04034.2 - Papal Infallibility Explained - 2

§34.2. Papal Infallibility Explained, and Tested by Tradition and Scripture - Part 2.

Papal Infallibility and the Bible. The Old Testament gives no tangible aid to the Infallibilists. The Jewish Church existed as a divine institution, and served all its purposes, from Abraham to John the Baptist, without an infallible tribunal in Jerusalem, save the written law and testimony, made effective from time to time by the living voice of inspired prophecy. Pious Israelites found in the Scriptures the way of life, notwithstanding the contradictory interpretations of rabbinical schools and carnal perversions of Messianic prophecies, fostered by a corrupt hierarchy. The Urim and Thummim [SeeNote #349] of the High-Priest has no doubt symbolical reference to some kind of spiritual illumination or oracular consultation, but it is of too uncertain interpretation to furnish an argument. The passages of the New Testament which are used by Roman divines in support of the doctrine of Infallibility may be divided into two classes: those which seem to favor the Episcopal or Gallican, and those which are made to prove the Papal or Ultramontane theory. It is characteristic that the Papal Infallibilists carefully avoid the former.

1. To the first class belong John 14:16 sq.; John 16:13-16, where Christ promises the Holy Ghost to his disciples that he may ’abide with them forever,’ teach them ’all things,’ bring to their remembrance all he had said to them, [SeeNote #350] and guide them ’into the whole truth;’ [SeeNote #351]John 20:21: ’As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you. . . . Receive ye the Holy Ghost;’ [SeeNote #352]Matthew 18:18: ’Whatever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,’ etc.;Matthew 28:19-20; ’Go and disciple all nations . . . and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’

These passages, which are addressed to all Apostles alike, to doubting Thomas as well as to Peter, prove indeed the unbroken presence of Christ and the Holy Ghost in the Church to the end of time, which is one of the most precious and glorious truths admitted by every true Christian. But, in the first place, the Church, which is here represented by the Apostles, embraces all true believers, laymen as well as Bishops. Secondly, the promise of Christ’s presence implies no infallibility, for the same promise is given even to the smallest number of true believers (Matthew 18:20). Thirdly, if the passages prove infallibility at all, they would prove individual infallibility by continued inspiration rather than corporate infallibility by official succession; for every Apostle was inspired, and so far infallible; and this no Roman Catholic Bishop, though claiming to be a successor of the Apostles, pretends to be.

2. The passages quoted by the advocates of the Papal theory are three, viz., Luke 22:31;Matthew 16:18;John 21:15. [SeeNote #353]

We admit, at the outset, that these passages in their obvious meaning which is confirmed by the history of the Apostolic Church, assign to Peter a certain primacy among the Apostles: he was the leader and spokesman of them, and the chief agent of Christ in laying the foundations of his Church among the Jews and the Gentiles. This is significantly prophesied in the new name of Peter given to him. The history of Pentecost (Acts ii.) and the conversion of Cornelius (Acts x.) are the fulfillment of this prophecy, and furnish the key to the interpretation of the passages in the Gospels. This is the truth which underlies the colossal lie of the Papacy. For there is no Romish error which does not derive its life and force from some truth. [SeeNote #354] But beyond this we have no right to go. The position which Peter occupied no one can occupy after him. The foundation of the Church, once laid, is laid for all time to come, and the gates of Hades can not prevail against it. The New Testament is its own best interpreter. It shows no single example of an exercise of jurisdiction of Peter over the other Apostles, but the very reverse. He himself, in his Epistles, disowns and prophetically warns his fellow-presbyters against the hierarchical spirit; exhorting them, instead of being lords over God’s heritage, to be ensamples to his flock (1 Peter 5:1-4). Paul and John were perfectly independent of him, as the Acts and Epistles prove. Paul even openly administered to him a rebuke at Antioch. [SeeNote #355] At the Council of Jerusalem James seems to have presided, at all events he proposed the compromise which was adopted by the Apostles, Elders, and Brethren; Peter was indeed one of the leading speakers, but he significantly advocated the truly evangelical principle of salvation by faith alone, and protested against human bondage (Acts xv.; comp. Gal. ii.). The great error of the Papacy is that it perverts a primacy of honor into a supremacy of jurisdiction, a personal privilege into an official prerogative, and a priority of time into a permanent superiority of rank. And to make the above passages at all available for such purpose, it must take for granted, as intervening links of the argument, that which can not be proved from the New Testament nor from history, viz., that Peter was Bishop of Rome; that he was there as Paul’s superior; that he appointed a successor, and transferred to him his prerogatives. As to the passages separately considered, Matthew 16:1-28, ’Thou art rock,’ and John 21:1-25, ’Feed my flock,’ could at best only prove Papal absolutism, but not Papal Infallibility, of which they do not treat. [SeeNote #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 Mat. 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. [SeeNote #357] But not one of the Fathers finds Papal Infallibility in this passage, nor in John 21:1-25 : 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. [See Note #358 ]

There remains, then, only the passage recorded by Luke (Luke 22:31-32) 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 1. 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. [SeeNote #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. .]

Note #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 Joh. 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.

Note #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.

Note #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.

Note #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.’

Note #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.

Note #327

It is remarkable that Christ always uses paradosisin an unfavorable sense: see Matthew 15:2-3;Matthew 15:6; Mark 7:3; Mark 7:5; Mark 7:8-9; Mark 7:13. So also Paul: Galatians 1:14; Colossians 2:8; while in 1 Corinthians 11:2, and 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, he uses the term in a good sense, as identical with the gospel he preached.

Note #328

I add here what Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, says on the Papal theory of Infallibility (Systematic Theology, New York, 1872, Vol. 1. 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 œcumenical 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.’

Note #329

Archbishop Manning (III. p. 118) speaks of history as ’a wilderness without guide or path,’ and says: ’Whensoever any doctrine is contained in the divine revelation of the Church’ [the very point which can not be proved in the case before us], ’all difficulties from human history are excluded, as Tertullian lays down, by prescription. The only source of revealed truth is God; the only channel of his revelation is the Church. No human history can declare what is contained in that revelation. The Church alone can determine its limits, and therefore its contents.’

Note #330 This Archbishop Kenrick, in his Concio, frankly admits: ’Ireni, Tertulliani, Augustini, Vincentii Lirinensis exempla secutus, fidei Catholicæ probationes ex traditione potius quam ex Scripturarum interpretatione quærendas duxi; quæ interpretatio, juxta Tertullianum magis apta est ad veritatem obumbitandum quam demonstrandum. ’

Note #331

’Die ganze Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends der Kirche wäre eine andere gewesen, wenn in dem Bischof von Rom das Bewusstsein, in der Kirche auch nur eine Ahnung davon gewesen wäre, dass dort ein Quell unfehlbarer Wahrheit fliesse. Statt all der bittern, verstörenden Kämpfe gegen wirkliche oder vermeintliche Häretiker, gegen die man Bücher schrieb und Synoden aller Art versammelte, würden alle Wohlmeinende sich auf den unfehlbaren Spruch des Papstes berufen haben, und mehr als einst das Orakel des Apollo zu Delphi würde das zu Rom befragt worden sein. Dagegen war es in jenen Jahrhunderten, als alles Christenthum auf die Spitze eines Dogmas gestellt wurde, nichts unerhörtes, dass auch ein Papst vor der subtilen Bestimmung des siegenden Dogma zum Häretiker wurde. ’ Hase, Polemik, Buch 1. c.iv. p. 161.

Note #332 Or in a modified form: ’Causa finita est, utinam aliquando finiatur error! ’ Serm. 131, 100. 10. See Janus, Rauscher, von Schulte versus Cardoni and Hergenröther, quoted by Frommann, p. 424.

Note #333 As well as some other of his sententious sayings. His explanation of coge intrare was made to justify religious persecutions, from which his heart would have shrunk in horror.

Note #334 The passages of Gregory on this subject are well known to every scholar. And yet the Vatican decree, in ch. iii., by omitting the principal part, makes him say almost the very opposite.

Note #335

Decret .Gratian. Dist. Matthew 100. 6, in conformity with the sentence of Hadrian II.: ’Cunctos ipsos judicaturus [Papa ], a nemine est judicandus , nisi deprehendatur a fide devius .’ See on this point especially von Schulte, Concilien , pp. 188 sqq.

Note #336

Serm. II. de consecrat. Pontificis: ’In tantum mihi fides necessaria est, cum de cæteris peccatis Deum judicem habeam, ut propter solum peccatum quod in fidem committitur, possim ab Ecclesia judicari.’

Note #337

See examples under this head in Janus, pp. 54 sqq. (Irrthümer and Widersprüche der Päpste ), p. 51 of the London ed.

Note #338

Or, as Perrone, himself an Infallibilist, who in his Dogmatic Theology characteristically treats of the Pope before the Holy Scriptures and tradition, puts it: ’Si vel unicus ejusmodi error deprehenderetur, appareret omnes adductas probationes in nihilum redactum iri. ’

Note #339

Honorius prescribed the technical term of the Monothelites as a dogma to the Church (dogma ecclesiasticum ). In a reply to the Monothelite Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, which is still extant in Greek and Latin (Mansi, Coll. Concil. Tom. XI. pp. 538 sqq.), he approves of his heretical view, and says as clearly as words can make it: ’Therefore we confess also one will (hen thelçma) of our Lord Jesus Christ, since the Godhead has assumed our nature, but not our guilt.’ In a second letter to Sergius, of which we have two fragments (Mansi, l.c. p. 579), Honorius rejects the orthodox term two energies (duo energeiai,duæ operationes ), which is used alongside with two wills (duo thelçmata,voluntates ). Christ, he reasons, assumed human nature as it was before the fall, when it had not a law in the members which resists the law of the Spirit. He knew only a sinful human will. The Catholic Church rejects Monothelitism, or the doctrine of one will of Christ, as involving or necessarily leading to Monophysitism, i.e., the doctrine that Christ had but one nature; for will is an attribute of nature, not of the person. The Godhead has three persons, but only one nature, and only one will. Christ has two wills, because he has two natures. The compromise formula of Emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople endeavored to reconcile the Monophysites with the orthodox Church by teaching that Christ had two natures, but only one will and one energy.

Note #340

Sessio XVI.: ’Sergio hæretico anathema, Cyro hæretico anathema, Honorio hæretico anathema. ’ ... Sessio XVIII.: ’Honorius, qui fuit Papa antiquæ Romæ . . . non vacavit . . . Ecelesiæ erroris scandalum suscitare unius voluntatis, et unius operationis in duabus naturis unius Christi,’ etc. See Mansi,Conc.Tom. XI. pp. 622, 635, 655, 666.

Note #341

’Quia pravis hæreticorum assertionibus fomentum impendit. ’ This Papal oath was probably prescribed by Gregory II. (at the beginning of the eighth century), and is found in theLiber Diurnus(the book of formularies of the Roman chancery from the fifth to the eleventh century), edited by Eugène de Rozière, Paris, 1869, No. 84. TheLiber Pontificalisagrees with theLiber Diurnus. Editions of the Roman Breviary down to the sixteenth century reiterated the charge against Honorius, since silently dropped.

Note #342

’ Nec non et Honorium [anathematizamus ], qui hanc apostolicam ecclesiam non apostolicæ traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est. ’ Mansi, Tom. XI. p. 731.

Note #343

’Cum Honorio, qui flammam hæeretici dogmatis, non ut decuit apostolicam auctoritatem, incipientem extinxit, sed negligendo confovit. ’ Mansi, p. 1052.

Note #344

Comp. especially the tract of Bishop Hefele, above quoted. The learned author of the History of the Councils has proved the case as conclusively as a mathematical demonstration.

Note #345 So Perrone, in his Dogmatics, and Pennachi, in his Liber de Honorii 1. Rom. Pont. causa, 1870, which is effectually disposed of by Hefele in an Appendix to the German edition of his tract. Nevertheless, Archbishop Manning, sublimely ignoring all but Infallibilist authorities on Honorius, has the face to assert (III. p. 223) that the case of Honorius is doubtful; that he defined no doctrine whatever; and that his two epistles are entirely orthodox! Is Manning more infallible than the infallible Pope Leo II., who denounced Honorius ex cathedra as a heretic?

Note #346 See my Church History, Vol. 1. §69, p. 219, and the tract of Lutterbeck above quoted.

Note #347 The third anti-Pope, Gregory XII., resigned.

Note #348 So Overberg’s Katechismus, III. Hauptstück, Fr. 349: ’Müssen wir auch glauben, dass der Papst unfehlbar ist? Nein, dies ist kein Glaubensartikel. ’ Keenan’s Controversial Catechism, in the editions before 1871, declared Papal Infallibility to be ’a Protestant invention.’ The Irish Bishops-Doyle, Murray, Kelly-affirmed under oath, before a Committee of the English Parliament in 1825, that the Papal authority is limited by Councils, that it does not extend to civil affairs and the temporal rights of princes, and that Papal decrees are not binding on Catholics without the consent of the whole Church, either dispersed or assembled in Council. See the original in the Appendix to Archbishop Kenrick’s Concio in Friedrich’s Documenta, 1. pp. 228-242. But the Irish Catholics, who almost believe in the infallibility of their priests, can be very easily taught to believe in the infallibility of the Pope.

Note #349 That is, dçlôsis kai alçtheia,doctrina et veritas,Exodus_28 15-30; Deuteronomy 33:8-9; 1 Samuel 28:6. The Urim and Thummim were inscribed on the garment of Aaron. Some interpreters identify them with the twelve stones on which the names of the tribes of Israel were engraved; others regard them as a plate of gold with the sacred name of Jehovah; still others as polished diamonds, in form like dice, which, being thrown on the table or Ark of the Covenant, were consulted as an oracle. See the able article of Plumptre, in Smith’sBible Dictionary,Vol. IV. pp. 3356 sqq. (Am. ed.).

Note #350 The pantaimplies a strong argument for the completeness of Christ’s revelation in the New Testament against the Romish doctrine of addition.

Note #351 The phrase eis tçn alçtheian pasan(John 16:13), or, according to another reading,en tç alçtheia pasç(test. rec.eis pasan tçn alçtheian), expresses the truth as taught by Christ in its completeness-thewholetruth-and proves likewise the sufficiency of the Scriptures. The A.V. and its predecessors (’into all truth’), also Luther (in alle Wahrheit,instead ofdie ganzeorvolle Wahrheit), miss the true sense by omitting the article, and conveying the false idea that the Holy Ghost would impart to all the apostles a kind of omniscience. Comp. my annotations to Lange’sJohnon the passages (pp. 445, 478, etc.).

Note #352

Literally: ’Receive Holy Spirit’-labete pneuma hagion.The absence of the article may indicate a partial or preparatory inspiration as distinct from the full Pentecostal effusion.

Note #353 Perrone and the Vatican decree on Infallibility confine themselves to these passages.

Note #354 Augustine says somewhere: ’Nulla falsa doctrina est, quæ non aliquid veri permisceat. ’

Note #355 This fact is so obnoxious to Papists that some of them doubt or deny that the Cephas of Galatians 2:11 was the Apostle Peter, although the New Testament knows no other. So Perrone, who also asserts, from his own preconceived theory, not from the text, that Paul withstood Peter from respectful love as an inferior to a superior, but not as a superior to an inferior! Let any Bishop try the same experiment against the Pope, and he will soon be sent to perdition.

Note #356 For a full discussion of Petrosand petra,see my edition of Lange’s Comm. onMatthew 16:18, pp. 203 sqq.; and on the Romish perversion of the boskeinand poimainein ta arnia, probataand probatiainto a katakureiuein,and even withdrawal of nourishment, see my ed. of Lange on John, pp. 638 sqq.

Note #357 This patristic dissensus was brought out during the Council in the Questio distributed by Bishop Ketteler with all the proofs; see Friedrich, Docum. I. pp. 6 sqq. Kenrick in his speech makes use of it. Comp. also my annotations to Lange’s Comm. on Matthew in loco.

Note #358

Even Kenrick confesses that it is doubtful whether any instance of that unanimous consent can be found (in his Concio, see Friedr. Docum.1. p.195): ’Regula interpetrandi Scripturas nobis imposita, hæc est: eas contra unanimem Patrum consensum non interpetrari. Si unquam detur consensus iste unanimis dubitari possit.Eo tamen deficiente, regula ista videtur nobis legem imponere majorem, qui ad unanimitatem accedere videretur, patrum numerum, in suis Scripturæ interpretationibus sequendi.’

Note #359 This logical inference is also noticed by Archbishop Kenrick (Concio, in Friedrich’s Docum. 1. p. 200): ’Præterea singula verba in ista Christi ad Petrum allocutione de Petri successoribus intelligi nequeunt, quin aliquid maxime absurdi exinde sequi videretur. "Tu autem conversus, " respiciunt certe conversionem Petri. Si priora verba ; "orari pro te ," et posteriora : "confirma fratres tuos, " ad successores Petri cœlestem vim, et munus transiisse probent, non videtur quarenam intermedia verba : "tu autem conversus ," ad eos etiam pertinere, et aliquali sensu de eis intelligi, non debeant. ’