexuals should be murdered, isn't going to accomplish anything. Preachers like Farrokh Sekaleshfar are not the problem. The problem is the people who invited him to speak in Orlando, i.e. observant Muslims.

Islam is at war with western civilisation.

Islam is at war with Christ.

Islam is at war with you.

The Question of the Eucharist and the Apologetic Writings of St. Justin

Reading N°52 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

St. Justin Martyr

Nearly all scholarly men of the time of Marcus Aurelius were enamored of philosophy. A few apologists there were who thought they could venture to present Christianity as a "new philosophy." But what connection was there between this and the old philosophies? In what was it separated from them? What were its constituent elements and its tenets? Could a synthesis of it be presented that would be understood by a follower of the Greek philosophers? Justin the Philosopher made it his duty to undertake the formidable task of replying to these questions.

Justin was a layman, but he had delved into the teachings of the Church. He even opened a sort of theological school at Rome. His noble attempt at a synthesis is not without inexactitudes and even errors, but this first essay of religious philosophy exercised an immense influence over the minds of his and of the next century.

The publication of Justin's first apology is generally placed at about the year AD 150. The second made its appearance a few years later, about AD 155, and the Dialogue with Trypho some few years after that, about AD 160.

If we separate the philosophic doctrine from what is purely discussion, arguments ad hominem and claims for actual rights, it can be reduced to this: Christianity is the true religion because it is the universal and absolute religion. Although the Word is fully manifested in Christ, yet the ancient world, everywhere and in all ages, possessed the seed of it. The great day of the Incarnation was preceded by a vast and brightening dawn.

As a basis for his contention, Justin takes two sacred sayings. One is from St. Paul:

When the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law, these having not the law are a law to themselves [...] their conscience bearing witness to them. (Romans 2:14f)

The other is from St. John:

[The Word is] the true light, which enlighteneth every man. (John 1:9)

He says: "All men are partakers of the Divine Word; its seed is implanted in their soul."^[1] "This germinal understanding comes from the Word; by virtue of it the wise men of old were, from time to time, able to teach beautiful truths. [...] For, whatever good the philosophers and lawmakers said, they owed to a partial view or knowledge of the Word. [...] Socrates, for instance, knew Christ in a certain way, because the Word penetrates everything with His influence. [...] Therefore, too, Plato's doctrines are not altogether contrary to those of Christ, although not absolutely like them, as may also be said of the teachings of the Stoics, the poets, and the historians. [...] So we may say that whatever good the ancients had belongs to us, to us Christians. [...] Besides, all who have lived according to the Word are Christians, even though they have been regarded as atheists: such were Socrates and Heraclitus among the Greeks, and, among others, Abraham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, and Elias, besides many more. [...] As they knew the Word only in part, they did not have that lofty knowledge, free from all blame, which is our portion. Therefore was the Word made man. [...] It is one thing to possess only a seed of the Word; quite another thing is it to possess the Word Himself, who is communicated to us by His grace."^[2]

Freppel, after summing up St. Justin's theory of the Word, says: "Such is that enlightening and fruitful doctrine which at the school of Alexandria will presently open those great vistas into which Clement and Origen will rush with daring and not without some danger. It is a whole programme of Christian philosophy, embracing the theory of human knowledge, the intellectual constitution of the ancient world, and its relations with Christianity."^[3]

Justin considers humanity as a great unit, with its different parts brought together by Christ, who is the center and the soul of it all. Yet he does not hold that natural reason is sufficient for the possession of saving grace, or that it is absolutely sufficient even when aided by interior grace, to the exclusion of any external revelation. No one more forcibly shows the eminent part of external revelation in the genesis of faith than Justin. He even admits a direct influence of the books of Moses upon the teaching of the Greek philosophers and seems to attribute to revealed faith alone whatever truth Hellenic wisdom possessed. In short, his expressions have not all the exactness we might wish. If some of them may be interpreted in the sense of an unorthodox "subjectivism," others seem, on the contrary, to be inspired by a suspect "extrinsicism." In an admirably majestic attempt, Justin wished to include all the objective and subjective elements of a belief to which he clung with loyal submission, without surrendering any of the rights of his philosophic reason. But at times, this proved an impossible task for him, or at least, in the exposition of the Catholic faith he did not find those precise expressions which the Church, aided by the Holy Ghost, was to employ later.

Some defects of expression and of thought, still more striking and no less explicable, are to be noted in Justin's writings when he speaks of the Trinity, the angels, and the end of the world. He clearly teaches the existence of one only God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Neophytes, he says, are baptised in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of Our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit.

In all the offerings that we make, we bless the Creator of the universe through his Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy Ghost.^[4]

In these words, Justin merely purposes expressing and professing the faith of the Church, and he is quite orthodox. But when he attempts a philosophical explanation, he, like Hermas, expresses himself in terms which the later decisions of the Church would no longer allow to be used. Between the Father and the Son, he seems to admit a certain subordination, hard to understand, in the perfect unity of will and divine essence. He supposes the angels have an airy body; and he says:

Although many true Christians think otherwise [...] I am assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead that will last a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be rebuilt.^[5]

In other words, he professes Millenarianism as a private opinion.

When Justin speaks as a philosopher, his assertions can be accepted only with reservation. But they should be accepted with the greatest veneration when he speaks as a witness of the faith of the Church. In this capacity, his testimony on the sacrifice of the Eucharist is one of the most precious bequeathed to us by Christian antiquity.

Until his time, the "Discipline of the Secret," as it was later called, did not permit this holiest of mysteries to be divulged. But Justin, considering it necessary to have the pagans see Christianity with its whole economy of doctrines, ceremonies, and moral practices, could not conceal the fact that the Eucharist was the center of all these. Moreover, the people and even the philosophers had too long believed, or pretended to believe, that the Christians' secret was a cloak for some shameful practices. Justin considered that the time had come to disclose everything.

The following are the two famous passages in which the Christian philosopher for the first time reveals to the whole public the sacred ceremonies of the Eucharistic sacrifice:

Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss of peace. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water. And he, taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being accounted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying "Amen". This word "Amen" answers in the Hebrew language to γένοιτό [so be it]. And when the president has made the eucharist, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us "deacons" give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion. And this food is called among us Eucharistia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called "Gospels", have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread and, when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;" and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood." And He gave it to them alone.

This is the apologist's first description of the Mass. But, as though he feared not to have sufficiently described this supreme act of religion, he returns to the subject a few lines further on:

On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the Prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings with all the earnestness of his soul, and the people assent, saying "Amen". And there is a distribution of the consecrated Eucharist to each, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well-to-do and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.^[6]

"In this account," says Freppel, "it is easy to recognize the sacrifice of the Mass in all its essential or integral parts: the offertory, the consecration, and the communion. A single officiant with deacons, the reading of a portion of the Old or New Testament, an exhortation to the people based on the passage read, the offering of bread and wine (with water added) as the matter for use in the sacrifice, thanksgiving offered to God by the presiding officer, and hymns of praise in which the whole assembly joins, a lengthy prayer by the celebrant alone, during which he consecrates the offerings by the Savior's own words, the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, again prayers of thanksgiving interrupted by the people's acclaim, expressing by a word their participation in the act performed by the celebrant, the kiss of peace (a public sign of Christian brotherhood), communion distributed to those present and brought by the deacons to the sick and others who are absent, a collection for the benefit of the poor: this whole picture of the Christian liturgy in the middle of the second century is evidently that of the sacrifice of the Mass as it is celebrated today all over the world. St. Justin's description corresponds point by point with the great central act of Catholic worship. It would be difficult to imagine a more impressive condemnation of Protestantism than this testimony by one of the earliest apologists of the Christian religion."^[7]

We know that Justin's courageous plea did not stop the course of the persecution and did not prevent his own martyrdom. But his work was nonetheless fruitful. Certain calumnies could no longer be repeated against the Christians except by people who were in bad faith. It was thenceforth established that Christian thought could fearlessly enter the domain of philosophy and count for something there.

Footnotes

[1] Second Apology, 8.

[2] First Apology, 46; Second Apology, 8, 16, 13, 14.

[3] Freppel, Les Apologistes chrétiens du IIe siècle, p. 328.

[4] First Apology, 61; cf. Dialogue, 56, 60, 126, 127; First Apology, 13.

[5] Dialogue, 80.

[6] First Apology, 65-67.

[7] Freppel, op. cit., p. 304.

***

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Mendacity

Forty-Seventh in a Series on Catholic Morality

 by
 Fr. John H. Stapleton

To lie is to utter an untruth, with full knowledge that it is an untruth. The untruth may be expressed by any conventional sign, by word, deed, gesture, or even by silence. Its malice and disorder consists in the opposition that exists between our idea and the expression we give to it; our words convey a meaning contrary to what is in our mind; we say one thing and mean another. If we unwittingly utter what is contrary to fact, that is error; if we so clumsily translate our thoughts as to give a false impression of what we mean, and we do the best we can, that is a blunder; if in a moment of listlessness and inattention we speak in a manner that conflicts with our state of mind, that is temporary mental aberration. But if we knowingly give out as truth what we know is not the truth, we lie purely and simply.

In misrepresentations of this kind it is not required that there be a plainly formulated purpose of deceiving another; an implicit intention, a disposition to allow our words to run their natural course, is sufficient to give such utterances a character of mendacity. For, independently of our mental attitude, it is in the nature of a lie to deceive; an intention, or rather a pretense to the contrary, does not affect that nature. The fact of lying presupposes that we intend in some manner to practice deception; if we did not have such a purpose, we would not resort to lying. If you stick a knife into a man, you may pretend what you like, but you certainly intended to hurt him and make him feel badly.

Nor has any ulterior motive we may have in telling an untruth the power to change its nature; a lie is a lie, no matter what prompted it. Whether it serves the purpose of amusement, as a jocose lie; or helps to gain us an advantage or get us out of trouble, as an officious lie; or injures another in any way, as a pernicious lie: mendacity is the character of our utterances, the guilt of willful falsehood is on our soul. A restriction should, however, be made in favor of the jocose lie; it ceases to be a lie when the mind of the speaker is open to all who listen and his narration or statement may be likened to those fables and myths and fairy tales in which is exemplified the charm of figurative language. When a person says what is false and is convinced that all who hear him know it is false, the contradiction between his mind and its expression is said to be material, and not formal; and in this the essence of a lie does not consist.

A lie is always a sin; it is what is called an intrinsic evil and is therefore always wrong. And why is this? Because speech was given us to express our thoughts; to use this faculty therefore for a contrary purpose is against its nature, against a law of our being, and this is evil. The obnoxious consequences of falsehood, as it is patent to all, constitute an evil for which falsehood is responsible. But deception, one of those consequences, is not in itself and essentially, a moral fault. Deception, if not practiced by lying and therefore not intended but simply suffered to occur, and if there be grave reason for resorting to this means of defense, cannot be put down as a thing offensive to God or unjustly prejudicial to the neighbor. But when deception is the effect of mendacity, it assumes a character of malice that deserves the reprobation of man as it is condemned by God. And this is another reason why lying is essentially an evil thing, and can never, under any circumstances, be allowed or justified.

This does not mean that lying is always a mortal sin. In fact, it is more often venial than mortal. It becomes a serious fault only in the event of another malice being added to it. Thus, if I lie to one who has a right to know the truth and for grave reasons; if the mendacious information I impart is of a nature to mislead one into injury or loss, and this thing I do maliciously; or if my lying is directly disparaging to another; in these cases there is grave malice and serious guilt. But if there is no injustice resulting from a lie, I prevaricate against right in lying, but my sin is not a serious offense.

This is a vice that certainly deserves to be fought against and punished always and in all places, especially in the young who are so prone thereto, first because it is a sin; and again, because of the social evils that it gives rise to. There is no gainsaying the fact that in the code of purely human morals, lying is considered a very heinous offense that ostracizes a man when robbery on a large scale, adultery and other first-degree misdemeanors leave him perfectly honorable. This recalls an instance of a recent courtroom. A young miscreant thoroughly imbued with pharisaic morals met with a bold face, without a blush or a flinch, accusations of misconduct, robbery and murder; but when charged with being a liar, he sprang at his accuser in open court and tried to throttle him. His fine indignation got the best of him; he could not stand that.

Among pious-minded people two extreme errors are not infrequently met with. The one is that a lie is not wrong unless the neighbor suffers thereby; the falsity of this we have already shown. According to the other, a lie is such an evil that it should not be tolerated, not one lie, even if all the souls in hell were thereby to be liberated. To this we answer that we would like to get such a chance once; we fear we would tell a whopper. It would be wicked, of course; but we might expect leniency from the just Judge under the circumstances.

On Councils and General Councils

First in a Series on the History of the General Councils

 by

 Msgr. Philip Hughes

The Apostles meet for the proto-council of Jerusalem (ca. AD 48)

It is hardly possible to write the history of the twenty General Councils as though they were sections hewn from the one same log. They are not a unity in the sense in which successive sessions of Congress are a unity.  Each of the twenty councils is an individual reality, each has its own  special personality. This is partly due to the fact that each had its origin in a particular crisis of Church affairs, partly to the fact that they are strung out over fifteen hundred years of history, and that, for  example, the human beings who constitute the council can be as remote from  each other as the victims of the persecution of Diocletian in the fourth century from the victims of Bismarck in the nineteenth. It is not through any mechanical, material similarity of action, then, that the history of  such an institution, and its significance, can be understood. Where the  total action is spread over such vast spaces of time, and is discontinuous, whoever attempts to relate the whole of the action is faced with problems of a very special kind. And this specialty is, of course, bound up with  the fact that the body which threw up this device called the General  Council - the Church of Christ - is itself unique in this, viz., its  possession of a recorded, continuous activity of nearly two thousand years.

Some, perhaps superficial, consideration of this vast timetable, 325-1870, may be helpful at the outset, even to the reader who is not, by nature, chronologically minded. Reading the list of the General Councils, we can see immediately two obvious groupings: the first eight were all held in eastern Europe or in Asia Minor; all the rest in western Europe, in Italy, France, and Germany. The eastern councils were Greek-speaking, the others Latin. General Councils are frequent in some ages, and in others the centuries go by without a single one. Thus, for the seventy years 381-451 there are three General Councils, then one every hundred years down to 869. For 254 years there is now not a single General Council; then, in 190 years there are seven (1123-1311). Another century goes by without a council, and in the next hundred years (1414-1512) three are summoned. The Council of Trent is called less than thirty years after the last of these three, and then 306 years go by before the twentieth council meets in 1869 ninety-two years ago nearly.

Locations of the General Councils (click to enlarge)

Each of these councils has a history and a character all its own. The history of the next council - how matters will go once the bishops meet - can never be foretold from the history of the last. The powers and the authority of the new council are, it is recognised, the same as its predecessors possessed. The procedure may, and will, vary. One thing is never constant: the human reaction of the council's component parts.

The first General Council met in 325. The Church had then been an established fact for nearly three hundred years. How did councils begin - i.e., meetings of bishops to discuss matters of common interest? When and where did the first church councils take place? And what about the beginnings of the prestige of these councils - that is, of the idea that what bishops collectively agree is law with a binding force that is greater than any of their individual instructions to their own see?

To begin with the last point, it is a safe statement that, from the moment when history first shows us the Church of Christ as an institution, the exclusive right of the Church to state with finality what should be believed as Christ's teaching is manifestly taken for granted. To bring out a theory of belief or to propose a change in morals which conflicts with what the Church universally holds is, from the very beginning, to put oneself fatally in the wrong. The immediate, spontaneous reaction of the Church to condemn thinkers with new and original views of this kind is perhaps the most general, as it is the most striking, of all the phenomena of the Church's early history, so far back as the record goes.^[1]

When it was that bishops first formed the habit of coming together in council, we do not know. It is such an obvious act on the part of officials with like problems and responsibilities and authority, that to do this was surely second nature. What we do know is that, as early as the second century (100-200 A.D.), it was the custom for the bishops who came together for a bishop's funeral to take charge of the election of his successor. Here is one likely source, it is suggested, from which came the council of bishops as a recurring feature of ordinary Christian life.

About the year 190, a furious controversy as to the date at which the feast of Easter should be kept shook the whole Church, and the pope, St. Victor I, sent orders to the places most troubled that the bishops should meet and report to him their findings. And a series of councils were then held, in Palestine, in Asia Minor, and in Gaul. Sixty years later when, with the great career of St. Cyprian, the mists clear away from Roman Africa, we perceive that the bishops' council is already a long-established practice there. The bishops of Africa meet in council, indeed, twice every year. What they decreed on these occasions was law for the whole of Christian Africa. These councils were well attended; in 220 there were seventy-one bishops present, and at another council, ninety. At St. Cyprian's council of Carthage in 256, there were eighty-seven. There was a similar, systematic conciliar action in Egypt and in Syria and Palestine.

In the early years of the next century, we have records of councils in Spain (Elvira, 300) and in France (Arles, 314) with the names of bishops present and a list of the laws they enacted. The Catholic Church may, indeed, be a Church made up of churches (i.e., dioceses) but never, so this history seems to show, of dioceses where each bishop acts without any reference to the rest.

When the emperor Constantine publicly became a follower of Christ (312) he was immediately faced with the grave African problem known to history as the Donatist Schism. Necessarily, and in a very brief space of time, he was familiarised with the function of the council of the bishops as an instrument of church government. It was natural, inevitable indeed, that when a few years later the Arian crisis arose, all concerned, the emperor and the bishops, should think of a great council as the first move in the restoration of order. The novel feature in 325 was that not only the bishops of the locality affected were convoked, but the bishops of the whole Catholic world.^[2] This was to be not a regional or provincial council, but a council for the church in general - a General Council.

The universal belief that the Church of Christ, in its day-to-day business of teaching the doctrine of Christ, is divinely preserved from teaching erroneously entailed the consequence that (to use a modern terminology) the General Council is considered infallible in its decisions about belief. If the official teachers as a body are infallible as they teach, scattered about the world in their hundreds of sees, they do not lose the promised, divine, preserving guidance once they have come together in a General Council. And once General Councils have taken place, we begin to meet explicit statements of this truth. The councils themselves are explicitly conscious of it when, making their statement of the truth denied by the innovator, they bluntly say of those who will not accept their decision: Let him be anathema. St. Athanasius, who as a young cleric was present at Nicaea, can refer to its decree about Arianism as something final, the last all-decisive word:

The word of the Lord, put forth by the Ecumenical Council at Nicaea is an eternal word, enduring for ever.^[3]

Eighty years or so later than this, the pope, St. Leo I, warning the bishops assembled at the General Council of Chalcedon to leave untouched the decisions of Nicaea about the rank of the great sees of the East, speaks of Nicaea as "having fixed these arrangements by decrees that are inviolable," and says:

These arrangements were made by the bishops at Nicaea under divine inspiration.^[4]

This was in the year 451. His successor, St. Gregory the Great, writing about 594 to the patriarch of Constantinople, has a reference to the special prestige of the first, doctrine-defining General Councils which equates their work with that of Holy Scripture: "I profess that as I receive and venerate the four books of the Gospels, so I do the four councils," which he proceeds to list: Nicaea in 325, Constantinople in 381, Ephesus 431, Chalcedon 451. These, he says, "are the four squared stone on which the structure of the holy faith arises."^[5]

Nowhere in these early centuries, in fact, do we find any member of the Church questioning the truth as the General Councils have defined it. What they teach as the truth is taken to be as true as though it were a statement of Scripture itself. The question was never raised, seemingly, that the greater or smaller number of bishops who in response to the summons attended in any way affected the peculiar authority of the General Council; nor the fact that all of these bishops were from the Greek-speaking East.

How these fundamental, primitive notions developed, how all that they seminally contained matured and expanded through the centuries, this is the very subject-matter of the essays that follow. And here will be found, in its due place, some account of the controversies that later arose as to the relation (the constitutional relation, so to speak) of the General Council to its president, the pope. What the role of the pope has been in the General Council is, necessarily, a main topic of all these essays. But it may be useful to say a word about this here, and something also about the nature of the bishops' role.

The General Council is, then, a purely human arrangement whereby a divinely founded institution functions in a particular way for a particular purpose. That divinely founded thing is the teaching Church, i.e., the pope and the diocesan bishops of the Church of Christ. The teaching is an activity of the Church that is continuous, never ceasing. The General Council of the teaching Church, in all the sessions of the occasions on which it has met, in the nineteen hundred years and more of the Church's history, has sat for perhaps thirty years in all, at most. It is an exceptional phenomenon in the life of the Church, and usually it appears in connection with some great crisis of that life.

Ever since the popes were first articulate about the General Council, they have claimed the right to control its action and to take their place in it (whether personally or by legates sent in their name) or by their subsequent acceptance of the council, to give or withhold an approbation of its decisions, which stamps them as the authentic teaching of the Church of Christ. Only through their summoning it, or through their consenting to take their place at it, does the assembly of bishops become a General Council. No member of the Church has ever proposed that a General Council shall be summoned and the pope be left out, nor that the pope should take any other position at the General Council but as its president. The history of the twenty General Councils shows that the bishops - a section of them - not infrequently fought at the council the policies of the popes who had summoned the council, and fought even bitterly. But in no council has it been moved that the bishop of X be promoted to the place of the Bishop of Rome, or that the Bishop of Rome's views be disregarded, and held of no more account than those of the bishop of any other major see. There are, indeed, gaps in our knowledge of the detail of all these events; the mist of antiquity at times, no doubt, obscures our view, but through the mist at its worst the general shape is ever discernible of a Roman Primacy universally recognised, and submitted to, albeit (at times) unwillingly - recognised and submitted to because, so the bishops believed, it was set up by God Himself.

To the General Councils of the Church there have been summoned, in the last 850 years, as well as the bishops, other ecclesiastics of importance, the General Superiors of religious orders, for example, and abbots of particular monasteries. But these are present by concession. The essential elements of the General Council are, in addition to the pope, the bishops ruling their sees. And the bishops are present as the accredited witnesses of what is believed throughout the Church. This is the traditional, standard conception of their role on these occasions. And for typical modern statements, contained in well-known textbooks used throughout the Church today in hundreds of theological classrooms, this from Fr. Christian Pesch, S.J.,^[6] may be quoted:

The bishops do not come together in order to think up something new out of their own minds, but in order to be witnesses of the teaching received from Christ and handed out by the Church.

And this, too, from Fr. Dominic Prummer, O.P.:

The bishops gathered in a General Council are not mere counselors of the pope, but real legislators; which is why each bishop signs the acta of the council as follows: 'I, James, bishop of X, defining have subscribed my name.'^[7]

As to the role of the General Council vis-a-vis any controversy about the Christian Faith in connection with which it may have been summoned, this has never been more luminously stated, in a single sentence, than by John Henry Newman, with reference, indeed, to the first council of the great series, but, as history alone would show, a statement true of them all.

It must be borne in mind that the great Council at Nicaea was summoned, not to decide for the first time what was to be held concerning our Lord's divine nature, but, as far as inquiry came into its work, to determine the fact whether Arius did or did not contradict the Church's teaching, and, if he did, by what sufficient tessera^[8] he and his party could be excluded from the communion of the faithful.^[9]

And Newman's own great hero, St. Athanasius, writing only thirty-four years after Nicaea, has a similar thought when he draws attention to the different way the Council of Nicaea spoke when it was making laws about ecclesiastical discipline and when it was facing the problem of Arius.

The fathers at Nicaea, speaking of the Easter feast, say "We have decided as follows." But about the faith they do not say "We have decided," but "This is what the Catholic Church believes." And immediately they proclaim how they believe, in order to declare, not some novelty, but that their belief is apostolic, and that what they write down is not something they have discovered, but those very things which the Apostles taught.^[10]

This series of essays has no claim on the reader's notice beyond its purpose to say how each of these councils came to be, and what each achieved. Many questions about General Councils as such, and about particular General Councils, are inevitably not even alluded to. I have no ambition to write a survey course in which everything is mentioned and nothing taught. Nevertheless, there are some serious matters that cannot be omitted, and yet can only be dealt with summarily - the new theories which became heresies, for example, and the orthodox statements of the truth which the theories perverted. In summary accounts of such things, the impression is easily conveyed that these disputes are a mere war of words. Actually, what any study of the voluminous writings on both sides reveals is that the conflicting minds are of the first order, that the points at issue are the fundamentals of revealed truth, and (a very important circumstance that often has escaped the historian's notice) that the contestants are passionately in earnest, not as rivals in scholarship or philosophy, but as pastoral-minded bishops, anxious about the salvation of men's souls. A master mind, reviewing a situation we shall shortly be studying, affords an illustration of this.

Cyril, it may be, was overharsh in the words he used, words used without enough reflexion. Deep within him his passionate attachment to the truth that Christ is a single being was intertwined with the innermost strands of the mysticism of the East. For the disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia, as for the disciple of Pelagius, the question of the relations between man and God is, above all, a question of merit and no-merit. In the great book of deserts each man's account is kept in two columns, debit and credit. As a man's merits pile up, as he lessens his faults, so does his situation improve. At the end, God balances the account, and places us according to the excess of credit over debit. Moralism pure and simple, this way of looking at things, and not religion at all. Where, in such a system, does the Incarnation come in? Or the cross of Christ? Here, Jesus Christ is our model, nothing more. Here we never meet our true saviour, our redeemer, He who by His divine presence purifies everything, lifts all to a higher plane, consecrates all, makes divine beings of us so far as the limits of our nature allow this communication of divinity. 

Very, very different is the spirit that gives life to the theology of St. Cyril. Here, Jesus Christ is truly God-within-us. The Christian makes a direct contact with Him, by a union of natures, a mysterious union indeed, under the sacramental veil of the Eucharist. Through this body and this blood he comes to make the contact with God, for these have, in Jesus Christ, a union (equally a union of natures ) with divinity. [...] To the poor peasant working in the fields of the Delta, to the dock labourer at the port of Pharos, Cyril gives the message that, in this world, he can touch God. And that through this contact, whence springs a mystical kinship, he can receive an assurance about the life hereafter; not only the guarantee that he is immortal, but that he will be immortal joined with God.^[11]

Such can be the practical importance of "abstract theological thought."

And, with reference to the stormy history of the first eight councils, events of a thousand to sixteen hundred years ago, we may remind ourselves that the actors here are Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians; their natural temperament and sense of nationality was not a whit less ardent than it can show itself to be in their descendants of this mid-twentieth century.

And now, to bring these introductory remarks to an end, it will perhaps be helpful to draw attention to one feature particularly of the history of the first seven councils. This is not so much the serious differences of opinion as to the interpretation of the basic mysteries of the Christian religion, which is their main concern, but rather the way these differences, at times, seem to turn so largely on different ways of understanding the terms used to express or explain the doctrine. Since all this is likely to be unfamiliar to the general reader, to him I would say some words of the great authority I have already made use of, a writer who all his life was ever conscious that the course of true historical study is strewn with difficulties, Cardinal John Henry Newman:

First of all, and in as few words as possible, and ex abundanti cautela: Every Catholic holds that the Christian dogmas were in the Church from the time of the Apostles; that they were ever in their substance what they are now; that they existed before the formulas were publicly adopted, in which, as time went on, they were defined and recorded, and that such formulas, when sanctioned by the due ecclesiastical acts, are binding on the faith of Catholics, and have a dogmatic authority. [...] 

Even before we take into account the effect which would naturally be produced on the first Christians by the novelty and mysteriousness of doctrines which depend for their reception simply upon Revelation, we have reason to anticipate that there would be difficulties and mistakes in expressing them, when they first came to be set forth by unauthoritative writers. Even in secular sciences, inaccuracy of thought and language is but gradually corrected; that is, in proportion as their subject-matter is thoroughly scrutinized and mastered by the co-operation of many independent intellects, successively engaged upon it. Thus, for instance, the word person requires the rejection of various popular senses, and a careful definition, before it can serve for philosophical uses. We sometimes use it for an individual as contrasted with a class or multitude, as when we speak of having "personal objections" to another; sometimes for the body, in contrast to the soul, as when we speak of "beauty of person." We sometimes use it in the abstract, as when we speak of another as "insignificant in person." How divergent in meaning are the derivatives, personable, personalities, personify, personation, personage, parsonage! This variety arises partly from our own carelessness, partly from the necessary developments of language, partly from the defects of our vernacular tongue. 

Language, then, requires to be re-fashioned even for sciences which are based on the senses and the reason; but much more will this be the case when we are concerned with subject-matter, of which, in our present state, we cannot possibly form any complete or consistent conception, such as the Catholic doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation. Since they are from the nature of the case above our intellectual reach, and were unknown till the preaching of Christianity, they required on their first promulgation new words, or words used in new senses, for their due enunciation; and, since these were not definitely supplied by Scripture or by tradition, nor for centuries by ecclesiastical authority, variety in the use, and confusion in the apprehension of them, were unavoidable in the interval. [...] Not only had the words to be adjusted and explained which were peculiar to different schools or traditional in different places, but there was the formidable necessity of creating a common measure between two, or rather three languages - Latin, Greek, and Syriac.^[12]

Footnotes

[1] For a succinct, popular account of which cf. Hughes, History of the Church, vol. I, chaps. III, IV, passim. For an authoritative, documented account cf. Pierre Batiffol, L'Eglise Naissante. This has been translated into English as Primitive Christianity.

[2] The Greek word for "the whole world" is oikoumene, whence our modem adjective "ecumenical," which is used with reference to councils of the Church as an equivalent for "general."

[3] Letter to the Africans, in Rouet de Journel S.J., Enchiridion Patristicum, no. 792.

[4] Ibid., no. 2185.

[5] Ibid., no. 2291.

[6] Praelectiones Dogmaticae (5th Ed., 1915) vol. 1, p. 313.

[7] Definiens subscripsi. Cf. Prummer, Manuale Theologiae, 5th Ed., 1928, I, p. 119.

[8] I.e. testing token.

[9] "Apostolical Tradition," an article in the British Critic, July 1836, reprinted in Essays, Critical and Historical, vol. I, p. 125.

[10] Epistola de Synodis, par. 5, in Rouet de Journel, S.J., Enchiridion Patristicum, no. 785.

[11] Monseigneur Louis Duchesne, Les Eglises separees, 38-40.

[12] J.H. Newman, On St. Cyril's Formula (1858), reprinted in Tracts, Theological and Ecclesiastical (1874), pp. 287-90.

The Question of Penance and the Shepherd of Hermas

Reading N°51 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

During the latter part of the second century, four great problems claimed the attention of those who belonged to the Church and of those who regarded her with religious curiosity from without: a moral problem, a philosophical problem, a dogmatic problem, and an apologetic problem. Hermas, St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, and Tertullian successively broached these four problems.

The Church, expanding among the Gentiles, opened her arms wide to the converts from paganism, to converts whose former life was often voluptuous or frivolous. She thus assimilated elements that were less pure than those of her first days. The virtue of the neophytes was not sustained by the enthusiasm which marked that early period. Less frequent and less powerful were the mystical graces which at first Providence bestowed upon the Christians so lavishly. Christian communities now counted in their ranks some criminals, murderers, adulterers, and apostates. Could such offenses be blotted out by penance?

Two extreme opinions came to light. By an excusable exaggeration, many of the early Christians had imagined that Baptism and the Eucharist conferred a sort of impeccability. Did not God's gift have the power of communicating an incorruptible life? And was it possible that a rational man, permitted to nourish his soul upon his God, would reach such an excess of ingratitude as gravely to offend Him thereafter? Therefore, when these Christians witnessed the first apostasies, they saw only one possible penalty for the abominable defection: exclusion from the Church, malediction, or at least abandonment of the guilty one to God's justice. These Christians took in strict literalness the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews:

It is impossible for those who were once illuminated [by baptism], have tasted also the heavenly gift [of the Eucharist], and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost [...] and are fallen away, to be renewed again to penance. [...] For the earth that drinketh in the rain which cometh often upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is tilled, receiveth blessing from God. But that which bringeth forth thorns and briers is reprobate and very near unto a curse, whose end is to be burnt.^[1]

But the harshness of such a solution provoked a radical reaction. Self-styled doctors held that every fault of a Christian should be regarded as indifferent. Did not the disciples of Carpocrates teach that man is saved by faith and charity, and that the rest does not count?^[2] Did not certain Valentinians declare that once anyone has recognized the rights of the Holy Spirit over the spirit, the flesh should be given its rights?^[3] These doctrines, slowly trickling into the mass of the faithful, appeared to many to be the true solution.

As usually happens, the clear declarations and the decisive tone of such teaching made converts among the people, ever ready to prefer a shocking doctrine that is asserted with clearness and force to a prudent doctrine which employs shades of difference in its formulation.

Weak but sincere souls that had yielded to sin, or feared they might yield, suffered unspeakable agony. From what he had seen with his own eyes, St. Irenaeus gives us a picture of those "who have their consciences seared as with a hot iron. [...] Some, in a tacit kind of way, despairing of attaining to the life of God, others have apostatized altogether; while others hesitate between the two courses, being neither without nor within."^[4]

Between the years AD 140 and 154, according to the conjectures of the best critics, there appeared at Rome a book that aimed to bring peace to troubled consciences, to refute the two radical doctrines, and to offer a prudent solution to the problem, in conformity with the Gospel spirit of justice and mercy. This book was entitled Poimen (Shepherd), and was written by a brother of Pope Pius I. Its style was simple, figurative, and popular.

The author first relates his own history. He was born in slavery, sold by his master to a Roman matron named Rhode, later freed by her, and then married. He acquired a large fortune in business, but at the same time lost both faith and virtue. Chastised by God, and stripped of his riches, he had, he says, the grace to bow beneath the hand of the Lord who struck him. But, while he was plowing on a small farm, at the gates of the city, an angel of God appeared to him in the form of a shepherd. This angel gave him certain counsels of morality which he was to communicate to his brethren.

These counsels are divided into three books: the book of the Visions, the book of the Similitudes, and the book of the Precepts or Commandments.

Hermas is not a controversialist, but an apologist, in the sense that he wishes to defend the Church and make her loved. What he desires is to confound the hypocrites and the wicked and reject them so that, being thus purified, "the Church of God shall be one body, one mind, one spirit, one faith, one love."^[5] A single inspiration runs through the whole work - to give hope of salvation to the fallen Christian. Its general subject is "the pardon of sins after a sincere repentance." He says:

The Lord bears no malice against those who confess their sins, but is merciful.^[6]

Every fault is remissible, according to Hermas. Neither murder nor adultery nor apostasy - the three sins that some later on wished to exclude from pardon - is reserved. Yet the author attaches two conditions to the pardon: the penitent, once converted, must afflict his soul, humble and purify himself;^[7] the penitent can be converted only once.^[8] Hermas seems to say also that this pardon is only an exceptional grace accorded merely in view of the proximate end of the world.^[9] This moral doctrine of the Shepherd was received in the middle of the second century as a voice of mercy. Today it seems severe. But, to appreciate it, we must put ourselves in spirit in the times when this work appeared.^[10] In a period when martyrdom was threatening every Christian, a popular sermon, as Hermas' book really was, without aiming at too great theological exactness, gave Christians to understand that all were required to possess their soul in readiness for heroism.

Hermas is not theologically precise, either when he speaks of the end of the world, which he supposes to be imminent, or when he discourses on the Trinity, which he seems to grasp but poorly. But he loves and venerates the Church with his whole heart. It is, he says, the first of all creatures; for it the world was made;^[11] it is established upon the Son of God as upon a rock, and belongs to Him as to a master.^[12] And it is a hierarchical church, with its various chiefs, bishops, priests, deacons, apostles or missioners.^[13] Its function is to teach the faithful, to train the elect.^[14] This sole Catholic Church, superposed upon the local churches and including them all, has a supreme head. When the aged woman who stands for the Church appears to Hermas, she hands him a book; and Hermas is directed to bring this book to Clement, the head of the Church of Rome, who will see that it reaches "the cities abroad."

The Shepherd of Hermas spread rapidly among the faithful. Its diffusion is attested by St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, by several Latin versions, and by an Ethiopic version. Some churches even included it, with the Epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, in the canon of their sacred books.

Footnotes

[1] Hebrews 6:4-8.

[2] St. Irenaeus, Haereses, I, xxv, 5.

[3] Ibidem, I, vi, 3.

[4] Ibidem, I, xii, 7.

[5] Hermas, Similtudes, IX, xviii, 4.

[6] Ibidem, IX, xxiii, 4.

[7] Ibidem, IX, xxiii, 5.

[8] Precepts, IV, i, 8; iii, 6.

[9] Visions, I and II; cf. III; Similtudes, VIII, ix, 4.

[10] A. d'Alès ("La discipline pénitentielle d'après Ie Pasteur d'Hermas," in the Recherches de science religieuse, 1911, pp. 105-139, 240-263) says: "Hermas' work is not an official document, but a private document of very great worth, because it naively reflects the preoccupations of the pastors of the Roman Church in the second century, and the expedients of their zeal. [...] We can understand that it was judged inopportune to enumerate, for catechumens, the opportunities they might have for being reconciled to God, should they fall into sin after Baptism. For Christians who have fallen into sin after Baptism, specifically to adulterers and apostates, or idolaters, the Shepherd offers, for one time, on condition of penance being performed, divine pardon, and also - as is evidenced throughout the book - reconciliation with the Church. At the same time, it took pains to warn them that this favor would not be repeated. For those who fell again after a first reconciliation, we cannot see what the Shepherd offered; but doubtless it did not leave them without hope. Whatever the severities of the Shepherd for the δίψυχοι, one thing stands out clearly in the book, namely, that whoever is willing to do penance can again enter into favor with God."

[11] Visions, II, iv, 1. Cf. I, i, 6; III, iii, 3-5.

[12] Similitudes, IX, xii, 1, 7 f.

[13] Visions, II, ii, 6; II, iv, 3; III, v, 1.

[14] Ibidem, III, ix, 7-10.

***

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Catholic Church and Christian State, Pt. 2

Part I | Part II

The Power of the Church in Worldly Matters

 by
 Cardinal Joseph Hergenröther

§1. Three Theories on this Point

In relation to the power of the Church in temporal matters were formed three systems based upon the notions expressed in the Decree Novit, upon the idea prominent even in the first ages of Christianity that the spiritual power was above the temporal, and upon the theory and practice of the Middle Ages:

• the system of the direct power of the Church in matters temporal;
• that of the merely indirect power;
• that of the merely directing power.

§2. Direct Power of the Church in Temporal Matters (Potestas directa Ecclesiae in temporalia)

The main doctrines of this system were as follows: God has given to the Pope, as His Vicar, endowed with the unlimited power of binding and loosing, authority to rule the world in temporal as in spiritual matters, but in such manner that the spiritual power is to be wielded by him in person, while the civil power is to be delivered over to princes, who in reality are merely servants of the Church, receive their power from her, are responsible to her, and - in case of misconduct - may be deposed by her. Thus, the Pope comes to be the supreme head in spiritual and temporal matters, to whom, as Vicar of Christ, the King of kings, all nations and kingdoms are directly subject, and earthly kings must in turn be his representatives.

This opinion, strongly combated by St. Robert Bellarmine, was held by Henry of Segusia, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, Augustinus Triumphus (1320), Alvarus Pelagius (1340), and others. The learned John of Salisbury (1159), who is in some respects considered as the first defender of this system, has by no means made use of the strong expressions employed by late upholders of this view. His opinion seems to have been shared by St. Thomas Becket.

§3. Direct Power is Untenable

The large majority of theologians have perceived this doctrine to be untenable, and have proved it in detail to be so. They point out that, though Christ is possessed of all power in heaven and upon earth, and though the Pope must be regarded as His Vicar, still this vicariate extends over the religious domain only, and includes no unlimited temporal sovereignty, although the temporal sovereignty of a determinate district has been advantageously united with it. Unbelieving princes do not belong to the fold of Christ (John 21:15 seq.), and the Church has in general no jurisdiction over unbelievers (1 Corinthians 5:12); the Pope would most surely not appoint heathens as his vicars.

Neither are the keys of earthly kingdoms committed to the Pope, but those of the Kingdom of Heaven; so that Christian rulers, by the acceptance and introduction of Christianity, have not forfeited their sovereign power, and Christ, who bestows the heavenly, does not deprive them of their earthly kingdom. Were the Pope a universal ruler, the bishops would necessarily be everywhere rulers in their own cities and dioceses; the practical consequences of this doctrine prove its absurdity.

The Popes have never laid claim to any such power, but have, on the contrary, fully acknowledged the jurisdiction of temporal princes. Even Innocent III, to whom men love to attribute the most exorbitant pretensions, distinguished perfectly between his complete and unlimited spiritual jurisdiction and his limited temporal power. The Popes, when claiming the care of the heavenly and earthly kingdom, have never said that the two were subject to them in precisely the same manner; and in maintaining the superiority of the spiritual power they have still never said that temporal power must everywhere and in all cases be subject to it, or that the temporal had its origin in the spiritual. Some are astonished at the saying of Innocent III, that Christ gave to St. Peter the government not of the whole Church, but of the whole world, but in this he surely said nothing more than had been already said by Eugenius III, that Christ had delivered to St. Peter the rights of the earthly and of the heavenly kingdom. The point which Innocent desired to prove was, as the whole context shows, that the primacy of the Pope has no territorial limits. The power of the Pope extends to all Christian lands, not merely on earth, but also in heaven; by this is meant spiritual power only, of which it had been before said: "Power is given to princes on earth, but to priests in heaven also."

§4. Indirect Power of the Church in Temporal Matters (Potestas indirecta in temporalia)

The second system, which has the largest number of followers, teaches that the Church has direct spiritual power, but no direct temporal power; she is appointed to govern the faithful in the supernatural way of salvation; spiritual matters alone are in themselves subject to her, and in worldly matters she takes no part. In so far only as temporal matters are opposed to the supernatural end, or are necessary fur its attainment, has the Church to concern herself with them, and to exert her power. She has in that case to correct and to guide the worldly power and, if necessary, to chastise it when it turns aside from the right path of divine law, hinders the attainment of the supernatural end, and endangers the stability of religion and of the Church. Neither the Pope nor the Church can directly depose a prince, but they can where the highest interests of religion are concerned declare the duty of obedience towards him to have ceased. A prince, bound by oath to maintain religion, who has broken this oath by apostasy or by persecution of the Church, who hearkens to no warnings and despises ecclesiastical penalties, may not be dethroned by his people, for this would strengthen and justify all rebellion; but the people must be declared free from their oath of allegiance by sentence of a General Council or of the Head of the Church.

This indirect power of the Church in matters temporal in general, and in relation to the dethroning of princes in particular, is not a temporal but a spiritual power. It is exerted in matters temporal only in so far as they intrench upon religion, and in this way cease to be purely temporal. Thus Innocent IV said that the Church passed judgment in a spiritual manner on temporal matters (spiritualiter de temporalibus); and in his contest with Frederick II he declared that he was making use not of the temporal but of the spiritual sword. Some theologians have attributed to the Pope in certain cases power to depose a prince; but the distinction is rather in the words than the matter; they required the same conditions, and merely took the consequences of the act for the act itself; instead of the power of declaring the right of sovereignty forfeited, they supposed him to have the power of deposing (potestas deponendi instead of potestas declarandi). In general, it was held that all things temporal were to be directed towards eternal goods, and that earthly goods were to be used with a view to the heavenly, otherwise they would be merely abused.

At first, the title "indirect power" appeared to many strange and contrary to the common teaching; and for this reason St. Robert Bellarmine's book putting it forward was placed on the Index under Sixtus V; but before long, the conviction spread that the matter of the book was sound, and that the expression "indirect power" was well-chosen; Urban VII therefore, in 1590, had the book erased from the Index.

§5. Bellarmine's Teaching

St. Robert Bellarmine treats of the indirect power of the Church in a triple application:

1. quantum ad personas;
2. quantum ad leges;
3. quantum ad judicia.

In relation to persons (1), he teaches that in an ordinary way, as judex ordinanus, the Pope cannot depose temporal princes as he can bishops, but can only, in virtue of his right as head of Christendom, dispose of all things necessary to the salvation of souls. All the schoolmen were agreed upon the main point, that in case of threatened destruction to faith and the exercise of religion, or where the preservation of the Church is concerned, this power may be exercised, especially in a case of apostasy from the faith.

In relation to laws (2), the Pope, as Pope, cannot release from civil laws or abolish the laws of temporal princes except only when it is necessary for the good of souls, or when an existing temporal law is dangerous to salvation, and when at the same time princes refuse its repeal.

As judge (3) he can pass sentence in temporal matters only when absolutely necessary for the salvation of souls.

§6. Grounds for this Opinion

In further support of this opinion, the following proofs were brought forward: Christian princes form, as is universally allowed, part of the flock of Christ confided to St. Peter (John 21:15); the charge of them consists in so leading them that they may attain eternal salvation. But how can they attain it if the supreme pastor has not the means either of leading back erring sheep to the fold or of hindering the rest from going astray? This he cannot do if he is forced to look on while a prince is raging unpunished against the Church, and leading or forcing the subjects bound to him by oath away from the true religion into error. The Pope must take the necessary steps against him by censures, and if his obstinacy require it, also against those who obey his evil orders, and who have dealings with him in his official position. In case of extreme obstinacy, which is made a condition by all theologians, the Pope may declare the oath taken to a prince to be no longer binding, for the purpose of moving him to amendment. No oath binds in such a way that it cannot be loosed if it endangers the salvation of souls, and no end may be preferred before the highest and last end of man.

§7. Indirect Power Always Used by the Church

The Church, even in the earliest times, exercised an indirect power in temporal matters. How was it else that she forbade the faithful to undertake and administer certain employments and offices prejudicial to the welfare of their souls, and that later, when persecution had ceased and the danger was lessened, she still required ecclesiastical approval for the administration and exercise of such offices and professions, though they were no longer prohibited? Christians who held the post of city duumvirate, and were thus brought into close contact with heathen rites, had to remain away from church during their year of office. Under Constantine, however, the Synod of Arles (314) directed that Christian praesides were to bring with them into their provinces letters of communion from their bishop, and only in the event of their acting contrary to the laws of the Church were they to be cut off from communion by the bishop of the place in which they were holding office. By an exercise of the same power, persons performing public penance were excluded from civil as well as military offices (militia togata et paludata), and even when it was over, these offices might not be resumed under pain of perpetual exclusion from them. It is manifest that the Church has ever had the right of imposing public penance upon Christians, however high their dignity; from the penance it resulted that such persons forfeited their office and dignity; and thus, in an indirect manner, she deprived them of temporal power. The well-being of private persons was not more important in the eyes of the Church than that of Christian princes; she imposed penances upon the one as upon the other, even when they were not voluntarily under one. This is one of the earliest forms in which the indirect power was exercised. Again, in time of persecution, the Church enjoined upon the faithful flight and complete withdrawal from contact with the heathen world; and this flight was permitted even when forbidden by the heathen rulers, and although public burdens were thus avoided ; and in this way she interfered indirectly in the domain of the State. This was indeed only a conditional and provisional measure; but the same is true of all other cases of indirect interference, which only continue so long as the danger exists, so long as the sinner refuses amendment, so long as is required by the all-important end of the salvation of souls.

§8. Teaching of the Fathers

The Fathers laid it down as a rule that all public temporal regulations are to be observed which are not a hindrance to religion or contrary to the commandments of God. In case of danger to salvation, all is to give way, according to Matthew 16:26, 5:29. He who is charged with the guidance of the faithful in the way of eternal salvation must be able to know and to set aside the hindrances to salvation. The preservation and furtherance of spiritual goods, which is the charge of the Church, requires from time to time the sacrifice of some earthly good or interest, and therefore the power entrusted with earthly and temporal interests must give way before the power entrusted with spiritual and eternal interests. Civil society rests upon the observance of natural law, distributive justice, and freedom of intercourse. By an abuse of power, legitimate authorities may become illegitimate; when this happened, nations threw off such authorities in virtue of the judgment of the Church; and what she did was not by her own power to set aside a rightful sovereign, but, when a sovereign had become illegitimate, to declare him to be such.

§9. Cardinal Turrecremata

Cardinal Bellarmine is usually spoken of as the originator of this doctrine; but before his time, the majority of theologians taught the same. Cardinal Turrecremata of the Dominican order (died 1468) states two opinions:

1. the Pope has power in spiritual matters alone, and not in temporal, with the exception of that which the Church has acquired by the gift of the faithful or of princes;
2. the Pope, as Vicar of Christ, has full jurisdiction over the whole earth in matters spiritual and temporal.

The cardinal himself holds neither of these opinions, but teaches, in accordance with the system spoken of above, that the Pope has jurisdiction in temporal matters only so far as may be necessary for the preservation of spiritual goods in himself and others, or so far as is required by the needs of the Church or the duty of the pastoral charge in the correction of sinners. If it be objected from Scripture that Christ had no worldly power, and desired none, and that therefore His Vicar has none, the answer is:

1. that no such power is, in itself, ascribed to the Pope;
2. that to our Savior is given all power in heaven and on earth. He is the King of kings. Lord over all, and this even as man; but He did not avail Himself of His power because He came to be an example of humility and poverty.

Before Pilate, Christ expressly declared Himself to be a king; He did not say that His kingdom is not in this world, but only that it is not of this world; He was but declaring the high origin and sublimity of His kinghood. When Christ paid the tribute for Himself and Peter, it was not most surely done because it was due, but to avoid scandal (Matthew 17:26). In driving the buyers and sellers from the Temple, Christ exercised the spiritual power, which extended to earthly things, since He paid no regard to the worldly loss of those whom He expelled.

§10. This Teaching is the Most General

The more closely the ancient theologians are examined the more clear does it become that Bellarmine and the Jesuits - who were moreover especially admonished to keep, if possible, to the common teaching of the theological schools - were not introducing any new doctrine, but were on this point completely in accordance with the other religious orders. The teaching of the great theologians of the Middle Ages - St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, and others - differs in no essential point from theirs. The Dominicans in the time of Bellarmine taught the same; e.g. amongst others, Francis Victoria (died 1546) says:

The Pope in matters temporal may not interfere with the civil power, unless where there is danger of grievous loss to souls.

Precisely the same was taught by theologians of various nations, religious orders, and positions, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the same again in the eighteenth, although these controversies were then shortly supplanted by others of quite another type.

§11. Attacks upon Bellarmine's Teaching

On comparing the expressions of Bellarmine and the Jesuits who succeeded him with those of more ancient theologians, it will be found that, far from seeking to render the prevailing view more strict, these later theologians strove rather to modify it; not only did they, in opposition to the theory of a direct power in matters temporal, defend the merely indirect power, but even to this they put many limitations. Bellarmine was attacked on either side: by some, he was blamed for granting to the Church too little power; by others, especially by Anglicans and Gallicans, for granting her too much. The earlier French writers had disputed the direct power only, as may be seen in the controversy under Boniface VIII, who, as they supposed, desired to reduce France to the condition of a feudatory kingdom; the later writers since the seventeenth century disputed the indirect power also. Until 1615, this was still considered the prevailing doctrine; but the sentence (afterwards revoked) passed by the Paris parliament in 1610 condemning Bellarmine's work, On the Power of the Pope in Matters Temporal against William Barclay, was followed by the censures of the Sorbonne in 1626 on the Jesuit Anthony Santarelli and the Dominican Malagula for the same doctrine; and the first of the four Gallican articles of 1682 rejected altogether any power, whether direct or indirect, on the part of the Church in the civil government of kings and princes.

§12. Objections

Various objections have been brought forward against the indirect power:

1. The highest civil authority was from the beginning a lawful power; it had its origin in God, and could lose nothing of its power by the institution of the ecclesiastical hierarchy: Christ Himself tells us to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's (Matthew 22:21).
2. Moreover, the early Popes and bishops had no thought of exercising any such power: the Fathers were all in favor of obedience, even to apostates such as Julian, who was obeyed by Valentinian, except in matters relating to the heathen superstition: they excommunicated princes and authorities, but never so much as thought of deposing them.
3. The system of indirect power brings with it the direct, for which it serves as a mask. All cases would become subject to the Pope, primarily, indeed, heresy and idolatry; but from the eleventh century, simony was called heresy, and covetousness also is idolatry (Ephesians 5:5); incapacity was likewise made a reason for deposition. The rule which held good for princes must also hold good for individuals; and all temporal matters without distinction must be subject to the Pope, since it is easy to make out that any temporal matter has connection with the spiritual end of man.
4. The consequences of this doctrine are such as to disturb the peace of princes and people, to put an end to security in the administration of justice, and even to endanger the life of the ruler; since, if a deposed ruler desired to regain his kingdom by force, his murder would be considered allowable.

§13. Replies

To these arguments the following replies have been made:

1. The sovereignty, even of heathen princes, may be lawful, and as such even Christians are bound to render it obedience in all things not contrary to conscience. Civil authority is, within its own domain, independent, and may exist without the Christian religion, but never on so true and firm a basis as is given to it by Christianity. The power bestowed by Christ upon the Apostles includes that of feeding the flock, and the power of the keys, under which head must be reckoned the right of excommunication, and the loosing of oaths injurious to salvation.
2. It by no means follows that because at a certain time no use was made of a power, therefore the power was not in existence. The Church may have had many reasons for not proceeding against apostates such as Julian: in the first place, the impossibility of effecting any good, and the danger of increasing the evil, for Julian was in full possession of power; then again the short period of his reign, and the at least apparent justice shown by him in the beginning; the fact also that Julian did not himself pass and publicly enforce laws directly contrary to Christianity; that he did not compel its abjuration, and that he did not make the profession of Christianity, but pretended crimes, the pretext of his frequent barbarity. Moreover, Christianity had not as yet penetrated so deeply into the life of society as to have affected the whole of civil legislation. Where censures would fail of their effect - the amendment of the offender - and would even be the cause of evils still greater, it would seem mere prudence to abstain from the most severe punishments, and rather to suffer the existing evil.
3. Between the two systems, that of direct and that of indirect power, there is the widest distinction: the first gives to the Pope a real sovereignty in temporal matters; the second imparts to his spiritual power in certain cases only a decisive influence, which has certain results within the civil domain. If excommunication brought with it, as a natural consequence, the forfeiture of earthly sovereignty, the Church would have direct power in temporal matters, and not merely indirect; but for this last, it suffices that the Church should act upon the subjects in such manner that loss of power to the ruler ensues; as by release from the oath of allegiance, which does not of itself necessitate the withdrawal of obedience. Moreover, the power of the Pope is primarily restricted to the case of crimes endangering religion, to which class belong all the known historical cases.
4. As to the consequences of the doctrine, the Pope can by no means, at his own pleasure and on every occasion, depose princes; he is able only to declare in what cases citizens are released from the oaths taken to them; for such princes as are the cause of extreme danger to religion and the salvation of souls deprive themselves of their rights by their own acts. Since judgment on these points cannot be passed by individuals or by nations, this doctrine rather serves as a safeguard to rulers and a restraint to subjects. The Pope leaves to the dethroned prince, as long as he gives prospect of amendment, the hope of regaining his kingdom; therefore, that this hope may be realized, the Church is bound to protect and defend him against his subjects.

No theologian has ever ascribed to the Pope power over the lives of princes; and permission granted for their murder is inconceivable. Bellarmine expressly says:

It is unheard of that the murder of a prince should ever be permitted, even were he a heretic, a heathen, and a persecutor, and even were monsters to be found capable of committing such a crime.

§14. Teaching of the Jesuits

Even those Jesuits who are said to have boldly developed this doctrine to its uttermost consequences have defended the indirect power alone. Louis Molina discusses the question whether Christ, as man, was temporal king and lord of the whole earth, and lays down the following propositions:

1. The Pope has no temporal power of jurisdiction of such kind as to make him lord of the whole earth; the kingly power is altogether distinct from that of the Pope, and in their own sphere kings are independent. Hence, in the ordinary course of things, it does not belong to the Pope to appoint or to depose kings; the Pope has not power directly to decide purely temporal disputes between princes.
2. Although the Pope has general jurisdiction over the temporal goods of the Church, still he is not lord over them, but administrator and director, and may not therefore dispose of them at will, but only on prudent grounds for the benefit of the Church.
3. To the spiritual power of the Pope, bestowed for the supernatural end, is united the highest and most extensive power of temporal jurisdiction over all princes and other subjects of the Church, in so far as if required by the supernatural end, for which the spiritual power was ordained.

Hence the Pope can, if it be required by the supernatural end, depose princes and deprive them of their kingdoms. He can also decide between them in temporal concerns, invalidate their laws, and amongst Christians order all things, not anyhow, but in the way recognized according to wise judgment as absolutely necessary to the general spiritual welfare, and may enforce his commands not merely by censures, but also by public punishments and by force of arms, like any other temporal prince; although it is for the most part more suitable for the Pope to do this not of himself, but through temporal princes. In this sense is the Pope said to have both swords and both powers, the spiritual and the temporal. This doctrine was based on the ordinary grounds. Again and again was it pointed out that the Pope, as a rule, was to make use of the spiritual power alone, and only where this proved insufficient, or where there was danger in delay - thus only in extraordinary cases - was he to draw the temporal sword.

The same is taught by Salmeron, who opposes the direct power, defends the indirect, and, like Molina, appeals to Dominicans, such as Turrecremata, Victoria, and Soto. Anthony Santarelli defended the indirect power alone, although in a more emphatic form; the other religious orders, the secular clergy, and the jurists, maintained the same doctrine; it was, moreover, defended by the Sorbonne. It was only on the 8th of May 1663, after many intrigues on the part of the parliament and the court, that a declaration was passed to the effect that the Pope has no authority in the temporal concerns of kings, and that subjects could in no case be dispensed from the allegiance due to the king. This was based upon former royal edicts, sentences of the parliament, and declarations of the Sorbonne, which, however, merely declared the independence of the French crown; and this had been before acknowledged even by the Popes. Shortly after the Declaration of March 19, 1682, on June 10, 1683, the Inquisition of Toledo, in opposition to it, condemned as erroneous and schismatic the proposition:

The Pope or the Church have neither direct nor indirect power in the temporal concerns of kings, and these cannot be deprived of their dominions; nor can their subjects, upon whatsoever ground, be pronounced free from their oath of allegiance.

The Dominican Carena pronounced even impious and heretical the opinion of the Calvinists and the Magdeburg Centuriators, who denied to the Pope any power, direct or indirect, in matters temporal. As this was a question of a doctrine universally defended in the schools, the Jesuits, especially in their delicate relations towards the Dominicans, could not, without the gravest reasons, have taken a different view; moreover, they followed always the common teaching of the schools.

§15. Directing Power of the Church in Temporal Matters (Potestas directiva)

Other theologians, as a modification of the theories described, taught that the Church has only a directing power (a guiding but not a constraining power) over civil authorities; that is to say, it is her right and her duty, by doctrinal decisions, by warnings, declarations, counsels, and commands, to enlighten the consciences of princes and people; to remind them of their duty towards God and religion, to instruct them as to the scope and limit of their duties, and in case of a collision of duties to pass judgment as to what is to be done to satisfy God and conscience. Therefore, she must be the judge of human laws which contradict the divine law, she must strive for their improvement when dangerous to salvation, satisfy inquiries in cases of conscience, and when her voice is unheeded she must defend herself to the utmost against the evils arising from this neglect.

Numerous early examples were brought forward in support of this view: e.g. the conduct of the great Pope Gregory I, who endeavored to obtain from the Emperor Mauricius the withdrawal of a law injurious to the interests of religion. Gregory approved the first clause of the said law (of 592), by which active State officials were not to undertake ecclesiastical offices; the second clause, by which these same officials were not to become monks, he desired so far modified as that they should be obliged first to render account of their service, and in general to fulfill all former obligations; the third clause, by which all military persons were entirely prohibited from taking holy orders, he rejected, as closing to many the way of salvation.

Looking at it from this same point of view, Bossuet also considered the much-discussed reply of Pope Zacharias as to the accession of Pipin in the light of a counsel given by the Pope, and not a command.

§16. Relations of this Theory to the Preceding

In accordance with the expression of Gerson and Fenelon, this power has been called a directing or guiding power (potestas directiva et ordinativa); but it is a matter of dispute whether Gerson's directing power is not the same as that called by others indirect power. Gerson teaches that the Church is so to restrain her power within limits as to acknowledge also the independence of the civil power, so long as the civil power is not by an abuse made the means of attacking the faith, blaspheming God, and openly oppressing the power of the Church; should such be the case, it becomes the duty of the Church to guide and direct the civil power. But has anything essentially different been maintained by the supporters of the indirect power? Have they placed other limits to the independence of civil authority? And is not this a question rather of words than of things? The word may be better chosen, but the thing is essentially the same. There is, however, a distinction between Gerson and Fenelon: Gerson speaks of a superiority, a dominion, of the spiritual power, in case of abuse of the civil power; Fendlon allows only a directing power, consisting mainly in instruction and counsel. The question remains as to how far this last power may go, and what are its limits. These limits are determined by Fenelon and Gosselin chiefly according to prevailing public law and according to special legal titles, which were frequently united with ecclesiastical titles in the person of the Pope; consequently, the exercise of this directing power must necessarily differ at different times, and regard must be had to contemporary circumstances and legal relations; its expression and its consequences will differ, while its fundamental principle - supremacy in all questions affecting religion - necessarily remains ever the same. The Head of the Church will ever have the right of judging whether, and how far, religion is injured by this or that civil law; thus the principle remains, though the form in which it is carried out may vary with the times.

In principle, the doctrines of the indirect and of the directing power do not in all points differ widely. Let us consider them under Bellarmine's three heads:

1. In respect to persons (quoad personas): it is universally admitted that the Head of the Church may admonish and correct princes guilty of crime, and, with a view to their amendment, may lay them under censures. As to the deposing of princes in extreme cases, the defenders of indirect power, far from making the doctrine that princes might be deposed stand and fall with their general theory, do not even make this doctrine a necessary and abiding expression of the indirect power; while the defenders of the directive power limit deposition to the one case where the public law of the country in question authorizes it; in such a case both theories agree that the Pope can declare the right of governing to have been forfeited. According to the teaching of both parties, it belongs to the Pope, under certain conditions, to declare non-binding the oath of allegiance, and this in virtue of the rights of the Church, since he is the supreme guide of consciences within her. On this point, however, a controversy exists as to whether the condition of belonging to the Catholic Church, which in the Middle Ages was attached to the election and accession of the sovereign, rested, as the defenders of the indirect power believe, upon the natural law, or only upon the positive human law, as is held by Fenelon and the upholders of the directing power. It would follow from the first of these opinions, that at the present time the deposition of such princes would be justified, even though not absolutely commanded; according to the second, the right of deposing would cease when not sanctioned by the public law of the land in question. Theologians have not yet come to an agreement upon this disputed question.
2. In respect to laws (quoad leges): surely in common fairness the Church has at all times the right of declaring any given State law injurious to the interests under her charge; precisely as the civil power may declare the same of a law of the Church. As a matter of fact, and as we now experience, the State not only makes this declaration without real cause, but proceeds to measures grievously injurious to the Church. When civil laws are such as to endanger salvation, the Pope, as Head of the Catholic Church, has without doubt the right to declare them to be such, to denounce them emphatically; and if denunciation be fruitless, to proscribe them as powerless to bind the conscience; he is indeed as much bound in duty to this as were the Apostles and first bishops to prohibit the faithful from taking part in the serving of idols, and from obeying those commands of the State which they could not fulfill without betraying God. However hard it may from circumstances become for the Pope, he is still bound by the sanctity of his office to condemn whatsoever is contrary to the faith and morals of the Church, and to declare with apostolic freedom that the Church, far from justifying such laws, is ever bound to reject them.
3. In respect to sentences (quoad judicia): the Church's right of judgment is inseparably united with her right of legislation. The same power which enables her to pass laws within her own domain enables her also to apply them, and to watch over their application. When a question comes before her judgment-seat which has relation to the supernatural end under her charge, she has full power to pass judgment; and temporal matters also fall under her control, when and in so far as they relate to the fulfillment of her great charge. Here again the words of Cardinal Antonelli apply: "The Church has received from God the sublime charge of guiding men, whether as individuals or united in societies, to a supernatural end; thence comes her power and her obligation of passing judgment upon all matters, whether inward or outward, in their relation to the natural and divine laws. But since every action, whether commanded by a higher power, or proceeding from the freedom of the individual, is necessarily invested with this character of morality and justice, it follows that the judgment of the Church, as it is directly concerned with the morality of the action, extends also indirectly to all things with which this morality is bound up. But the Church does not therefore directly interfere in political matters, which by the ordinance established by God, and by the teaching of the Church herself, come within the domain of the civil power, and are completely independent of any other authority."

§17. Superiority of Ecclesiastical over Civil Legislation

If, indeed, Stahl were in the right when he wrote that one or the other must be the case: either the Pope must have indirect power in temporal matters, or princes must have indirect power in spiritual matters: there is no third alternative (which, however, many would by no means allow) - the question may fairly be asked: Which is most supported by Christian and historical principles, which is most profitable to the free development and the highest interests of mankind: the indirect or directing power in matters temporal maintained by the earlier theologians, or else the direct or indirect power of the State in ecclesiastical matters defended by the later legists and regalists? In the present day only one case of practical importance can occur, that of a contradiction between a positive civil law and a law of the Church. In our day, laws are often passed by party intrigue, hastily, intended to last only a short time, with corrupt aims, and often with the sacrifice of general to individual interests; thus in many cases the medieval saying might be applied, by which laws were likened to the behavior of Anacharsis with the cobweb. Is it not plain that the legislation of the Church, based as it is upon high principles, is far superior, and that it might easily become her duty to encounter these modem laws wit' the words, "This is unlawful for thee to do," or "Non possumus"? Or is the Church indeed at one time to approve the French laws of 1789, at another time those of 1793, then the Code Napoleon, then the Prussian Landrecht, and then again the Swiss Federal Constitution as at present revised? In so doing, she would cease to be herself, she would destroy her very being, she would no longer be the Bride of the Lord. But the State, which is only negatively bound to demand from the faithful nothing contrary to conscience, and which has moreover in almost all lands guaranteed liberty of conscience, would contradict itself should it disallow this right of the Church. If, in watching lest the State suffer injury (ne quid detrimenta respublica capiat), civil rulers consider themselves entitled to pass judgment on the laws of the Church, and to subject them to their Placet, they cannot deny that the rulers of the Church are in the same way bound to watch lest any injury be done to souls; and that although they may on their side oppose no Placet to that of the civil power, it is nevertheless the right and the duty of the Church rulers to declare that such and such a State law is contrary to the conscience of Catholics. Can it be that at the very moment in which a dogma of the Church is declared to be dangerous to States, the right of the Church is to be called in question of at any time declaring on her side a law of the State to be dangerous to the conscience of the faithful?