Thomas Allies - The Church of England cleared from the charge of Schism

Considering all the circumstances of the case, no one can wonder at St. Jerome's application. When it is remembered that the Roman See, up to that time, had been free from all suspicion of heresy, and that the Arian controversy was the one in question, and that he himself, of full manhood, had been baptized, and had lived at Rome, the force of his language is hardly surprising. His words certainly prove, what, I suppose, no student of antiquity can doubt, the Primacy of the Roman See: but could there be a greater unfairness than to apply their bare letter to a state of things totally changed? or to consider expressions proving the primacy of Rome, as claimed in the fourth century, to prove equally a supremacy as claimed in the nineteenth, which is as different from the former as one thing can well be from another. This very St. Meletius, a man of pre-eminent sanctity of life, the ordainer of St. Chrysostom, dies, it would appear, out of communion with Rome, and has ever been accounted a saint in the Western as well as in the Eastern Church.

But to recur to the point of jurisdiction at the time of the Nicene Council. It is beyond question, both from the acts of that Council, and from the Apostolic Canons, which represent the Eastern Church in the second and third centuries, that, whatever the pre-eminence of Rome might consist in, there was no claim whatever to confer jurisdiction on Bishops out of the Roman Patriarchate, then comprising Italy, south of Milan, and Sicily. Even differences, any where arising, were to be settled in Provincial Councils. "It is necessary to know, that, up to the Council of Nicea, all ecclesiastical affairs had been terminated in the Councils of each Province; and there had been but very few occasions in which it had been necessary to convoke an assembly of several Provinces. The Council of Nicea, even, only speaks of Provincial Councils, and orders that all things should be settled therein." 14 14 Thomassin, Part i. liv. i. ch. iii. The testimony and conduct of St. Cyprian will illustrate the Roman Primacy, to which Mr. Newman claims him as a witness. And such he is beyond doubt. In his fifty-fifth letter, which begins, "Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting;" he complains bitterly to that Pope that Felicissimus and his party "dare to set sail, and to carry a letter from schismatical and profane persons to the see of Peter, and to the principal Church, whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise; nor consider that they are the Romans whose faith had been praised by the preaching of the Apostle, to whom faithlessness can have no access." This Mr. Newman considers a pretty strong testimony in his "cumulative argument" for the authority of Rome. It would be as well, however, to go on a little further, and see what was the cause of St. Cyprian's vehement indignation. It was, that Felicissimus ventured to appeal to Pope Cornelius , when his cause had already been heard and settled by St. Cyprian, at Carthage. "But what was the cause of their coming and announcing that a Pseudo-Bishop had been made against the Bishops? For, either they are satisfied with what they have done, and persevere in their crime, or, if they are dissatisfied, and give way, they know whither they may return. For, since it has been determined by all of us, and is both equitable and just, that the cause of every one be heard there where the crime has been committed, and to every shepherd a portion of the flock is allotted, which each one rules and governs, as he is to give an account of his doings to the Lord , it is certainly behoving that those over whom we preside should not run about, nor break the close harmony of Bishops with their deceitful and fallacious rashness, but should plead their cause where they may find both accusers and witnesses of their crime; unless to a few desperate and abandoned men the authority of the Bishops seated in Africa seem less , who have already judged concerning them, and have lately condemned, by the weight of their sentence, their conscience, bound by many snares of crimes. Their cause has been already heard, their sentence already pronounced; nor is it becoming to the judgment of priests to be reprehended by the levity of a fickle and inconstant mind, when the Lord teaches and says, 'Let your conversation be yea, yea; nay, nay.'" Let any candid person say, whether he who so wrote to one whom he acknowledged as the successor of St. Peter, could have imagined that there was a Divine right in that successor to re-hear not only this, but all other causes; to reverse all previous judgments of his Brethren by his single authority; nay, more, to confer on all those Brethren their jurisdiction "by the grace of the Apostolic See." 15 15 Of a passage in this letter, De Maistre says (Du Pape, liv. i. ch. 6): "Resuming the order of the most marked testimonies which present themselves to me on the general question, I find, first, St. Cyprian declare, in the middle of the third century, that heresies and schisms only existed in the Church because all eyes were not turned towards the Priest of God, towards the Pontiff who judges in the Church in the place of Jesus Christ ." A pretty strong testimony, indeed, and one which would go far to convince me of the fact. Pity it is, that when one refers to the original, one finds that St. Cyprian is actually speaking of himself, and of the consequences of any where setting up in a see a schismatical Bishop against the true one. After this, who will trust De Maistre's facts without testing them? The truth is, he had taken the quotation at second hand, and never looked to see to whom it was applied. It suited the Pope so admirably that it must have been meant for him. But I recommend no one to change their faith upon the authority of quotations which they do not test.

Another letter of St. Cyprian to another Pope, St. Stephen, will set forth both his view of the Primacy, and of the Episcopal relation to it. He wishes St. Stephen to write a letter to the people of Arles, by which their actual Bishop Marcian, who had joined himself to the schismatic Novatian, might be excommunicated, and another substituted for him. This alone shows how great the authority of the Bishop of Rome in such an emergency was. But the tone of his language is worth considering. It is just such incidents as these which are made use of by Roman Catholic controversialists in late times to justify the full extent of Papal power now claimed. 16 16 Epist. 67. De Marciano Arelatensi. "Cyprian to his brother Stephen, greeting. Faustinus, our colleague at Lyons, dearest brother, hath more than once written to me, signifying what I know has certainly been reported to you also, both by him, and by the rest of our brother-Bishops, in that province, that Marcian of Arles, has joined himself to Novatian, and has departed from the unity of the Catholic Church, and from the agreement of our body and priesthood… This matter it is our duty to provide against and remedy, most dear brother, we, who considering the Divine clemency, and holding the balance of the Church's government, so exhibit to sinners our vigorous censure as not to deny the medicine of Divine goodness and mercy to the restoration of the fallen and the healing of the wounded. Wherefore it behoves you to write a very explicit letter to our fellow Bishops in the Gauls, that they may not any longer suffer our order ( collegio nostro ) to be insulted by Marcian, obstinate, haughty, the enemy both of piety to God, and of his brethren's salvation… For, therefore, most dear brother, is the numerous body of priests joined together in mutual concord, and the bond of unity, that if any one of our order attempt to make a heresy, and to sever and lay waste the flock of Christ, the rest may fly to the rescue, and, like useful and merciful shepherds, collect the Lord's sheep into a flock… For, although we are many shepherds, yet we feed one flock; and we ought to collect and cherish all those sheep which Christ sought with His own blood and passion… For we must preserve the glorious honour of our predecessors , the blessed Martyrs, Cornelius and Lucius," (the last Popes,) "whose memory we indeed honour, but which you much more, most dear brother, who are become their successor, ought to distinguish and preserve by your weight and authority. For they being full of the spirit of God, and made glorious martyrs, determined that reconciliation was to be granted to the lapsed, and set down in their letters, that, after a course of penitence, the advantage of communion and peace was not to be refused them. Which thing we all have everywhere entirely determined. For there could not be in us a difference of judgment in whom there is One Spirit." Now, might it not be stated, that St. Cyprian wrote to Pope Stephen, to request him to depose Marcian, Bishop of Arles? But how much is the inference from this fact modified by the language of Cyprian himself? It is just such a letter as an Eastern Primate would have written to the Patriarch of Alexandria, or of Antioch, to request his interference at a dangerous juncture. It bears witness, not to the present Papal, but to the Patriarchal, system. It tallies exactly with the spirit of him who wrote elsewhere, to the lapsed, "Our Lord, whose precepts and warnings we are bound to observe, regulating the honour of the Bishop, and the constitution of his Church, speaks in the Gospel, and says to Peter, 'I say unto thee that thou art Peter,' &c. Thence, according to the change of times and successions, the ordination of Bishops and the constitution of the Church has descended, so that the Church is established upon the Bishops, and every act of the Church is directed by the same, its governors . This being established by Divine law," 17 17 S. Cyp. Ep. 29. &c. It is evident that, if the see of Peter, so often referred to by St. Cyprian, means the local see of Rome, it also means the see of every Bishop who holds that office, whereof Peter is the great type, example, and source.