St. Peter, His Name and His Office Part 18

What, then, was the motive of Anglicans, in maintaining the unity of particular churches, and the inst.i.tution of bishops cohering with it, to be necessary, while they denied the necessity of unity in the Church universal, or of a Primate's inst.i.tution, to effect universal unity? What induced them to a.s.sert incompatibilities, and defend them as a matter of life and death? The evidence of the Scriptures, and the unquestionable belief of all Christian antiquity, extorted from them the acknowledgment that unity was a mark of the Church, and the ascription to Christ of the inst.i.tution of bishops as necessary for the forming and maintaining unity. _But the fixed purpose of defending their schism, and their determination to reject the Primacy, urged them to deny that unity in the whole Church was ordered and provided for by Christ._ The result of these affirmatives and negatives was a doctrinal[59] monster of incomparable ugliness, an outrage on the light both of nature and of revelation, as incapable of defence, as abhorrent from reason and from grace.

B. The second Protestant opinion has been set forth at length by[60]

Vitringa, and supported with all his ingenuity. It is that of those who distinguish a two-fold unity of the Church, one interior, spiritual, proceeding from union with one and the same invisible Head, Jesus Christ, and completed and perfected by the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit, and the bestowal of heavenly gifts; the other exterior, visible, depending on profession of the same faith, partic.i.p.ation of the same sacraments, obedience to the same superiors. Having made this distinction, they proceed to argue for the purpose of proving that while the former unity is universal, and absolutely necessary, the latter is neither universal nor necessary, save hypothetically, (of which hypothesis Vitringa nowhere explains the nature,) and so is capable both of extension and restriction. In a word, they attach simple and absolute necessity and universality to the spiritual and invisible unity, but by no means to the external and visible.

But for this what are their authorities? Can they allege the most ancient Fathers in unbroken succession from the Apostles? Nay, they candidly confess that the Fathers thought external and visible unity simply and absolutely necessary, and not those only of the fourth and fifth century, but those of the second and third. Witness Vitringa,[61] who says, "If we consult on this point the doctors of the ancient Christian Church, they seem on all hands to have embraced the view that the communion of believers in holy rites, in the supper of the Lord, and in reciprocal offices of brotherly love, was maintained absolutely, not hypothetically. They supposed, and seem to have persuaded themselves, that all who were joined to the Christian Church by the due rite of baptism after previous preparation, were really regenerated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and so that the Christian Church was an a.s.sembly of men, who in far greater part, saving hypocrites, of whom a few might exist in secret, partic.i.p.ated in the renewing and sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, to be joined to the Church was much the same as being joined to the heavenly city. To have one's name on the Church's books, much the same as to have it in G.o.d's book of life. On the other hand, to be severed from Church communion, or to use Tertullian's words, "to be deprived of the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, and to be debarred from all brotherly communion," was to risk salvation, and incur the danger of eternal death. That is, they supposed that no one was saved out of the external communion of the Church, which they confounded with the mystical and spiritual communion of the Saints. And again, kindred points to these, and resting on the same principle, that bishops represent the office and person of Jesus Christ Himself in the Christian Church; that those who separated themselves from them when rightly and duly elected, separated themselves at the same time from the communion of Christ Himself. That those who were absolved by the bishops after penance publicly performed according to the canons of ecclesiastical discipline, restored to their rank, and honoured with the kiss of peace, were absolved in the heavenly court by G.o.d Himself, and Christ the Judge. Lastly, which was the most[62]

_audacious_ of all such hypotheses, that it was all over with the salvation of all who separated themselves in schism from the external communion of the Church and its rites, although hitherto they had neither been tainted with heresy, nor involved in crimes destructive of the Christian[63] profession. It would be easy for me to support at length each one of these particulars by the sentiments and the discipline of the doctors of the primitive Church, were they unknown to the more instructed, or did my purpose allow it. I now only appeal to Cyprian's letter to Magnus, in the whole of which He supposes and urges the very hypotheses which I have been enumerating; and amongst the rest, speaking of Novatian's schism, he writes thus distinctly: "But if there is one Church, which is beloved by Christ, and alone is cleansed in His laver, how can he who is not in the Church," (that is, in communion with that particular external a.s.sembly which makes a part of the external Catholic Church,) "be loved by Christ, or washed and cleansed in His laver? Wherefore as the Church alone possesses the water of life, and the power of baptizing and washing a man, let him who a.s.serts that any one can be baptized and sanctified with Novatian, first show and teach that Novatian is in the Church, or [64]_presides over the Church_. For the Church is one, which, being one, cannot be at once within and without. For if it is with Novatian, it was not with Cornelius. But if it was with Cornelius, who succeeded the Bishop Fabian in regular order, and whom the Lord hath glorified with martyrdom over and above the rank of his high priesthood, Novatian is not in the Church."[65] It is the precise thing which we have been stating."

But where did Vitringa and the supporters of his doctrine get courage to contradict the whole line of Fathers and their unbroken tradition? You would surely expect from them decisive arguments, and expressions from Holy Writ distinctly laying down no other than a _hypothetical_ necessity of visible and external unity. But you may search in vain all over the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Acts, for any such. Not only is there no mention in them of such a distinction as that invisible unity is absolutely necessary, while external and visible unity is but hypothetically so, but this latter is plainly enjoined and set forth as the note which the mystical body of Christ, the true Church, cannot be without; and its violation is reckoned among those works of the flesh which exclude from the kingdom of G.o.d.

How, besides, can that be deemed necessary only under hypothesis, without holding and faithfully maintaining which you cut yourself off from the very fountain of blessing, and transgress and subvert the order appointed by G.o.d for attaining salvation? Such an a.s.sertion would be senseless. Yet in most of the Protestant confessions,--the Helvetic, art. xiv., the Galliean, art. xvi., the Scotch, art. xxvii., the Belgian, art. xxviii., the Saxon, art.

xii., the Bohemian, art. viii., and that of the Remonstrants, art.

xxii.,--it is laid down as an indisputable principle, "That the heirs of eternal life are only to be found in the a.s.sembly of those called." What then do those who violate outward and visible unity, and withdraw from the outward and visible body of the Church? They stop up the very way which Providence has opened for their obtaining "the inheritance of sons."

For indeed Christ is the Saviour, but of His mystical body, which[66] is the Church, which therefore He purchased with His own blood, joined to Himself by that closest bond of being His spouse, enriched with promises,[67] provided with all manner of graces, and most n.o.bly dowered with[68] truth, charity, and the Holy Spirit, to give her at last salvation, and[69] "the weight of eternal glory."

But have these things reference to a visible or an invisible Church?

To a Church one and coherent, or rent and torn by factions? It is the Church which Christ founded, which He made to be[70] "the light of the world," bound together by[71] manifold external links, ordered to be one with the unity of a house, a family, a city, a kingdom; with that unity wherewith the Father and the Son are one; in which He placed[72] pastors and doctors to bind and to loose, and to watch over the agreement of all the parts; which He founded upon Peter, committed in chief to Peter to rule and to feed it. Such, then, as fall off from one single visible Church are of the condition of those whom the Apostles of the Lord foretold, that "in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in unG.o.dlinesses: these are they who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the[73] Spirit:" these tear themselves from their Saviour, lose the fruit purchased by His blood, and fall from the inheritance which the Head obtained for His body and His members.

Therefore the necessity of union with the one single visible Church is as great as the necessity of union with Christ the Head, as the necessity of the remission of sins, "for[74] outside of it they are not remitted: for this Church has specially received the Holy Spirit in earnest, without whom no sins are remitted:" as the necessity of charity, "[75]for it is this very charity which those who are cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church do not possess,"

whence "[76]whatsoever thing heretics and schismatics receive, the charity which covers a mult.i.tude of sins is the gift of Catholic unity and peace:" as great, in fine, as the necessity not to involve oneself "in[77] a horrible crime and sacrilege," "in[78] the greatest of evils," one "by[79] which Christ's pa.s.sion is rendered of no effect, and His body is rent," by which[80] the sin is committed of which Christ said, "It shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come:" by which one is estranged "from the sole Catholic Church, which retains the true worship, in which is the fountain of truth, the home of faith, the temple of G.o.d, into which if any one enter not, or from which if any one go out, he loses the hope of life and eternal salvation. Let no one flatter himself in the spirit of obstinate contention, for life is at issue, and salvation, which without care and caution will be forfeited."[81] Can any necessity be greater, or less conditional than this? Or what can be more plain than this statement of the simple and absolute necessity of visible unity and outward communion?

Where then are we to find the cause which induced so many learned and able Protestants first to imagine this distinction between the necessity of internal and external communion and unity, and then to deceive themselves and others with such a mockery? The real cause was, as I believe, that having denied the inst.i.tution of the Primacy, and the authority lodged in it for the purpose of forming and maintaining unity, they were without a criterion or proof, in virtue of which, among so many Christian societies divided from and condemning each other, they could safely choose the one with which they were to be joined in communion, and the outward unity of duty and obedience. For they would readily conclude that the unity so often commended in Scripture, and so earnestly enjoined, could not be external, since G.o.d, who does not command impossibilities, had inst.i.tuted no visible sign to mark that company of Christians, which alone among all the rest was the continuation and development of the Church founded by Christ, and built up by the Apostles.

C. From the same source must the third Protestant doctrine on unity be derived. [82]Jurien filled up the sketch of this, which [83]Casaubon, [84]Claude, and [85]Mestrezat had drawn, and it became so popular as not only to infect a large number of Protestants, but to exert a withering influence on certain unstable members of the Catholic body. It teaches that we must believe not only in an internal and spiritual, but in a visible and external unity, for the Scriptures plainly urge its necessity, and Christian tradition fully describes it, so that there is not a truth more patent or established on greater authority; but this unity is restricted within narrow bounds, and confined to the articles called fundamental, though as to how many these are no one defender of the system is agreed with another. For it is sufficient for Christians not to differ in the profession of such articles for them to be deemed members of one and the same Church. Whence they infer that one and the same true Church is made up out of almost all Christian societies, the Roman, the Greek, the Nestorian, the Eutychian, the Waldensian, the Lutheran, the Anglican, and the Calvinist, for their differences, important as they are, offer no hindrance to the unity which Christ enjoined, the Apostles preached, the creeds express, and universal tradition demands.

As Bossuet,[86] the brothers Walemburg,[87] Nicole,[88] and even some Protestants have most fully dealt with this portentous opinion, there is no need to urge much against it here. I prefer repeating the question, what _occasion_ the Protestants had to get up so unheard-of a paradox, and a system so absurd? It was twofold: one theoretical, and the other practical.

The theoretical was this. The crime of heresy, depicted in Scripture, and Christian antiquity, with colours so dark, had gradually lost its foulness and its magnitude in the minds of Protestants, who had, at length, come to the pa.s.s of reckoning religious, as well as civil, liberty, among the unquestionable rights of man. As if, all other human acts being subject to a law, those alone which proceed from the intellect are exempt: as if the difference between right and wrong, which embraces the whole range of man's life, did not relate to its n.o.blest part, in the acts of the intellect and the reason: as if G.o.d had laid down a law of justice, charity, fort.i.tude, and prudence, but entirely omitted a _law[89] of faith_: as if the will submitted to a law of _good_, but the mind owned no law of _truth_: or as if G.o.d cared for the boughs and leaves, but took no thought of the root.[90] But what could Protestants do? Having allowed to all full license of thought, and overthrown the authority which ruled the mind, they were forced, while they kept the _name_ of heresy, to give up the _thing_ meant by it, and the effects springing from that thing: they were forced to attenuate to the utmost the crime of heresy, and to reduce to the smallest possible number the articles necessary to be believed by all; they were forced to extend beyond all measure the Church's limits, while they contracted beyond all measure the range of necessary unity.

Besides the theoretical, there was a practical occasion in those schisms which, not merely in later or in mediaeval times, but in the first ages also, rent the Christian society. Jurien and Pfaff appeal to these, pretentiously enumerating those which arose under Popes Victor, Cornelius, Stephen, Urban VI., and Clement VII., and those named from Donatus, Meletius, and Acacius. Then they ask if the true Church of Christ can be thought to consist in one single society perfectly at union with itself. They allege many conjectures against this, but dwell on the argument, that _in defect of a visible external test_, such an a.s.sertion could not be maintained without _imposing upon all a most intolerable burden of searching out where is the true doctrine and the legitimate ministerial succession_: for it is not until those are found, that, at length, that one single society will be recognised, with which, as the only true Church, unity of Communion is to be kept.

Now, I profess that I do not see how this argument can be met, if the inst.i.tution of the Primacy, and its proper function to form and maintain unity, be rejected. For, without this, by what visible token among so many Christian societies, divided by intestine dissension, and condemning each other, can you distinguish the one which has the character of the true Church, and the right to exact communion with itself? There is none to be found; and so, either all hope of finding the true Church must be relinquished, or an enquiry must be undertaken into purity of doctrine, and legitimate ministerial succession, on the termination of which the only true Church will at last be found. But as this latter course is to by far the greater number of men impossible, dangerous[91] to all without exception, and most foreign to the Christian temper, the only conclusion remaining, is, that the selection of a Primacy with the power of effecting unity impressed upon it, _is most intimately involved and bound up in the visibility and unity of the true Church_.

And quite as closely is it bound up with that other test of the Church, its Catholicism. We are not to believe Voss and King,[92] in their a.s.sertion that this test began to be applied first in the fourth century, for the purpose of distinguishing the genuine company of the orthodox, and the true body of Christ, from heretics and schismatics. For we find the Church distinguished by the epithet of Catholic, not merely in the records of the fourth[93] and fifth[94] century, but in those of the third,[95] and the second,[96] at the beginning of which S. Ignatius wrote, "Follow all of you the bishop, as Jesus Christ the Father; and the body of presbyters, as Apostles. But reverence deacons, as the command of Christ. Without the bishop let nothing of what concerns the Church be done by any one. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is under the bishop, or with his sanction. Where the bishop is, there also let the mult.i.tude be; as, where Christ Jesus is, _there is the Catholic Church_."[97] As, therefore, that cannot be the Church of Christ, which is not Catholic, we ought to investigate the meaning which is given to this word by the consent of all orthodox believers.

Now, two points are signified in it, one of which is its _material_, the other its _formal_, or _essential_, part. Its _material_ part is, that the geographical extension of the true Church be such that its ma.s.s be _morally_[98] universal, _absolutely_ great, and eminently visible, but _comparatively_ with all heretical and schismatical sects, larger and more numerous. Of this _material_ meaning attached to the epithet, Catholic, we find abundant witnesses in all[99] the orthodox writers who defended the cause of the Church against the Donatists, and again, against the Luciferians,[100] and Novatians; and likewise, in those who have explained the creeds,[101] and, as occasion offered, have touched on the force of the term Catholic.[102] But the same first cited witnesses tell us that universal diffusion is not sufficient, and that we require another element to infuse a soul into this universally extended body, and to bring it to unity.

For two properties are continually recurring in Christian records, one of which may be called _negative_, the other _affirmative_. The force of the former is to _expel from the circle of the one true Catholic Church all sects of heretics and Schismatics_: of the latter, that this Church _consist in one single communion and society, whose members cohere together by hierarchical subordination_.

But is it true that both these points are so plainly and constantly inculcated? To remove all doubt we will quote the authors who most distinctly a.s.sert the one and the other. As to the first, there are [103]Clement of Alexandria, [104]Tertullian, [105]Alexander of Alexandria, [106]Celestine, [107]Leander, the Emperor Justinian;[108]

then again the Councils of Nice,[109] Sardica,[110] and the third of [111]Carthage; nay, the heretics[112] themselves; and all these agree in a.s.serting that _there is one only ancient Catholic Church_, outside of which the divine patience endures and bears with heresies, which are as thorns. Thus in language ecclesiastical and Christian nothing can be considered as more certainly proved than that the epithet of Catholic is _distinctive_, and shows the communion which rejects from its bosom all heresies and all schisms.

It was with great reason, therefore, that [113]Pacian wrote what [114]Cyril of Jerusalem, and [115]Augustine very frequently repeated, "Our people is divided from the heretical name by this appellation, that it is called Catholic."

Moreover this unity, which we have said may be called _negative_, is necessary indeed to the understanding of the Church as Catholic, but is by no means sufficient to complete the idea of Catholicity. To it therefore must be added the _affirmative_ unity, by which Catholicism is not only divided from heretics and schismatics, but becomes in itself a coherent body with members and articulations. It is to the a.s.sertion and maintenance of this unity, which is the soul of Catholicity, and without which it cannot even be conceived, that has reference what we so often read in the monuments of antiquity about the [116]necessity of communion among the members of the Church and the [117]tokens and means of that communion. There are very distinct and innumerable testimonies about it in the ancient Fathers,[118] declaring its _necessity_, and setting forth its _mode_ of composition and coherence.

For to set forth the _mode_ of this is the plain drift of what [119]Irenaeus writes in confutation of heretics by the tradition of the Apostolical churches: "For since it would be very long in the compa.s.s of our present work to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, taking that Church which is the greatest, the most ancient, and well known to all, founded and established at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, by indicating that tradition which it has from the Apostles, and the faith which it announces to men, which has reached even to us by the succession of bishops, we confound all those, who, in whatsoever manner, either through self-pleasing, or vain glory, or blindness and evil intention, [120]gather otherwise than they ought. _For_ to this church on account of its superior chiefship, it is necessary that every Church should come[121] together, that is, the faithful who are everywhere; for in this Church the tradition which is from the Apostles has been ever preserved by those who are everywhere.

...By this ordination and succession, the tradition and preaching of the truth, which is from the Apostles in the Church, has reached down to us. And this proof is most complete, that it is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved, and handed down in truth, in the Church from the Apostles to the present day."

The churches, therefore, which are everywhere diffused, derive that strength and harmony of parts, out of which the whole body of the Catholic Church is made up, from the fact of their agreeing in the unity of faith and preaching with that Church of Peter, which is the greatest, the chief, and the more powerful. It follows that the Primacy of Peter, and the authority inherent in it to effect unity, is that principle which Christ selected, that the Church which He had set up might be Catholic, and bear the note of Catholicity on its brow.

And Cyprian would set forth the same _mode_ of communion, when he speaks of the _coherence of bishops_, by which both the _Catholic episcopate_ is made _one, and the Church one and Catholic_. For as the _several communities draw the unity of the body from the unity of the prelates_ to whom they are subject; so all prelates, and the communities subject to them, const.i.tute _one Catholic episcopate and one Catholic Church_, because they cohere with the _princ.i.p.al_ church, _the root and matrix_, which is the Church of Peter, _upon whom_ the Lord founded the whole building, and whom He inst.i.tuted _to be the fountain and source of Catholic unity_.[122]

These words are a clue to understand [123]Tertullian's meaning, when, already become a Montanist, he called the Catholic Church, whose discipline he was attacking, _the Church near to Peter_--"Concerning your opinion, I now enquire whence you claim this right to the Church. If because the Lord said to Peter, 'Upon this rock I will build My Church,' 'to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' or 'whatsoever thou shalt bind or loose on earth, shall be bound or loosed in heaven,' you, therefore, pretend that the power of binding and loosing is derived to you, that is, to all the Church near to Peter; how do you overthrow and change the manifest intention of the Lord in conferring this on Peter[124] _personally_, 'Upon thee I will build My Church,' and 'I will give to thee the keys,' not to the Church, and 'whatsoever thou bindest or loosest,'

not what they bind or loose." Now he used this mode of speaking because it was customary with Catholics, who were wont to exhibit _nearness with Peter_ as the characteristic of the Church, and the necessary condition for sharing that power, whose plenitude and native source Christ had lodged in Peter.

This certain and undoubting judgment of Catholics, Tertullian himself, before his error, had clearly expressed in his book, De Scorpiace, c. x., where he says, "For if you yet think the heaven shut, remember that the Lord here (Matt. xvi. 19) left its keys to Peter, and _through him to the Church_." Nearness, then, with Peter, and [125]_consanguinity of doctrine_ thence proceeding, are no less necessary to the Church, that it may be the Catholic Church which Christ founded and built upon Peter, than that it be partaker in those gifts which, again, He Himself granted only to unity, as it is effected in Peter and by Peter.

Now not only the most ancient Fathers, as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian, but the whole body of them, a.s.sign the origin of this to Peter. This they make the vivifying principle of agreement, society and unity, without which the Church can neither be intrinsically Catholic, nor the mind conceive it as such. It is so stated by [126]Pacian, [127]Ambrose, the [128]Fathers of Aquileia, [129]

Optatus, [130]Gregory n.a.z.ianzen, [131]Jerome, [132]Augustine, [133]

Gelasius, [134]Hormisdas, [135]Agatho, [136]Maximus Martyr, and, to shorten the list, by Leo[137] the Great. It is in setting forth the unity of the Catholic episcopate that he writes what ought never to be forgotten by Christian minds: "For the compactness of our unity cannot remain firm, unless the bond of charity weld us into an inseparable whole, because, as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. For it is the connection of the whole body which makes one soundness and one beauty; and this connexion, as it requires unanimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord among bishops. For though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an equal jurisdiction; since even among the most blessed Apostles, as there was a likeness of honour, so was there a certain distinction of power, and the election of all being equal, pre-eminence over the rest was given to one, from which mould, or type, the distinction also between bishops has arisen, and it was provided by a great ordering, that all should not claim to themselves all things, but that in every province there should be one whose sentence should be considered the first among his brethren; and others again, seated in the greater cities, should undertake a larger care, through whom the direction of the universal Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere disagree from its head."

And, if I do not deceive myself, the direct drift of all this is to answer the question, whether the doctrine of Peter's Primacy, and its virtue, as the const.i.tuent of unity and Catholicity, is contained in the most solemn standard of faith, the creed. For although there are unimpeachable testimonies to prove that the creeds were not published and explained to Catechumens, in order to convey to them a full and complete Christian instruction; and though it be proved further to have been the purpose of the Church's ancient teachers to omit many points in the creeds which were to be set before the initiated at a more suitable season afterwards, it may nevertheless be said that the most commonly received articles of the creed may be regarded as so many most fruitful germs, from which the remaining doctrines would spontaneously spring. And so, to keep within our present point, what is more plain than that the sum of doctrine concerning Peter's Primacy, contained in the Bible, ill.u.s.trated by the Fathers, and defined by Councils, is involved in that article of the creed in which we profess that the Church is one and Catholic? No doubt there nowhere occurs in the creeds, _expressed in so many words_, mention of Peter, or of the Primacy bestowed on him, or of hierarchical subordination; yet it is most distinctly stated that the Church is one and Catholic. What meaning, then, were the faithful to give to those epithets? What were they to intend in the words, I believe one Catholic Church? What but the meaning of the words themselves, which they received from the Church's teachers together with the creeds? But they could not form the conception of one Church and that Catholic, without thinking likewise of one Catholic _principle_ of the Church; nor could they a.s.sign the dignity of that one Catholic principle to any other but Peter, whom alone they had invariably been taught to have been set over all. For what S.[138] Bernard wrote in mediaeval times, "For this purpose the solicitude of all Churches rests on that one Apostolic See, that all may be united under it and in it, and it may be careful in behalf of all to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," must be considered nothing but a repet.i.tion of the faith which resounded through the whole world, from the very beginning of the Christian religion.

Unless, therefore, any can be found who prefer a.s.serting _either_ that true believers _never_ understood what they believed, in professing the Church to be one and Catholic, _or_ that they understood this _otherwise_ than it had been universally and constantly explained by the Church's teachers; it must be admitted, that faith in Peter's Primacy, and in the power bestowed upon it for the purpose of making the visible kingdom of Christ one and Catholic, is coeval with that profession of the creeds which sets forth the Church as one and as Catholic.[139]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Hegoumenos, Luke xxii. 26, the very term still given in the East to the head of a religious community; and also, as has been said, that which marks our Lord in the great prophecy of Micah, recorded in Matt. ii. 6.

[2] Protos, meizon, hegoumenos. See ch. 2.

[3] 1 Cor. x. 18; Gal. vi. 16.

[4] Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 29.

[5] See Num. ii. 3-9; x. 14; Judges i. 1-3; xx. 18.

[6] Gen. xlix. 10; and see John iv. 22.

[7] 3 Kings, xii.

[8] S. Ambrose, Ep. 11.

[9] Arn.o.bius Junior in Ps. 138.

[10] Eucherius of Lyons, hom. in vig. S. Petri.

[11] Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople, on the Transfiguration.

[12] The Archimandrites of Syria to Pope Hormisdas, Mansi 8, 428.

[13] S. Bernard, de Cons. Lib. 2, c. 8.

[14] S. Theodore Studites to Pope Leo III., Lib. 1, Ep. 33.

[15] In 1 Cor. Hom. 1, n. 1.

[16] S. Greg. Naz., Orat. 12, alluding to John xix. 23.