THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ganization of the church at large took shape in the papal monarchy; the further history ol Catholicism and its idea of the church is really a history of the Roman primacy (see Pope, Papacy, and Papal System). Irena;us had placed the Roman church, as founded by Peter and Paul, in the forefront of his appeal to apostolic succession and tradition, finding in it the preeminent survival of primitive
leadership, and on this ground requir- 2. Western jj^g from the other churches agreement Govern^ ^^'^'^ "^^^ purely historical basis mental " deference to Rome developed into
dogmatic insistence on the supremacy and infallibility of the church founded by Peter; just as Cyprian's view of the unity of the church as represented by and summed up in Peter and the authority given to him grew into the assumption and the dogma that this unity must have its permanent A'isible representatives in the successors of Peter, each of whom becomes the visible head of the church, the representative of Christ. Pope Leo I. claimed for his see the " cure of the church universal," making it the head of the body from which the other members can not be separated and live. Though he thought of discipline and polity, not of the communication of grace or of the establishment of doctrine, his statements are strong enough to afford a basis for all the later claims of the papacy. It found powerful support in the recognition of its primacy by the emperors (cf. especially an edict of Valentinian in 445), and in the political position of Rome, while the German emperors in their day built up their whole ecclesiastical fabric on the assumption of subordination to one central authority. The process was a logical continuation of the impulse which had early endeavored to bring Christianity to expression and to a firm position in the world by a solid constitutional organization. Moreover, the medieval nations, both Latin and Teutonic, had a marked craving for a representation of the di\dne and the heavenly by visible and tangible things — of the one heavenly Lord by the one Roman vicegerent, the crucified Savior by the host in the mass, the blessings of salvation by the sacraments. In its way the papacy did indeed, in its greatest representatives, a Gregory VII. or an Innocent III., accomplish much to fulfil this ideal. They held the church together amid all the wild tumults of the life of their day; they protected true moral and religious interests against the invasion of the world, and they stood for the maintenance of ethical discipline — though it is also true that they identified these interests with their own claims, that human ambition and avarice was not always excluded from their acts, and that finally the eternal commandments of God were subordinated to human decisions.
The high papal conception of the church's constitution was not yet, however, a dogma sanctioned by a formal decision on the part of the church. Against its prevalence were not only the secular power (which endeavored to reverse the process and subject the church to itself) and the national spirit on which that power could rely (as m France against Boniface VIII.), but also the consciousness on the part of the bishops of the meaning of their office
and " Episcopal " Systems.
and a recollection of the earlier history of the church; while the inequalities of papal character and the great schism tended to stir up a spirit of protest and rebellion. Thus the so-called 3. "Papal" << episcopal system" ( see Episcopacy) was worked out mainly by French theologians, such as Gerson and D'Ailly, and represented in the great councils, where the theory was heard of a " imiversal catholic church " distinct from the Roman. The latter, consisting of pope, cardinals, bishops, and clergy, might err, and was subject to the authority of general councils, which represented not only the classes named, but also all true members of the body of Christ, and in which Christian princes and delegates of the universities were to have a voice.
But the papal theory raised its head once more when the councils had succeeded in restoring unity, and dominated the Lateran Council under Leo X. The Thomist Sylvester Prierias (q.v.) maintained against Luther the proposition " The Church universal is essentially the assembly of all believers, practically the Roman Church and the pope ; representatively the Roman Church is the college of cardinals, practically it is the pope." Of this view the Jesuits were the principal upholders. Bellarmine maintained against the Protestants the definition of the church as " the company of men bound together by confession of the same Christian faith under the rule of legitimate pastors and especially of the one vicar of Christ on earth." The Council of Trent did not venture to make an outspoken decision between the papal and episcopal theories; and such a decision was expressed only after the latter had repeatedly tried to enforce its claims (see Gallicanism; Ems, Congress of; Jansenist Church), in the Vatican Council of 1870.
IV. Protestant Doctrine of the Church: The first medieval Christian body which, while holding fast to the general Christian faith, abandoned that doctrine of the church sketched above was the Waldenses. They considered themselves members of the church of Christ and partakers of his salvation, in spite of their exclusion from organized Christendom, recognizing at the same time a " church of Christ " within the organization whose heads were hostile to them. There is not, however, in their teaching any clear definition of the nature of the church or any new principle in reference to it. The first theologian to bring forward a conception of the church radically opposed to that which had been developing was Wyclif; and Huss followed him in it. According to him the church is the " totafity of the predestinated"; ^' there, as in his doctrine of grace, he
followed Augustine, but took a standpoint contrary as well to Augustine's as to that of later Catholicism in his account of the institutions and means of grace by which God communicates the blessings of salvation to the predestined, excluding from them the pohty of priest, bishop, and pope. He denied the divine institution both of |iapal primary and of the episcopate as distinct from the preshyterate, and attributed infallible authority to the Scriptures alone.
Teaching.