As to the passages separately considered, Matt. xvi., 'Thou art rock,' and John xxi., 'Feed my flock,' could at best only prove Papal absolutism, but not Papal Infallibility, of which they do not treat. [356] The former teaches the indestructibility of the Church in its totality (not of any individual congregation), but this is a different idea. The Council of Trent lays down 'the unanimous consent of the Fathers' as the norm and rule of all orthodox interpretation, as if exegetical wisdom had begun and ended with the divines of the first six centuries. But of the passage Matt. xvi., which is more frequently quoted by Popes and Papists than any other passage in the Bible, there are no less than five different patristic interpretations; the rock on which Christ built his Church being referred to Christ by sixteen Fathers (including Augustine); to the faith or confession of Peter by forty-four (including Chrysostom, Ambrose, Hilary, Jerome, and Augustine again); to Peter professing the faith by seventeen; to all the Apostles, whom Peter represented by his primacy, by eight; to all the faithful, who, believing in Christ as the Son of God, are constituted the living stones of the Church. [357] But not one of the Fathers finds Papal Infallibility in this passage, nor in John xxi. The 'unanimous consent of the Fathers' is a pure fiction, except in the most general and fundamental principles held by all Christians; and not to interpret the Bible except according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, would strictly mean not to interpret it at all. [358]
There remains, then, only the passage recorded by Luke (xxii. 31, 32) as at all bearing on the disputed question: 'Simon, Simon, behold, Satan desired to have you (or, obtained you by asking), that he may sift you as wheat; but I prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and thou, when once thou art converted (or, hast turned again), strengthen thy brethren.' But even this does not prove infallibility, and has not been so understood before Popes Leo I. and Agatho. For (1) the passage refers, as the context shows, to the peculiar personal history of Peter during the dark hour of passion, and is both a warning and a comfort to him. So it is explained by the Fathers, who frequently quote it. (2) Faith here, as nearly always in the New Testament, means personal trust in, and attachment to, Christ, and not, as the Romish Church misinterprets it, orthodoxy, or intellectual assent to dogmas. (3) If the passage refers to the Popes at all, it would prove too much for them, viz., that they, like Peter, denied the Saviour, were converted again, and strengthened their brethren--which may be true enough of some, but certainly not of all. [359]
The constant appeal of the Roman Church to Peter suggests a significant parallel. There is a spiritual Peter and a carnal Simon, who are separated, indeed, by regeneration, yet, after all, not so completely that the old nature does not occasionally re-appear in the new man.
It was the spiritual Peter who forsook all to follow Christ; who first confessed him as the Son of God, and hence was called Rock; who after his terrible fall wept bitterly; was re-instated and intrusted with the care of Christ's sheep; who on the birthday of the Church preached the first missionary sermon, and gathered in the three thousand converts; who in the Apostles' Council protested against the narrow bigotry of the Judaizers, and stood up with Paul for the principle of salvation by grace alone through faith in Christ; who, in his Epistles, warns all ministers against hierarchical pride, and exhibits a wonderful meekness, gentleness, and humility of spirit, showing that divine grace had overruled and sanctified to him even his fall; and who followed at last his Master to the cross of martyrdom.
It was the carnal Simon who presumed to divert his Lord from the path of suffering, and drew on him the rebuke, 'Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a stumbling-block unto me, for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men;' the Simon, who in mistaken zeal used the sword and cut off the ear of Malchus; who proudly boasted of his unswerving fidelity to his Master, and yet a few hours afterwards denied him thrice before a servant-woman; who even after the Pentecostal illumination was overcome by his natural weakness, and, from policy or fear of the Judaizing party, was untrue to his better conviction, so as to draw on him the public rebuke of the younger Apostle of the Gentiles. The Romish legend of Domine quo vadis makes him relapse into his inconstancy even a day before his martyrdom, and memorializes it in a chapel outside of Rome.
[In 1868, Cardinal Manning and Bishop Senestry of Regensburg, while in Rome, made a vow "to do all in our power to bring about the definition of papal infallibility," the vow being attested by the Jesuit father Liberatore. See Purcell: Life of Manning, II., 420. Commer, theological professor in Vienna, in an address on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Leo XIII.'s pontificate, announced that the Roman pontiff had properly been called by Catherine of Siena another Christ--alter Christus. The Manual of the Catechism of Pius X. quotes with approval that the pope is Jesus Christ on earth--il papa è Gesu Cristo sulla terra.--Ed.]
[322] This bull has been often disowned by Catholics (e.g., by the Universities of Sorbonne, Louvain, Alcala, Salamanca, when officially asked by Mr. Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Britain, 1788, also by Martin John Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, in his Lectures on Evidences, 1866), and, to some extent, even by Pius IX. (see Friedberg, p. 718), but it is unquestionably official, and was renewed and approved by the fifth Lateran Council, Dec. 19, 1516. Paul III. and Pius V. acted upon it, the former in excommunicating and deposing Henry VIII. of England, the latter in deposing Queen Elizabeth, exciting her subjects to rebellion, and urging Philip of Spain to declare war against her (see the Bullarium Rom., Camden, Burnet, Froude, etc.). The Papal Syllabus sanctions it by implication, in No. 23, which condemns as an error the opinion that Roman Pontiffs have exceeded the limits of their power.
[323] Pope Pius IX. started as a political reformer, and set in motion that revolution which, notwithstanding his subsequent reactionary course, resulted in the unification of Italy and the loss of the States of the Church, against which he now so bitterly protests.
[324] In this general sense Joseph de Maistre explains infallibility to be the same in the spiritual order that sovereignty means in the civil order: 'L'un et l'autre expriment cette haute puissance qui les domine toutes, dont toutes les autres dérivent, qui gouverne et n'est pas gouvernée, qui juge et n'est pas jugée. Quand nous disons que l'Eglise est infaillible, nous ne demandons pour elle, il est bien essentiel de l'observer, aucun privilége particulier; nous demandons seulement qu'elle jouisse du droit commun à toutes les souverainetés possible qui toutes agissent néssairement comme infaillibles; car tout gouvernement est absolu; et du moment où l'on peut lui résister sous prétexte d'erreur ou d'injustice, il n'existe plus.' Du Pape, ch. i., pp. 15, 16.
[325] Archbishop Manning (Petri Privil. III. pp. 112, 113) defines the doctrine of Infallibility in this way:
'1. The privilege of infallibility is personal, inasmuch as it attaches to the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, as a public person, distinct from, but inseparably united to, the Church; but it is not personal, in that it is attached, not to the private person, but to the primacy which he alone possesses.
'2. It is also independent, inasmuch as it does not depend upon either the Ecclesia docens or the Ecclesia discens; but it is not independent, in that it depends in all things upon the divine head of the Church, upon the institution of the primacy by him, and upon the assistance of the Holy Ghost.
'3. It is absolute, inasmuch as it can be circumscribed by no human or ecclesiastical law; it is not absolute, in that it is circumscribed by the office of guarding, expounding, and defending the deposit of revelation.
'4. It is separate in no sense, nor can be, nor can be so called, without manifold heresy, unless the word be taken to mean distinct. In this sense, the Roman Pontiff is distinct from the Episcopate, and is a distinct subject of infallibility; and in the exercise of his supreme doctrinal authority, or magisterium, he does not depend for the infallibility of his definitions upon the consent or consultation of the Episcopate, but only on the divine assistance of the Holy Ghost.'
[326] The Synod of Jerusalem, composed of Apostles, Elders, and Brethren, and legislating in favor of Christian liberty, differs very widely from a purely hierarchical Council, which excludes Elders and Brethren, and imposes new burdens upon the conscience.
[327] It is remarkable that Christ always uses paradosis in an unfavorable sense: see Matt. xv. 2, 3, 6; Mark vii. 3, 5, 8, 9, 13. So also Paul: Gal. i. 14; Col. ii. 8; while in 1 Cor. xi. 2, and 2 Thess. ii. 15; iii. 6, he uses the term in a good sense, as identical with the gospel he preached.
[328] I add here what Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, says on the Papal theory of Infallibility (Systematic Theology, New York, 1872, Vol. I. pp. 130, 150): 'There is something simple and grand in this theory. It is wonderfully adapted to the tastes and wants of men. It relieves them of personal responsibility. Every thing is decided for them. Their salvation is secured by merely submitting to be saved by an infallible, sin-pardoning, and grace-imparting Church. Many may be inclined to think that it would have been a great blessing had Christ left on earth a visible representative of himself, clothed with his authority to teach and govern, and an order of men dispersed through the world endowed with the gifts of the original Apostles--men every where accessible, to whom we could resort in all times of difficulty and doubt, and whose decisions could be safely received as the decisions of Christ himself. God's thoughts, however, are not as our thoughts. We know that when Christ was on earth men did not believe or obey him. We know that when the Apostles were still living, and their authority was still confirmed by signs, and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, the Church was distracted by heresies and schisms. If any in their sluggishness are disposed to think that a perpetual body of infallible teachers would be a blessing, all must admit that the assumption of infallibility by the ignorant, the erring, and the wicked, must be an evil inconceivably great. The Romish theory, if true, might be a blessing; if false, it must be an awful curse. That it is false may be demonstrated to the satisfaction of all who do not wish it to be true, and who, unlike the Oxford tractarian, are not determined to believe it because they love it. . . . If the Church be infallible, its authority is no less absolute in the sphere of social and political life. It is immoral to contract or to continue an unlawful marriage, to keep an unlawful oath, to enact unjust laws, to obey a sovereign hostile to the Church. The Church, therefore, has the right to dissolve marriages, to free men from the obligations of their oaths, and citizens from their allegiance, to abrogate civil laws, and to depose sovereigns. These prerogatives have not only been claimed, but time and again exercised by the Church of Rome. They all of right belong to that Church, if it be infallible. As these claims are enforced by penalties involving the loss of the soul, they can not be resisted by those who admit the Church to be infallible. It is obvious, therefore, that where this doctrine is held there can be no liberty of opinion, no freedom of conscience, no civil or political freedom. As the recent oecumenical Council of the Vatican has decided that this infallibility is vested in the Pope, it is henceforth a matter of faith with Romanists, that the Roman Pontiff is the absolute sovereign of the world. All men are bound, on the penalty of eternal death, to believe what he declares to be true, and to do whatever he decides is obligatory.'