“The Church of Rome is above the rest and must always be consulted on matters of faith. Scripture and doctrine are authenticated by Rome.” (likely written by St. Alcuin, Libri Carolini 1.6; Edward James Martin, a History of the Iconoclastic Controversy). < Proof of the Papacy Tool The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne Papal Supremacy “The Church of Rome is above the rest and must always be consulted on matters of faith. Scripture and doctrine are authenticated by Rome.” (likely written by St. Alcuin, Libri Carolini 1.6; Edward James Martin, a History of the Iconoclastic Controversy). Proof of the Papacy Tool

Here is the Sacred Heart Christian refund policy, terms of service, use and conditions Refund Policy All marketplace orders are returnable as long as no damage is done to the product. Buyer must only pay return shipping. We will repay the full product purchase cost. Product refunds must be requested within 60 days after purchase. To request a refund of any sort, contact us at: sacredheartchristian@outlook.com Or call us at: 1-502-249-9218 Products from our outside sellers may have their own return policy. Contact us or the seller if you are interested in seeing that. Privacy Policy / Terms of Service This online privacy policy, effective July 2nd, 2023, applies to information collected by I AM Catholic LLC through its websites (https://www.sacredheartchristian.com/and https://www.sacredheartchristiancreators.com/). This Policy will explain the following: Personal Information– What personally identifiable information is collected from you through the Websites and how it is used. 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Encryption is utilized to protect sensitive information transmitted online. We also protect the information you’ve shared with us offline. Employees who require access to your information to perform specific tasks (for example, billing or customer service) are granted access to the necessary personally identifiable information for their task. We protect your non-public information in order to help protect your identity and information with the following measures: We encrypt all web traffic (https). We utilize technology controls such as encryption, firewalls, and user verification for our information systems. Corrections and Control We retain your personal information we collect for as long as necessary to provide the services, products, and information you request, or as long as permitted or required by applicable law. You may update your personal information at any time by opening your account online and editing the profile. 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Composed of independent musical talent, our team is producing renditions of ancient works while creating pieces for modern times, including choral music, renaissance music, Christian music, and more. Composed of independent musical talent, our team is producing renditions of ancient works while creating pieces for modern times. A revival for Christian Music Listen to Our Library Sacred Heart Music Revival Play Video Play Video Domencio Scarlatti — Cujus Animam Gementem | Stabat Mater Play Video Play Video Domencio Scarlatti — Eja Mater, fons amoris | Stabat Mater Play Video Play Video Domencio Scarlatti — Fac me Vere Tecum Flere | Stabat Mater Play Video Play Video Domencio Scarlatti — Fac ut Animae | Stabat Mater Play Video Play Video Domencio Scarlatti — Juxta Crucem | Stabat Mater Play Video Play Video Domencio Scarlatti — Quis Non Posset | Stabat Mater Load More 24/7 Radio "I think that the great music born within the Church is an audible and perceptible rendering of the truth of our faith. In listening to sacred music – suddenly we feel: it is true!” — Pope Benedict XVI

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“In order that he may show his power, God has endowed none of his disciples with gifts like Peter. But, having raised him with heavenly gifts, he has set him above all. And, as first disciple and greater among the brethren, he has shown, by the test of deeds, the power of the Spirit. The first to be called, he followed at once. . . . The Saviour conjded to this man, as some special trust, the whole universal Church, after having asked him three times " Lovest thou me? ". And he received the world in charge, as one flock one shepherd, having heard, "Feed my lambs" ; and the Lord gave, wellnigh in his own stead, that most faithful disciple to the proselytes as a father, and shepherd and instructor.” (Homily 8: On the Chief Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul [A.D. 395]). < Proof of the Papacy Tool Asterius, Bishop of Amasea in Pontus Chief of the Apostles, St. Peter, Shepherd “In order that he may show his power, God has endowed none of his disciples with gifts like Peter. But, having raised him with heavenly gifts, he has set him above all. And, as first disciple and greater among the brethren, he has shown, by the test of deeds, the power of the Spirit. The first to be called, he followed at once. . . . The Saviour conjded to this man, as some special trust, the whole universal Church, after having asked him three times " Lovest thou me? ". And he received the world in charge, as one flock one shepherd, having heard, "Feed my lambs" ; and the Lord gave, wellnigh in his own stead, that most faithful disciple to the proselytes as a father, and shepherd and instructor.” (Homily 8: On the Chief Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul [A.D. 395]). Proof of the Papacy Tool

The famous phrase “Rome has spoken; the case is concluded” is a paraphrase of this quote: “For already have two councils on this question been sent to the Apostolic see; and rescripts also have come from thence. The question has been brought to an issue; would that their error may sometime be brought to an issue too!” (Sermons 131, 10). “Number the bishops from the see of Peter itself. And in that order of Fathers see who succeeded whom, That is the rock against which the gates of hell do not prevail.” (Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, Psalmus contra partem Donati, 18, GCC 51 [A.D. 393]). “For if the lineal succession of bishops is to be taken into account, with how much more certainty and benefit to the Church do we reckon back till we reach Peter himself, to whom, as bearing in a figure the whole Church, the Lord said: "Upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!" The successor of Peter was Linus, and his successors in unbroken continuity were these: -- Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus, Iginus, Anicetus, Pius, Soter, Eleutherius, Victor, Zephirinus, Calixtus, Urbanus, Pontianus, Antherus, Fabianus, Cornelius, Lucius, Stephanus, Xystus, Dionysius, Felix, Eutychianus, Gaius, Marcellinus, Marcellus, Eusebius, Miltiades, Sylvester, Marcus, Julius, Liberius, Damasus, and Siricius, whose successor is the present Bishop Anastasius. In this order of succession no Donatist bishop is found.” (Letter 53). “[In] the Roman Church, the supremacy of the Apostolic Chair has always flourished.” (Epistle 43) “And because, even while walking in Him, they are not exempt from sins, which creep in through the infirmities of this life, He has given them the salutary remedies of alms whereby their prayers might be aided when He taught them to say, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ So does the Church act in blessed hope through this troublous life; and this Church symbolized in its generality, was personified in the Apostle Peter, on account of the primacy of his apostleship. For, as regards his proper personality, he was by nature one man, by grace one Christian, by still more abounding grace one, and yet also, the first apostle; but when it was said to him, ‘I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven’, he represented the universal Church, which in this world is shaken by various temptations, that come upon it like torrents of rain, floods and tempests, and falls not, because it is founded upon a rock (petra), from which Peter received his name. For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, ‘On this rock will I build my Church, because Peter had said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. On this rock, therefore, He said, which you have confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself also built. ‘For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus’. The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church. This Church, accordingly, which Peter represented, so long as it lives amidst evil, by loving and following Christ is delivered from evil.” (Tractate 124). “But what follows? ‘For the poor you have always with you, but me ye will not have always.’ We can certainly understand, ‘poor you have always’; what He has thus said is true. When were the poor wanting in the Church? ‘But me ye will not have always’; what does He mean by this? How are we to understand, ‘Me ye will not have always’? Don’t be alarmed: it was addressed to Judas. Why, then, did He not say, ‘you will have’, but, ‘ye will have’? Because Judas is not here a unit. One wicked man represents the whole body of the wicked; in the same way as Peter, the whole body of the good, yea, the body of the Church, but in respect to the good. For if in Peter’s case there were no sacramental symbol of the Church, the Lord would not have said to him, ‘I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.’ If this was said only to Peter, it gives no ground of action to the Church. But if such is the case also in the Church, that what is bound on earth is bound in heaven, and what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven, — for when the Church excommunicates, the excommunicated person is bound in heaven; when one is reconciled by the Church, the person so reconciled is loosed in heaven: — if such, then, is the case in the Church, Peter, in receiving the keys, represented the holy Church. If, then, in the person of Peter were represented the good in the Church, and in Judas’ person were represented the bad in the Church, then to these latter was it said, ‘But me ye will not have always’. But what means the ‘not always’; and what, ‘the always’? If you are good, if you belong to the body represented by Peter, you have Christ both now and hereafter: now by faith, by sign, by the sacrament of baptism, by the bread and wine of the altar.” (Tractate 50 on the Gospel of John). “It's clear, you see, from many places in scripture that Peter can stand for, or represent, the Church; above all from that place where it says, To you will I hand over the keys ofthe kingdom ofheaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall also be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall also be loosed in heaven (Mt 16: 19). Did Peter receive these keys, and Paul not receive them? Did Peter receive them, and John and James and the other apostles not receive them? Or are these keys not to be found in the Church, where sins are being forgiven every day? But because Peter symbolically stood for the Church, what was given to him alone was given to the whole Church. So Peter represented the Church; the Church is the body of Christ.” (Sermon 149:7). “Let us not listen to those who deny that the Church of God is able to forgive all sins. They are wretched indeed, because they do not recognize in Peter the rock and they refuse to believe that the keys of heaven, lost from their own hands, have been given to the Church.” (Christian Combat, 31:33 , in JUR, 3:51 [A.D. 397]). “…A faggot that is cut off from the vine retains its shape. But what use is that shape, if it is not living from the root? Come, brothers, if you wish to be engrafted in the vine. It is grievous when we see you thus lying cut off. Number the priests even from that seat of Peter. And in that order of fathers see who to whom succeeded: that is the rock which the proud gates of hades do not conquer. All who rejoice in peace, only judge truly.” “For in the Catholic Church, not to speak of the purest wisdom, to the knowledge of which a few spiritual, men attain in this life, so as to know it, in the scantiest measure, deed, because they are but men, still without any uncertainty (since the rest of the multitude derive their entire security not from acuteness of intellect, but from simplicity of faith,)--not to speak of this wisdom, which you do not believe to be in the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house. Such then in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic Church, as it is right they should, though from the slowness of our understanding, or the small attainment of our life, the truth may not yet fully disclose itself. But with you, where there is none of these things to attract or keep me, the promise of truth is the only thing that comes into play. Now if the truth is so clearly proved as to leave no possibility of doubt, it must be set before all the things that keep me in the Catholic Church; but if there is only a promise without any fulfillment, no one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion. “For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manichaeus, how can I but consent? Take your choice. If you say, Believe the Catholics: their advice to me is to put no faith in you; so that, believing them, I am precluded from believing you;--If you say, Do not believe the Catholics: you cannot fairly use the gospel in bringing me to faith in Manichaeus; for it was at the command of the Catholics that I believed the gospel;--Again, if you say, You were right in believing the Catholics when they praised the gospel, but wrong in believing their vituperation of Manichaeus: do you think me such a fool as to believe or not to believe as you like or dislike, without any reason? It is therefore fairer and safer by far for me, having in one instance put faith in the Catholics, not to go over to you, till, instead of bidding me believe, you make me understand something in the clearest and most open manner. To convince me, then, you must put aside the gospel. If you keep to the gospel, I will keep to those who commanded me to believe the gospel; and, in obedience to them, I will not believe you at all. But if haply you should succeed in finding in the gospel an incontrovertible testimony to the apostleship of Manichaeus, you will weaken my regard for the authority of the Catholics who bid me not to believe you; and the effect of that will be, that I shall no longer be able to believe the gospel either, for it was through the Catholics that I got my faith in it; and so, whatever you bring from the gospel will no longer have any weight with me. Wherefore, if no clear proof of the apostleship of Manichaeus is found in the gospel, I will believe the Catholics rather than you. But if you read thence some passage clearly in favor of Manichaeus, I will believe neither them nor you: not them, for they lied to me about you; nor you, for you quote to me that Scripture which I had believed on the authority of those liars. But far be it that I should not believe the gospel; for believing it, I find no way of believing you too. For the names of the apostles, as there recorded, do not include the name of Manichaeus. And who the successor of Christ's betrayer was we read in the Acts of the Apostles; which book I must needs believe if I believe the gospel, since both writings alike Catholic authority commends to me.” (Against the Letter of Mani Called “The Foundation” 4:5 [A.D. 397]). “If all men throughout the world were such as you most vainly accuse them of having been, what has the chair of the Roman church done to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius sits today? Or the chair of the Church of Jerusalem, in which James once sat, and in which John sits today, with which we are united in catholic unity, and from which you have severed yourselves by your mad fury? Why do you call the apostolic chair a seat of the scornful? If it is on account of the men whom you believe to use the words of the law without performing it, do you find that our Lord Jesus Christ was moved by the Pharisees, of whom He says, “They say, and do not,” to do any despite to the seat in which they sat? Did He not commend the seat of Moses, and maintain the honor of the seat, while He convicted those that sat in it? For He says, “They sit in Moses’ seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works:” (Against the Letters of Petilani 2:118 [A.D. 402]). "If all men throughout the world were such as you most vainly accuse them of having been, what has the chair of the Roman church done to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius [the 39th Pope] sits today?" (Against the Letters of Petilani 2:118 [A.D. 402]). “Among these [apostles] Peter alone almost everywhere deserved to represent the whole Church. Because of that representation of the Church, which only he bore, he deserved to hear ‘I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.’” (Sermon 295 [c. 411 A.D]) “If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church’ . . . [Matt. 16:18]. Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement, Clement by Anacletus, Anacletus by Evaristus . . . In this order of succession a Donatist bishop is not to be found ” (Letters 53:1:2 [A.D. 412]). “Some things are said which seem to relate especially to the apostle Peter, and yet are not clear in their meaning unless referred to the Church, which he is acknowledged to have represented in a figure on account of the primacy which he bore among the disciples. Such is ‘I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ and other similar passages.” (Commentary on Psalm 108 1 [A.D. 415]). “Who is ignorant that the first of the apostles is the most blessed Peter?” (Commentary on John 56:1 [A.D. 416]). “Carthage was also near to the countries beyond the sea, and distinguished by illustrious renown, so that it had a bishop of more than ordinary influence, who could afford to disregard even a number of enemies conspiring against him, because he saw himself united by letters of communion both to the Roman Church, in which the supremacy of an apostolic chair has always flourished.” (Letter 74, chp 3). “For if in Peter’s case there were no sacramental symbol of the Church, the Lord would not have said to him, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” If this was said only to Peter, it gives no ground of action to the Church. But if such is the case also in the Church, that what is bound on earth is bound in heaven, and what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven, — for when the Church excommunicates, the excommunicated person is bound in heaven; when one is reconciled by the Church, the person so reconciled is loosed in heaven: — if such, then, is the case in the Church, Peter, in receiving the keys, represented the holy Church.” (Tractate 50 on the Gospel of John). “For at that time the apostles were not yet fitted even to die for Christ, when He said to them, “Ye cannot follow me now,” and when the very foremost of them, Peter, who had presumptuously declared that he was already able, met with a different experience from what he anticipated.” (Tractate 96 on the Gospel of John). “So does the Church act in blessed hope through this troublous life; and this Church symbolized in its generality, was personified in the Apostle Peter, on account of the primacy of his apostleship.” (Tractate 124 on the Gospel of John). “In Peter, which means Rocky, we see our attention drawn to the Rock. Now the apostle Paul says about the former people, ‘They drank from the spiritual rock that was following them; but the rock was Christ’ (1 Cor 10:4). So this disciple is called Rocky from the Rock, like a Christian is from Christ. Why have I wanted to make this little introduction? In order to suggest to you that in Peter the Church is to be understood. Christ, you see, built His Church not on a man but on Peter’s confession. What is Peter’s confession? ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ There’s the rock for you, there’s the foundation, there’s where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer.” (Sermon 229). “[On this matter of the Pelagians] two councils have already been sent to the Apostolic See [the bishop of Rome], and from there rescripts too have come. The matter is at an end; would that the error too might be at an end!” (Sermons 131:10 [A.D. 411]). “But that rock, Peter himself, that great mountain, when he prayed and saw that vision, was watered from above.” (Expostition on Psalm 104). “The venerable Pope Zosimus, keeping in view this deprecatory preamble, dealt with the man, puffed up as he was with the blasts of false doctrine, so as that he should condemn all the objectionable points which had been alleged against him by the deacon Paulinus, and that he should yield his assent to the rescript of the Apostolic See which had been issued by his predecessor of sacred memory. “For although he deceived the council in Palestine, seemingly clearing himself before it, he entirely failed in imposing on the church at Rome.” (On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin, 2:8,9). “To Caelestine, my lord most blessed, and holy father venerated with all due affection, Augustine sends greetings in the Lord. First of all I congratulate you that our Lord God has, as we have heard, established you in the illustrious chair which you occupy without any division among His people…There are cases on record, in which the Apostolic See, either pronouncing judgment or confirming the judgment of others, sanctioned decisions by which persons, for certain offenses, were neither deposed from their episcopal office nor left altogether unpunished.” (Letter 209). “And when his speech [Celestius to Pope Zosimus] came to the question that was under consideration, he said: "If, indeed, questions have arisen beyond the scope of the faith, on which there might perhaps be dissensions on the part of a great number of people, in no case have I pretended to pronounce a decision on any dogma, as if I myself possessed a definite authority in the matter ; but whatever I have drawn from the source of the prophets and apostles, I have presented for the approval of your apostolic office; so that if any error has crept in among us, human beings that we are, through our ignorance, it may be corrected by your sentence." (De Peccati, Originali). “Our forefathers gave the name `Chair' to this feast so that we might remember that the Prince of the Apostles was entrusted with the `Chair' of the episcopate ... Blessed be God, who deigned to exalt the apostle Peter over the whole Church. It is most fitting that this foundation be honoured since it is the means by which we may ascend to Heaven.” (Sermon 15 on the Saints). “I close with a word of counsel to you who are implicated in those shocking and damnable errors, that, if you acknowledge the supreme authority of Scripture, you should recognise that authority which from the time of Christ Himself, through the ministry of His apostles, and through a regular succession of bishops in the seats of the apostles, has been preserved to our own day throughout the whole world, with a reputation known to all.” (Reply to Faustus the Manichean, 33:9). “ "For being ignorant of God's righteousness, and wishing to establish their own, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God." My brethren, have compassion with me. When you find such men, do not hide them; have no misdirected mercy. Refute those who contradict, and those who resist bring to us. For already two councils on this question have been sent to the apostolic see ; and replies have also come from there. The cause is finished; would that the error might sometime be finished also .” (Sermon 131). “ For men, wishing to be built upon men, said "I am of Paul-and I of Apollos, I of Cephas ", that is Peter. And others who did not wish to be built upon Peter but upon the rock "But I am of Christ". But when the apostle Paul realized that he was chosen and Christ despised, he said "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in Paul's name? ". As not in Paul, so neither in Peter, but in the name of Christ, that Peter might be built upon the rock, not the rock upon Peter. Therefore this same Peter, called blessed by the rock, bearing the figure of the Church, holding the chiefplace in the apostleship, shortly after he heard he was blessed, now heard that he was Peter, now heard that he was to be built upon the rock. . . . . The apostle Paul says, "Now we who are strong should bear the burdens of the weak". When Peter says, "Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God", he represents the strong; but when he fears and totters, and wishes that Christ should not suffer, fearing the death, and not recognizing the life, he represents the weak ones of the Church. In that one apostle then, that is Peter, in the order of the apostles first and principal, in whom the Church was figured, both kinds were to be represented, that is both the strong and the weak, because the Church is not without both.” (Sermon 76). “ For Peter in many places in the Scriptures appears to represent the Church; especially in that place where it was said "I give to thee the keys . . . shall' be loosed in heaven". What! did Peter receive these keys, and Paul not receive? Did Peter receive and John and James not receive, and the rest of the apostles? Or are not the keys in the Church where sins are daily remitted? But since in a figure Peter represented the Church, what was given to him singly was given to the Church.” (Sermon 149). “As you know, the Lord Jesus chose his disciples before his passion, whom he named apostles. Among these Peter alone almost everywhere deserved to represent the whole Church. Because of that representation of the whole Church which only he bore, he deserved to hear "I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven". For these keys not one man but the unity of the Church received. Here therefore the excellence of Peter is set forth, because he represented that universality and unity of the Church, when it was said to him " I give to thee" what was given to all. For that you may know that the Church did receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, hear elsewhere what the Lord said to all the apostles, "Receive the Holy Ghost" and forthwith "Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them, and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained ". This pertains to the keys, of which it was said "Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven". But this he said to Peter, that you may know that Peter then represented the person of the whole Church. Hear what is said to him, what to all the faithful saints . . . Deservedly also, after his resurrection, the Lord commended his sheep to Peter himself to feed; for he was not the only one among the disciples who was thought worthy to feed the Lord's sheep, but when Christ speaks to one, unity is commended-and to Peter for the first time, because Peter is first among the apostles.” (Sermon 295). “ [In my first book against Donatus] I mentioned somewhere with reference to the apostle Peter that " the Church is founded upon him as upon a rock". This meaning is also sung by many lips in the lines of blessed Ambrose, where, speaking of the domestic cock, he says : "When it crows, he, the rock of the Church, absolves from sin." But I realize that I have since frequently explained the words of our Lord : "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church", to the effect that they should be understood as referring to him whom Peter confessed when he said: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God", and as meaning that Peter, having been named after this rock, figured the person of the Church, which is built upon this rock and has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. For what was said to him was not "Thou art the rock", but "Thou art Peter". But the rock was Christ, having confessed whom (even as the whole Church confesses) Simon was named Peter. Which of these two interpretations is the more likely to be correct, let the reader choose which of these two opinions is the more probable..” (Retractations, Book I, Chapter I). “ Just as the apostles who formed the exact number of twelve, in other words parted into four parts of three each, when all were questioned only Peter replied "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ", and to him it was said " I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven", as if he alone received the power of binding and loosing : seeing then that one so spake on behalf of all, and received the gift along with all, as if personifying the unity itself; one for all because there is unity in all.” (In Joannis Euangelium) [A.D. 416]). “But first the Lord asks what he knew, not once but a second and a third time, whether Peter loved him; and just as often he has the same reply, that he is loved, while just as often he gives Peter the same charge to feed his sheep. The threefold denial is renounced by a threefold confession, that the tongue may serve love no less than fear, and imminent death may not seem to have drawn out more from the voice than the present life. Let it be the office of love to feed the Lord's flock, if it was the signal of fear to deny the Shepherd.” (In Joannis Euangelium). “These two states of life [the life of faith and the life of sight] were symbolized by Peter and John, each of them one; but in this life they both walked by faith, and they will both enjoy that eternal life through sight. For the whole body of the saints, therefore, inseparably belonging to the body of Christ, and for their safe pilotage through this stormy life, did Peter, the first of the apostles, receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven for binding and loosing sins. And for the same congregation of the saints did John the evangelist recline on the breast of Christ, in reference to the perfect repose in the bosom of that mysterious life to come. For it is not the former alone, but the whole Church that binds and looses sins; nor did the latter alone drink at the fountain of the Lord's breast, to utter again in preaching those truths of the Word in the beginning, God with God, and those other sublime truths, the divinity of Christ, and the Trinity and Unity of the whole Godhead, which are yet to be seen in the kingdom face to face, but meanwhile, till the Lord comes, are only to be seen in a mirror and in a riddle ; but the Lord has himself diffused this very gospel throughout the whole world, that everyone of his own may drink Gom it, according to his capacity.” (In Joannis Evangelium). “If all men throughout the world were such as you most vainly accuse them of being, what has the chair of the Roman church done to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius sits to-day ; or the chair of the church of Jerusalem, in which James sat, and in which John sits to-day, with which we are connected in catholic unity, and from which you have severed yourselves by mad fury?” (Contra Litteras Petiliani, Book 2 [A.D. 402]. “If the lineal succession of bishops is to be considered, with how much more benefit to the Church do we reckon from Peter himself, to whom, as bearing in a figure the whole Church, the Lord said: "Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer it"! For to Peter succeeded Linus, Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus, Iginus, Anicetus, Pius, Soter, Eleutherius, Victor, Zephyrinus, Calixtus, Urban, Pontian, Antherus, Fabian, Cornelius, Lucius, Stephen, Xystus, Dionysius, Felix, Eutychian, Gaius, Marcellinus, Marcellus, Eusebius, Miltiades, Sylvester, Mark, Julius, Liberius, Damasus, Siricius, Anastasius. In this order of succession no Donatist bishop is found. But, unexpectedly, they sent from Africa an ordained man, who, presiding over a few Africans in Rome, propagated the title of Mountain Men or Cutzupits.” (Fortunatus, Alypius, and Augustine to Generosus [A.D. 400]). The following two excerpts give recaps of The Council of Milevis, which you will see play out later on (in the section titled “The Council of Milevis”: “After letters had come to us from the East, discussing the case in the clearest manner, we were bound not to fail in assisting the Church’s need with such episcopal authority as we possess (nullo modo jam qualicumque episcopali auctoritate deesse Ecclesiae debueramus). In consequence, relations as to this matter were sent from two Councils — those of Carthage and of Milevis — to the Apostolic See, before the ecclesiastical acts by which Pelagius is said to have been acquitted had come into our hands or into Africa at all. We also wrote to Pope Innocent, of blessed memory a private letter, besides the relations of the Councils, wherein we described the case at greater length, to all of these he [Pope Innocent] answered in the manner which was the right and duty of the bishop of the Apostolic See (Ad omnia nobis ille rescripsit eo modo quo fas erat atque oportebat Apostolicae sedis Antistitem). All of which you may now read, if perchance none of them or not all of them have yet received you; in them you will see that, while he has preserved the moderation which was right, so that the heretic should not be condemned if he condemns his errors, yet the new and pernicious error is so restrained by ecclesiastical authority that we much wonder that there should be any still remaining who, by any error whatsoever, try to fight against the grace of God….” (Augustine, Epistle 186: Alypius and Augustine to Paulinus – Bishop of Nola near Naples. AD 417. Patrologia Latina 33.816). “Refute those [Pelagians] who contrdict, and those who resist bring to us. For already two councils on this question have been sent to the Apostolic see and replies have also come from there. The cause is finished; would that the error might sometime be finished also!” (Augustine, Sermon 131. Sept 23, 417. Patrologia Latina 38. 734). "[On this matter of the Pelagians] two councils have already been sent to the Apostolic See [the bishop of Rome], and from there rescripts too have come. The matter is at an end; would that the error too might be at an end!" (Sermon 81). “The new-fangled Pelagian heretics have been most justly condemned by the authority of catholic councils and of the Apostolic See. (On the Soul and its Origin). “After a letter had reached us from the East, quite openly pushing the [Pelagian] heresy, it was now our duty not to fail the Church in any way, by any episcopal authority whatever; accordingly reports were sent on this matter from two councils, those of Carthage and Mileve, to the apostolic see. . . . We also wrote to the late Pope Innocent, in addition to the reports of the councils, a private letter,' in which we dealt more fully with the same question. To all he wrote back to us in the manner that was right and proper for the pontiff of the apostolic see.” (Alypius and Augustine to Paulinus [A.D. 417). “With crafty eloquence he, Antony, persuaded our aged primate, a most venerable man, to believe all his statements, and to commend him as altogether blameless to the venerable Pope Boniface. But why should I rehearse all the rest, seeing the same venerable old man must have reported the whole affair to your holiness? . . . . He, Antony, proclaims : " Either I ought to sit in my own see, or I ought not to be a bishop." “There are cases on record in which the apostolic see, judging, or confrming thejudgement of others, [sanctioned decisions] by which persons were for offences neither deposed from their episcopal office, nor left altogether unpunished. I will not look into those very remote from our time; I shall mention recent cases. Let Priscus, a bishop of the province of Caesarea, proclaim : " Either the office of primate ought to be open to me as to others, or I ought not to remain a bishop." Let Victor, another bishop of the same province, with whom, when involved in the same penalty as Priscus, no bishop beyond his ' own diocese holds communion, let him, I say, protest: "Either I ought to have communion everywhere, or I ought I not to have it in my own district." Let Lawrence,' a third 1, bishop of the same province, speak, and in the precise words of this man exclaim : "Either I ought to sit in the chair to whichhave been consecrated, or I ought not to be a bishop." But who will censure these judgements, unless he supposes either I that all offences should be overlooked, or that all should be punished in one way? “Since, then, with pastoral and vigilant caution, the most blessed Pope Boniface has put in his letter about Bishop Antony the words, "if he has truthfully told us the facts", I receive now the course of events which in his pamphlet he I kept back, and also the things which were done after the letter of that man of blessed memory had been read in Africa; and in the mercy of Christ extend your aid to men imploring it more earnestly than he does from whose turbulence they desire to be freed. For either from himself, or at least from very frequent rumours, threats are held out that the courts of justice, and the public powers, and military force are to execute the decision of the apostolic see ; and so these unhappy men, being now catholic Christians, dread severer treatment from a catholic bishop, than they dreaded from the laws of catholic emperors when they were heretics. Do not permit these things to be done, I implore you by the blood of Christ, by the memory of the apostle Peter, who has warned those placed over I Christian people against violently lording it over the brethren. I commend to the gracious love of your holiness both the catholics of Fussala, my children in Christ, and also Bishop Antony, my son in Christ, for I love both. I do not blame the People of Fussala for bringing- to your ears a just complaint against me 1 for imposing on them a man whom I had not proved, and who was in age at least not yet established, by whom they have been so afflicted.” (Epistle 209, to Celestine [A.D. 423]). “Some things are said which seem to relate especially to the apostle Peter, and yet are not clear in their meaning unless referred to the Church, which he is acknowledged to have represented in a figure, on account of the primacy which he bore among the disciples. Such is "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven", and other similar passages; so Judas represents those Jews who were Christ's enemies.” (Enanatio in Psalmum). "Then he comes to Simon Peter", as if he had already washed some others, and after them had come to the chief. Who is ignorant that the$rst of the apostles is the most blessed Peter? But we are not therefore to understand that he came to him after others, but that he began from him.” (In Joannis Euangelium 56. [A.D. 416]). “Carthage was also near the countries over the sea, and distinguished by illustrious renown, so that it had a bishop of more than ordinary influence, who could afford to disregard a number of conspiring enemies because he saw himself joined by letters of communion both to the Roman church, in which the primacy of an apostolic chair always nourished and to other lands from which the gospel came to Africa itself; and he was prepared to defend himself before these churches, if his enemies tried to alienate them from him. . . . It was a matter concerning colleagues who could reserve their entire case to the judgement of other colleagues, especially of apostolic churches. . . . . As if it might not have been said, and most justly said to them [the Donatists] : "Well, let us suppose that these bishops who decided the case of Caecilian at Rome were not good judges ; there still remained a plenary council of the universal Church, in which these judges themselves might be put on their defence, so that, if they were convicted of mistake, their decisions might be reversed." (Epistle 43, to Glorius, etc. [A.D. 397]) “And since the whole Christ is head and body, which truth I do not doubt that you know well, the head is our Saviour himself, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who now, after he is risen from the dead, sits at the right hand of the Father; but his body is the Church: not this church or that, but diffused over all the world, nor that only which exists among men living, for those also belong to it who were before us and are to be after us to the end of the world. For the whole Church, made up of all the faithful, because all the faithful are members of Christ, has its head, which governs the body, situate in the heavens ; though it is separated from sight, yet it is bound by love.” (Enarratio in Psalmum [A.D. 415]). “Cyprian speaks as follows in his letter to Quintus "For even Peter . . ." Here is a passage in which Cyprian records what we also learn in Holy Scripture, that the apostle Peter, in whom the primacy of the apostles shines with such exceeding grace, was corrected by the later apostle Paul, when he adopted a custom in the matter of circumcision at variance with the demands of truth. If it was therefore possible for Peter in some point to walk not uprightly according to the truth . . . why might not Cyprian against the rule of truth, which afterwards the whole Church held, compel heretics or schismatics to be baptized afresh? I suppose there is no slight to Cyprian in comparing him with the apostle Peter in respect of his crown of martyrdom; rather I ought to be afraid lest I am slighting Peter. Who can be ignorant that the chief apostolate is to be preferred to any episcopate? But even if the dignity of their sees differs, the glory of martyrdom is one. . “Nor should we dare to assert any such thing, were we not supported by the unanimous authority of the whole Church, to which he, Cyprian, would without doubt have yielded, if at that time the truth of this question had been established by the investigation and decree of a general council. …. “It is safe for us not to advance with any rash opinion about things which have been neither started in a local catholic council nor completed in a plenary one, but to assert, with the confidence of a fearless voice, that which, under the government of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, has been conjrmed by consent of the universal Church. (De Baptismo contra Donatistas, Book I. [A.D. 401]). “[After quoting the heretical portion of Celestius' libellus he proceeds:] This his opinion Pelagius was afraid or ashamed to bring out to you; but his disciple, without any obscurity, was neither ashamed nor afraid to publish it openly before the apostolic see.. But the very merciful prelate of that see, when he saw I him carried headlong with such presumption like a madman, until he might recover, if that were possible, preferred to bind him bit by bit by question and answer, rather than to I strike him with a severe sentence, which would thrust him down that precipice over which he seemed to be already I hanging. I do not say " had fallen ", but " seemed to be hanging" ; for earlier in the same libellus he had promised before I speaking of such questions: "If by chance any error of ignorance has crept in, human as we are, it may be corrected by - your sentence.” “So the venerable Pope Zosimus, holding to this foreword, urged the man, inflated with false doctrine, to condemn what he was accused of by the deacon Paulinus, and to give his I assent to the letters of the apostolic see which had emanated from his predecessor of holy memory. He refused to condemn what the deacon objected, but he dared not resist the letters of blessed Pope Innocent, nay, he promised " to condemn whatever that see should condemn".: Thus gently treated, as if a madman, that he might be pacified, he was still not thought fit to be released from the bonds of excommunication. But a delay of two months1 was granted, that an answer might be received from Africa, and so an opportunity of recovery was given him by a medicinal gentleness in his sentence. For, indeed, he would be cured, if he would lay aside his obstinate vanity, and attend to what he promised, and would read those letters to which he professed to consent. But after the rescripts were duly issued fiom the African council of bishops, there were very good reasons why the sentence should be carried out against him, in strictest accordance with equity. . . . For though Pelagius tricked the investigation in Palestine, seeming to clear himself before it, he entirely failed in imposing on the church at Rome (where, as you are aware, he was well known), although he tried even this ; but as I said, he entirely failed. For the most blessed Pope Zosimus recollected what his exemplary predecessor had thought of these very proceedings. He considered what was felt about this man by the trusty Romans, whose faith deserved to be spoken of in the Lord, and whose resounding zeal for catholic truth against his error he saw burning harmoniously. The man had lived among them for a long while, and his opinions could not be hidden. . . . “This being so, you of course feel that episcopal councils, and the apostolic see, and the whole Roman church, and the Roman Empire, which by God's grace has become Christian, have been most righteously moved against the authors of this wicked error, until they recover from the snares of the devil. “For the time, indeed, Pelagius seemed to say what was agreeable to the catholic faith, but in the end he had no power to deceive that see. Indeed after the replies of the council of Africa, into which province this pestilent doctrine had stealthily made its way, without, however, spreading widely or sinking deeply, other opinions also of this man were, by the care of some faithful brethren, discovered and brought to light at Rome, where he had dwelt for a very long while, and had already engaged in sundry discourses and controversies. In order to procure the condemnation of these opinions, Pope Zosimus, as you may read, annexed them to his letter which he wrote for publication throughout the catholic world.” (De Peccato Original [A.D. 418]). “Do you think they are therefore to be despised, because they are all of the western church, and we have mentioned no eastern bishop ? What are we to do, since they are Greeks and we are Latins? I think you ought to be satisjied with that part of the world in which the Lord willed to crown thejrst of his apostles with a glorious martyrdom. If you had been willing to hear blessed Innocent, the president of that church, you would then have freed your perilous youth from the Pelagian snares. For what could that holy man answer to the African councils except what from of old the apostolic see and the Roman church with the rest steadfastly holds? Yet you charge his successor with the crime of prevarication, because he would not go against the apostolic doctrine, and the sentence of his predecessor. . . . Take care how you reply to S. Innocent, who has no view on this matter except that of those men, western fathers, to whom I have introduced you, in case it is of any use. He himself sits with these too, after them in time though before them in place… “…Necessity therefore compelled that we should, at least by our assembly, crush their immodesty, and restrain their audacity. In truth your cause is anyhow jnished by a competent decision of bishops in common. There is no more need of examination with you, but merely to make you acquiesce in the sentence, or to restrain your turbulence…. “...He did not go back from his predecessor, Innocent, whom you feared to name ; but you preferred Zosimus, because he first dealt leniently with Celestius, since the latter, in these your statements, said that if anything was displeasing he was prepared to correct it, and promised to consent to the letters of Innocent.” (Contra Julianum Pelagianum [A.D. 422]) Since you persist in asserting that freedom, acting rightly or wrongly, cannot perish through sheer misuse, let the blessed Pope Innocent, pontiff of the Roman church, answer. Replying on your affairs to the episcopal councils of Africa he said, "Having experienced free will . . ." Do you see what the catholic faith does through its minister? (Opus Imperfectum contra Julianum, Book 6 [A.D. 430]). “You [Pope Boniface] who mind not high things, however loftily you are placed, did not disdain to be a friend of the lowly, and to return ample love. . . . I have ventured to write to your blessedness about these things which are now claiming the episcopal attention to viligance on behalf of the Lord's flock…. “…Since the heretics do not cease to growl at the entrances to the Lord's fold, and on every side to tear open the approaches so as to plunder the sheep redeemed at such a price; and since the pastoral watch-tower is common to all of us who discharge the episcopal office (although you are preeminent therein on a loftier height), I do what I can in respect of my small portion of the charge, as the Lord condescends to grant me, by the aid of your prayers, to oppose their pestilent and crafty writings. . . . . . . These words. . . I determined to address especially to your holiness, not so much for your learning as for your examination, and, perchance anything should displease you, for your correction.” (Contra duas Epistolas Pelagianorum [A.D. 420]). “Moreover, they, the Pelagians, accuse the Roman clergy, writing, "They, driven by the fear of a command, have not blushed to be guilty of the crime of prevarication : contrary to their previous judgement, wherein, by the acts, they had assented to the catholic dogma, they later pronounced that man's nature is evil". Nay, but the Pelagians conceived a false hope that their new and horrible dogma could prevail upon the catholic minds of certain Romans, when those crafty spirits . . . were treated with more lenity than the stricter discipline of the Church required. For while so many important ecclesiastical documents were passing to and fro between the apostolic see and the African bishops . . . what sort of letter or what decree is found of the late Pope Zosimus in which he declared that we must believe that man is born without any taint of original sin? He certainly never said this ; he never wrote it at all. But since Celestius had written this in his pamphlet, merely among those matters on which he confessed he was still in doubt and desired to be instructed . . . the willingness to amend, and not the falsehood of the dogma, was approved. Therefore his pamphlet was called catholic, because if by chance in any matters a man thinks otherwise than what the truth demands, it reveals a catholic mind not to define them with the greatest accuracy, but to reject them when they are detected and pointed out. . . . This was thought to be the case with him when he replied that he consented to the letters of the late Pope Innocent, in which all doubt about this matter was removed. In order that this might be made fuller and clearer in him, matters were held up until letters should come from Africa, in which province his craftiness had somehow become more clearly known. Eventually these letters came to Rome, declaring that for slow-witted and anxious men, it was not sufficient that he confessed his general consent to the letters of Innocent, but that he ought openly to revoke the mischievous statements which he had made in liis pamphlet. For if he did not do this, many people of insufficient intelligence would be more likely to believe that those poisons of the faith in his pamphlet had been approved by the apostolic see, because it had been affirmed by that see that the pamphlet was catholic, than to believe that the poisons had been amended because of his answer that he consented to the letters of Pope Innocent. . . . “But if, which God forbid, it had been judged in the Roman church that those dogmas of Celestius or Pelagius, condemned by Pope Innocent, should be pronounced worthy of approval, the mark of prevarication would rather have to be branded on the Roman clergy for this. To sum up, in the first place the letters of the most blessed Pope Innocent, in reply to the letters of the African bishops, have equally condemned this error which these men are trying to commend to us. Likewise his successor, the holy Pope Zosimus, never said or wrote that this dogma which these men think concerning infants is to be held. Besides, when Celestius tried to clear himself, he bound him by repeated interruptions l to consent to the aforesaid letters of the apostolic see. Surely then, provided the stability of the most ancient and robust faith was maintained, whatever in the meanwhile was done more leniently with Celestius was the most merciful persuasion of correction, not the most pernicious approval of wickedness. And since afterwards Celestius and Pelagius were condemned by the repeated authority of the same priesthood, this was the proof of a severity for a while withheld, but at length of necessity carried out, not a violation of that previously known, or a new recognition of truth. “ . . . These are the words of the venerable Bishop Innocent to the council of Carthage on this affair . . . What could be more clear or more manifest than that judgement of the apostolic see? To this Celestius professed that he assented, when, it being said to him by your holy predecessor, Zosimus, "Do you condemn all that is flung about in your name? ", He himself replied, "I condemn them in accordance with the judgement of your predecessor, Innocent ' ” (Contra dzcas Epistolas Pelagianorum, Book 2 [A.D. 420]). < Proof of the Papacy Tool St. Augustine Apostolic See, Papal Supremacy, Keys, Rock of the Church, Papal Authority, Chief of the Apostles, Apostolic Lineage, Foundation of the Church, Prince of the Apostles, St. Peter, Shepherd The famous phrase “Rome has spoken; the case is concluded” is a paraphrase of this quote: “For already have two councils on this question been sent to the Apostolic see; and rescripts also have come from thence. The question has been brought to an issue; would that their error may sometime be brought to an issue too!” (Sermons 131, 10). “Number the bishops from the see of Peter itself. And in that order of Fathers see who succeeded whom, That is the rock against which the gates of hell do not prevail.” (Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, Psalmus contra partem Donati, 18, GCC 51 [A.D. 393]). “For if the lineal succession of bishops is to be taken into account, with how much more certainty and benefit to the Church do we reckon back till we reach Peter himself, to whom, as bearing in a figure the whole Church, the Lord said: "Upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!" The successor of Peter was Linus, and his successors in unbroken continuity were these: -- Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus, Iginus, Anicetus, Pius, Soter, Eleutherius, Victor, Zephirinus, Calixtus, Urbanus, Pontianus, Antherus, Fabianus, Cornelius, Lucius, Stephanus, Xystus, Dionysius, Felix, Eutychianus, Gaius, Marcellinus, Marcellus, Eusebius, Miltiades, Sylvester, Marcus, Julius, Liberius, Damasus, and Siricius, whose successor is the present Bishop Anastasius. In this order of succession no Donatist bishop is found.” (Letter 53). “[In] the Roman Church, the supremacy of the Apostolic Chair has always flourished.” (Epistle 43) “And because, even while walking in Him, they are not exempt from sins, which creep in through the infirmities of this life, He has given them the salutary remedies of alms whereby their prayers might be aided when He taught them to say, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ So does the Church act in blessed hope through this troublous life; and this Church symbolized in its generality, was personified in the Apostle Peter, on account of the primacy of his apostleship. For, as regards his proper personality, he was by nature one man, by grace one Christian, by still more abounding grace one, and yet also, the first apostle; but when it was said to him, ‘I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven’, he represented the universal Church, which in this world is shaken by various temptations, that come upon it like torrents of rain, floods and tempests, and falls not, because it is founded upon a rock (petra), from which Peter received his name. For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, ‘On this rock will I build my Church, because Peter had said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. On this rock, therefore, He said, which you have confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself also built. ‘For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus’. The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church. This Church, accordingly, which Peter represented, so long as it lives amidst evil, by loving and following Christ is delivered from evil.” (Tractate 124). “But what follows? ‘For the poor you have always with you, but me ye will not have always.’ We can certainly understand, ‘poor you have always’; what He has thus said is true. When were the poor wanting in the Church? ‘But me ye will not have always’; what does He mean by this? How are we to understand, ‘Me ye will not have always’? Don’t be alarmed: it was addressed to Judas. Why, then, did He not say, ‘you will have’, but, ‘ye will have’? Because Judas is not here a unit. One wicked man represents the whole body of the wicked; in the same way as Peter, the whole body of the good, yea, the body of the Church, but in respect to the good. For if in Peter’s case there were no sacramental symbol of the Church, the Lord would not have said to him, ‘I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.’ If this was said only to Peter, it gives no ground of action to the Church. But if such is the case also in the Church, that what is bound on earth is bound in heaven, and what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven, — for when the Church excommunicates, the excommunicated person is bound in heaven; when one is reconciled by the Church, the person so reconciled is loosed in heaven: — if such, then, is the case in the Church, Peter, in receiving the keys, represented the holy Church. If, then, in the person of Peter were represented the good in the Church, and in Judas’ person were represented the bad in the Church, then to these latter was it said, ‘But me ye will not have always’. But what means the ‘not always’; and what, ‘the always’? If you are good, if you belong to the body represented by Peter, you have Christ both now and hereafter: now by faith, by sign, by the sacrament of baptism, by the bread and wine of the altar.” (Tractate 50 on the Gospel of John). “It's clear, you see, from many places in scripture that Peter can stand for, or represent, the Church; above all from that place where it says, To you will I hand over the keys ofthe kingdom ofheaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall also be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall also be loosed in heaven (Mt 16: 19). Did Peter receive these keys, and Paul not receive them? Did Peter receive them, and John and James and the other apostles not receive them? Or are these keys not to be found in the Church, where sins are being forgiven every day? But because Peter symbolically stood for the Church, what was given to him alone was given to the whole Church. So Peter represented the Church; the Church is the body of Christ.” (Sermon 149:7). “Let us not listen to those who deny that the Church of God is able to forgive all sins. They are wretched indeed, because they do not recognize in Peter the rock and they refuse to believe that the keys of heaven, lost from their own hands, have been given to the Church.” (Christian Combat, 31:33 , in JUR, 3:51 [A.D. 397]). “…A faggot that is cut off from the vine retains its shape. But what use is that shape, if it is not living from the root? Come, brothers, if you wish to be engrafted in the vine. It is grievous when we see you thus lying cut off. Number the priests even from that seat of Peter. And in that order of fathers see who to whom succeeded: that is the rock which the proud gates of hades do not conquer. All who rejoice in peace, only judge truly.” “For in the Catholic Church, not to speak of the purest wisdom, to the knowledge of which a few spiritual, men attain in this life, so as to know it, in the scantiest measure, deed, because they are but men, still without any uncertainty (since the rest of the multitude derive their entire security not from acuteness of intellect, but from simplicity of faith,)--not to speak of this wisdom, which you do not believe to be in the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house. Such then in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic Church, as it is right they should, though from the slowness of our understanding, or the small attainment of our life, the truth may not yet fully disclose itself. But with you, where there is none of these things to attract or keep me, the promise of truth is the only thing that comes into play. Now if the truth is so clearly proved as to leave no possibility of doubt, it must be set before all the things that keep me in the Catholic Church; but if there is only a promise without any fulfillment, no one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion. “For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manichaeus, how can I but consent? Take your choice. If you say, Believe the Catholics: their advice to me is to put no faith in you; so that, believing them, I am precluded from believing you;--If you say, Do not believe the Catholics: you cannot fairly use the gospel in bringing me to faith in Manichaeus; for it was at the command of the Catholics that I believed the gospel;--Again, if you say, You were right in believing the Catholics when they praised the gospel, but wrong in believing their vituperation of Manichaeus: do you think me such a fool as to believe or not to believe as you like or dislike, without any reason? It is therefore fairer and safer by far for me, having in one instance put faith in the Catholics, not to go over to you, till, instead of bidding me believe, you make me understand something in the clearest and most open manner. To convince me, then, you must put aside the gospel. If you keep to the gospel, I will keep to those who commanded me to believe the gospel; and, in obedience to them, I will not believe you at all. But if haply you should succeed in finding in the gospel an incontrovertible testimony to the apostleship of Manichaeus, you will weaken my regard for the authority of the Catholics who bid me not to believe you; and the effect of that will be, that I shall no longer be able to believe the gospel either, for it was through the Catholics that I got my faith in it; and so, whatever you bring from the gospel will no longer have any weight with me. Wherefore, if no clear proof of the apostleship of Manichaeus is found in the gospel, I will believe the Catholics rather than you. But if you read thence some passage clearly in favor of Manichaeus, I will believe neither them nor you: not them, for they lied to me about you; nor you, for you quote to me that Scripture which I had believed on the authority of those liars. But far be it that I should not believe the gospel; for believing it, I find no way of believing you too. For the names of the apostles, as there recorded, do not include the name of Manichaeus. And who the successor of Christ's betrayer was we read in the Acts of the Apostles; which book I must needs believe if I believe the gospel, since both writings alike Catholic authority commends to me.” (Against the Letter of Mani Called “The Foundation” 4:5 [A.D. 397]). “If all men throughout the world were such as you most vainly accuse them of having been, what has the chair of the Roman church done to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius sits today? Or the chair of the Church of Jerusalem, in which James once sat, and in which John sits today, with which we are united in catholic unity, and from which you have severed yourselves by your mad fury? Why do you call the apostolic chair a seat of the scornful? If it is on account of the men whom you believe to use the words of the law without performing it, do you find that our Lord Jesus Christ was moved by the Pharisees, of whom He says, “They say, and do not,” to do any despite to the seat in which they sat? Did He not commend the seat of Moses, and maintain the honor of the seat, while He convicted those that sat in it? For He says, “They sit in Moses’ seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works:” (Against the Letters of Petilani 2:118 [A.D. 402]). "If all men throughout the world were such as you most vainly accuse them of having been, what has the chair of the Roman church done to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius [the 39th Pope] sits today?" (Against the Letters of Petilani 2:118 [A.D. 402]). “Among these [apostles] Peter alone almost everywhere deserved to represent the whole Church. Because of that representation of the Church, which only he bore, he deserved to hear ‘I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.’” (Sermon 295 [c. 411 A.D]) “If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church’ . . . [Matt. 16:18]. Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement, Clement by Anacletus, Anacletus by Evaristus . . . In this order of succession a Donatist bishop is not to be found ” (Letters 53:1:2 [A.D. 412]). “Some things are said which seem to relate especially to the apostle Peter, and yet are not clear in their meaning unless referred to the Church, which he is acknowledged to have represented in a figure on account of the primacy which he bore among the disciples. Such is ‘I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ and other similar passages.” (Commentary on Psalm 108 1 [A.D. 415]). “Who is ignorant that the first of the apostles is the most blessed Peter?” (Commentary on John 56:1 [A.D. 416]). “Carthage was also near to the countries beyond the sea, and distinguished by illustrious renown, so that it had a bishop of more than ordinary influence, who could afford to disregard even a number of enemies conspiring against him, because he saw himself united by letters of communion both to the Roman Church, in which the supremacy of an apostolic chair has always flourished.” (Letter 74, chp 3). “For if in Peter’s case there were no sacramental symbol of the Church, the Lord would not have said to him, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” If this was said only to Peter, it gives no ground of action to the Church. But if such is the case also in the Church, that what is bound on earth is bound in heaven, and what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven, — for when the Church excommunicates, the excommunicated person is bound in heaven; when one is reconciled by the Church, the person so reconciled is loosed in heaven: — if such, then, is the case in the Church, Peter, in receiving the keys, represented the holy Church.” (Tractate 50 on the Gospel of John). “For at that time the apostles were not yet fitted even to die for Christ, when He said to them, “Ye cannot follow me now,” and when the very foremost of them, Peter, who had presumptuously declared that he was already able, met with a different experience from what he anticipated.” (Tractate 96 on the Gospel of John). “So does the Church act in blessed hope through this troublous life; and this Church symbolized in its generality, was personified in the Apostle Peter, on account of the primacy of his apostleship.” (Tractate 124 on the Gospel of John). “In Peter, which means Rocky, we see our attention drawn to the Rock. Now the apostle Paul says about the former people, ‘They drank from the spiritual rock that was following them; but the rock was Christ’ (1 Cor 10:4). So this disciple is called Rocky from the Rock, like a Christian is from Christ. Why have I wanted to make this little introduction? In order to suggest to you that in Peter the Church is to be understood. Christ, you see, built His Church not on a man but on Peter’s confession. What is Peter’s confession? ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ There’s the rock for you, there’s the foundation, there’s where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer.” (Sermon 229). “[On this matter of the Pelagians] two councils have already been sent to the Apostolic See [the bishop of Rome], and from there rescripts too have come. The matter is at an end; would that the error too might be at an end!” (Sermons 131:10 [A.D. 411]). “But that rock, Peter himself, that great mountain, when he prayed and saw that vision, was watered from above.” (Expostition on Psalm 104). “The venerable Pope Zosimus, keeping in view this deprecatory preamble, dealt with the man, puffed up as he was with the blasts of false doctrine, so as that he should condemn all the objectionable points which had been alleged against him by the deacon Paulinus, and that he should yield his assent to the rescript of the Apostolic See which had been issued by his predecessor of sacred memory. “For although he deceived the council in Palestine, seemingly clearing himself before it, he entirely failed in imposing on the church at Rome.” (On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin, 2:8,9). “To Caelestine, my lord most blessed, and holy father venerated with all due affection, Augustine sends greetings in the Lord. First of all I congratulate you that our Lord God has, as we have heard, established you in the illustrious chair which you occupy without any division among His people…There are cases on record, in which the Apostolic See, either pronouncing judgment or confirming the judgment of others, sanctioned decisions by which persons, for certain offenses, were neither deposed from their episcopal office nor left altogether unpunished.” (Letter 209). “And when his speech [Celestius to Pope Zosimus] came to the question that was under consideration, he said: "If, indeed, questions have arisen beyond the scope of the faith, on which there might perhaps be dissensions on the part of a great number of people, in no case have I pretended to pronounce a decision on any dogma, as if I myself possessed a definite authority in the matter ; but whatever I have drawn from the source of the prophets and apostles, I have presented for the approval of your apostolic office; so that if any error has crept in among us, human beings that we are, through our ignorance, it may be corrected by your sentence." (De Peccati, Originali). “Our forefathers gave the name `Chair' to this feast so that we might remember that the Prince of the Apostles was entrusted with the `Chair' of the episcopate ... Blessed be God, who deigned to exalt the apostle Peter over the whole Church. It is most fitting that this foundation be honoured since it is the means by which we may ascend to Heaven.” (Sermon 15 on the Saints). “I close with a word of counsel to you who are implicated in those shocking and damnable errors, that, if you acknowledge the supreme authority of Scripture, you should recognise that authority which from the time of Christ Himself, through the ministry of His apostles, and through a regular succession of bishops in the seats of the apostles, has been preserved to our own day throughout the whole world, with a reputation known to all.” (Reply to Faustus the Manichean, 33:9). “ "For being ignorant of God's righteousness, and wishing to establish their own, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God." My brethren, have compassion with me. When you find such men, do not hide them; have no misdirected mercy. Refute those who contradict, and those who resist bring to us. For already two councils on this question have been sent to the apostolic see ; and replies have also come from there. The cause is finished; would that the error might sometime be finished also .” (Sermon 131). “ For men, wishing to be built upon men, said "I am of Paul-and I of Apollos, I of Cephas ", that is Peter. And others who did not wish to be built upon Peter but upon the rock "But I am of Christ". But when the apostle Paul realized that he was chosen and Christ despised, he said "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in Paul's name? ". As not in Paul, so neither in Peter, but in the name of Christ, that Peter might be built upon the rock, not the rock upon Peter. Therefore this same Peter, called blessed by the rock, bearing the figure of the Church, holding the chiefplace in the apostleship, shortly after he heard he was blessed, now heard that he was Peter, now heard that he was to be built upon the rock. . . . . The apostle Paul says, "Now we who are strong should bear the burdens of the weak". When Peter says, "Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God", he represents the strong; but when he fears and totters, and wishes that Christ should not suffer, fearing the death, and not recognizing the life, he represents the weak ones of the Church. In that one apostle then, that is Peter, in the order of the apostles first and principal, in whom the Church was figured, both kinds were to be represented, that is both the strong and the weak, because the Church is not without both.” (Sermon 76). “ For Peter in many places in the Scriptures appears to represent the Church; especially in that place where it was said "I give to thee the keys . . . shall' be loosed in heaven". What! did Peter receive these keys, and Paul not receive? Did Peter receive and John and James not receive, and the rest of the apostles? Or are not the keys in the Church where sins are daily remitted? But since in a figure Peter represented the Church, what was given to him singly was given to the Church.” (Sermon 149). “As you know, the Lord Jesus chose his disciples before his passion, whom he named apostles. Among these Peter alone almost everywhere deserved to represent the whole Church. Because of that representation of the whole Church which only he bore, he deserved to hear "I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven". For these keys not one man but the unity of the Church received. Here therefore the excellence of Peter is set forth, because he represented that universality and unity of the Church, when it was said to him " I give to thee" what was given to all. For that you may know that the Church did receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, hear elsewhere what the Lord said to all the apostles, "Receive the Holy Ghost" and forthwith "Whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them, and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained ". This pertains to the keys, of which it was said "Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven". But this he said to Peter, that you may know that Peter then represented the person of the whole Church. Hear what is said to him, what to all the faithful saints . . . Deservedly also, after his resurrection, the Lord commended his sheep to Peter himself to feed; for he was not the only one among the disciples who was thought worthy to feed the Lord's sheep, but when Christ speaks to one, unity is commended-and to Peter for the first time, because Peter is first among the apostles.” (Sermon 295). “ [In my first book against Donatus] I mentioned somewhere with reference to the apostle Peter that " the Church is founded upon him as upon a rock". This meaning is also sung by many lips in the lines of blessed Ambrose, where, speaking of the domestic cock, he says : "When it crows, he, the rock of the Church, absolves from sin." But I realize that I have since frequently explained the words of our Lord : "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church", to the effect that they should be understood as referring to him whom Peter confessed when he said: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God", and as meaning that Peter, having been named after this rock, figured the person of the Church, which is built upon this rock and has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. For what was said to him was not "Thou art the rock", but "Thou art Peter". But the rock was Christ, having confessed whom (even as the whole Church confesses) Simon was named Peter. Which of these two interpretations is the more likely to be correct, let the reader choose which of these two opinions is the more probable..” (Retractations, Book I, Chapter I). “ Just as the apostles who formed the exact number of twelve, in other words parted into four parts of three each, when all were questioned only Peter replied "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ", and to him it was said " I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven", as if he alone received the power of binding and loosing : seeing then that one so spake on behalf of all, and received the gift along with all, as if personifying the unity itself; one for all because there is unity in all.” (In Joannis Euangelium) [A.D. 416]). “But first the Lord asks what he knew, not once but a second and a third time, whether Peter loved him; and just as often he has the same reply, that he is loved, while just as often he gives Peter the same charge to feed his sheep. The threefold denial is renounced by a threefold confession, that the tongue may serve love no less than fear, and imminent death may not seem to have drawn out more from the voice than the present life. Let it be the office of love to feed the Lord's flock, if it was the signal of fear to deny the Shepherd.” (In Joannis Euangelium). “These two states of life [the life of faith and the life of sight] were symbolized by Peter and John, each of them one; but in this life they both walked by faith, and they will both enjoy that eternal life through sight. For the whole body of the saints, therefore, inseparably belonging to the body of Christ, and for their safe pilotage through this stormy life, did Peter, the first of the apostles, receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven for binding and loosing sins. And for the same congregation of the saints did John the evangelist recline on the breast of Christ, in reference to the perfect repose in the bosom of that mysterious life to come. For it is not the former alone, but the whole Church that binds and looses sins; nor did the latter alone drink at the fountain of the Lord's breast, to utter again in preaching those truths of the Word in the beginning, God with God, and those other sublime truths, the divinity of Christ, and the Trinity and Unity of the whole Godhead, which are yet to be seen in the kingdom face to face, but meanwhile, till the Lord comes, are only to be seen in a mirror and in a riddle ; but the Lord has himself diffused this very gospel throughout the whole world, that everyone of his own may drink Gom it, according to his capacity.” (In Joannis Evangelium). “If all men throughout the world were such as you most vainly accuse them of being, what has the chair of the Roman church done to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius sits to-day ; or the chair of the church of Jerusalem, in which James sat, and in which John sits to-day, with which we are connected in catholic unity, and from which you have severed yourselves by mad fury?” (Contra Litteras Petiliani, Book 2 [A.D. 402]. “If the lineal succession of bishops is to be considered, with how much more benefit to the Church do we reckon from Peter himself, to whom, as bearing in a figure the whole Church, the Lord said: "Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer it"! For to Peter succeeded Linus, Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus, Iginus, Anicetus, Pius, Soter, Eleutherius, Victor, Zephyrinus, Calixtus, Urban, Pontian, Antherus, Fabian, Cornelius, Lucius, Stephen, Xystus, Dionysius, Felix, Eutychian, Gaius, Marcellinus, Marcellus, Eusebius, Miltiades, Sylvester, Mark, Julius, Liberius, Damasus, Siricius, Anastasius. In this order of succession no Donatist bishop is found. But, unexpectedly, they sent from Africa an ordained man, who, presiding over a few Africans in Rome, propagated the title of Mountain Men or Cutzupits.” (Fortunatus, Alypius, and Augustine to Generosus [A.D. 400]). The following two excerpts give recaps of The Council of Milevis, which you will see play out later on (in the section titled “The Council of Milevis”: “After letters had come to us from the East, discussing the case in the clearest manner, we were bound not to fail in assisting the Church’s need with such episcopal authority as we possess (nullo modo jam qualicumque episcopali auctoritate deesse Ecclesiae debueramus). In consequence, relations as to this matter were sent from two Councils — those of Carthage and of Milevis — to the Apostolic See, before the ecclesiastical acts by which Pelagius is said to have been acquitted had come into our hands or into Africa at all. We also wrote to Pope Innocent, of blessed memory a private letter, besides the relations of the Councils, wherein we described the case at greater length, to all of these he [Pope Innocent] answered in the manner which was the right and duty of the bishop of the Apostolic See (Ad omnia nobis ille rescripsit eo modo quo fas erat atque oportebat Apostolicae sedis Antistitem). All of which you may now read, if perchance none of them or not all of them have yet received you; in them you will see that, while he has preserved the moderation which was right, so that the heretic should not be condemned if he condemns his errors, yet the new and pernicious error is so restrained by ecclesiastical authority that we much wonder that there should be any still remaining who, by any error whatsoever, try to fight against the grace of God….” (Augustine, Epistle 186: Alypius and Augustine to Paulinus – Bishop of Nola near Naples. AD 417. Patrologia Latina 33.816). “Refute those [Pelagians] who contrdict, and those who resist bring to us. For already two councils on this question have been sent to the Apostolic see and replies have also come from there. The cause is finished; would that the error might sometime be finished also!” (Augustine, Sermon 131. Sept 23, 417. Patrologia Latina 38. 734). "[On this matter of the Pelagians] two councils have already been sent to the Apostolic See [the bishop of Rome], and from there rescripts too have come. The matter is at an end; would that the error too might be at an end!" (Sermon 81). “The new-fangled Pelagian heretics have been most justly condemned by the authority of catholic councils and of the Apostolic See. (On the Soul and its Origin). “After a letter had reached us from the East, quite openly pushing the [Pelagian] heresy, it was now our duty not to fail the Church in any way, by any episcopal authority whatever; accordingly reports were sent on this matter from two councils, those of Carthage and Mileve, to the apostolic see. . . . We also wrote to the late Pope Innocent, in addition to the reports of the councils, a private letter,' in which we dealt more fully with the same question. To all he wrote back to us in the manner that was right and proper for the pontiff of the apostolic see.” (Alypius and Augustine to Paulinus [A.D. 417). “With crafty eloquence he, Antony, persuaded our aged primate, a most venerable man, to believe all his statements, and to commend him as altogether blameless to the venerable Pope Boniface. But why should I rehearse all the rest, seeing the same venerable old man must have reported the whole affair to your holiness? . . . . He, Antony, proclaims : " Either I ought to sit in my own see, or I ought not to be a bishop." “There are cases on record in which the apostolic see, judging, or confrming thejudgement of others, [sanctioned decisions] by which persons were for offences neither deposed from their episcopal office, nor left altogether unpunished. I will not look into those very remote from our time; I shall mention recent cases. Let Priscus, a bishop of the province of Caesarea, proclaim : " Either the office of primate ought to be open to me as to others, or I ought not to remain a bishop." Let Victor, another bishop of the same province, with whom, when involved in the same penalty as Priscus, no bishop beyond his ' own diocese holds communion, let him, I say, protest: "Either I ought to have communion everywhere, or I ought I not to have it in my own district." Let Lawrence,' a third 1, bishop of the same province, speak, and in the precise words of this man exclaim : "Either I ought to sit in the chair to whichhave been consecrated, or I ought not to be a bishop." But who will censure these judgements, unless he supposes either I that all offences should be overlooked, or that all should be punished in one way? “Since, then, with pastoral and vigilant caution, the most blessed Pope Boniface has put in his letter about Bishop Antony the words, "if he has truthfully told us the facts", I receive now the course of events which in his pamphlet he I kept back, and also the things which were done after the letter of that man of blessed memory had been read in Africa; and in the mercy of Christ extend your aid to men imploring it more earnestly than he does from whose turbulence they desire to be freed. For either from himself, or at least from very frequent rumours, threats are held out that the courts of justice, and the public powers, and military force are to execute the decision of the apostolic see ; and so these unhappy men, being now catholic Christians, dread severer treatment from a catholic bishop, than they dreaded from the laws of catholic emperors when they were heretics. Do not permit these things to be done, I implore you by the blood of Christ, by the memory of the apostle Peter, who has warned those placed over I Christian people against violently lording it over the brethren. I commend to the gracious love of your holiness both the catholics of Fussala, my children in Christ, and also Bishop Antony, my son in Christ, for I love both. I do not blame the People of Fussala for bringing- to your ears a just complaint against me 1 for imposing on them a man whom I had not proved, and who was in age at least not yet established, by whom they have been so afflicted.” (Epistle 209, to Celestine [A.D. 423]). “Some things are said which seem to relate especially to the apostle Peter, and yet are not clear in their meaning unless referred to the Church, which he is acknowledged to have represented in a figure, on account of the primacy which he bore among the disciples. Such is "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven", and other similar passages; so Judas represents those Jews who were Christ's enemies.” (Enanatio in Psalmum). "Then he comes to Simon Peter", as if he had already washed some others, and after them had come to the chief. Who is ignorant that the$rst of the apostles is the most blessed Peter? But we are not therefore to understand that he came to him after others, but that he began from him.” (In Joannis Euangelium 56. [A.D. 416]). “Carthage was also near the countries over the sea, and distinguished by illustrious renown, so that it had a bishop of more than ordinary influence, who could afford to disregard a number of conspiring enemies because he saw himself joined by letters of communion both to the Roman church, in which the primacy of an apostolic chair always nourished and to other lands from which the gospel came to Africa itself; and he was prepared to defend himself before these churches, if his enemies tried to alienate them from him. . . . It was a matter concerning colleagues who could reserve their entire case to the judgement of other colleagues, especially of apostolic churches. . . . . As if it might not have been said, and most justly said to them [the Donatists] : "Well, let us suppose that these bishops who decided the case of Caecilian at Rome were not good judges ; there still remained a plenary council of the universal Church, in which these judges themselves might be put on their defence, so that, if they were convicted of mistake, their decisions might be reversed." (Epistle 43, to Glorius, etc. [A.D. 397]) “And since the whole Christ is head and body, which truth I do not doubt that you know well, the head is our Saviour himself, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who now, after he is risen from the dead, sits at the right hand of the Father; but his body is the Church: not this church or that, but diffused over all the world, nor that only which exists among men living, for those also belong to it who were before us and are to be after us to the end of the world. For the whole Church, made up of all the faithful, because all the faithful are members of Christ, has its head, which governs the body, situate in the heavens ; though it is separated from sight, yet it is bound by love.” (Enarratio in Psalmum [A.D. 415]). “Cyprian speaks as follows in his letter to Quintus "For even Peter . . ." Here is a passage in which Cyprian records what we also learn in Holy Scripture, that the apostle Peter, in whom the primacy of the apostles shines with such exceeding grace, was corrected by the later apostle Paul, when he adopted a custom in the matter of circumcision at variance with the demands of truth. If it was therefore possible for Peter in some point to walk not uprightly according to the truth . . . why might not Cyprian against the rule of truth, which afterwards the whole Church held, compel heretics or schismatics to be baptized afresh? I suppose there is no slight to Cyprian in comparing him with the apostle Peter in respect of his crown of martyrdom; rather I ought to be afraid lest I am slighting Peter. Who can be ignorant that the chief apostolate is to be preferred to any episcopate? But even if the dignity of their sees differs, the glory of martyrdom is one. . “Nor should we dare to assert any such thing, were we not supported by the unanimous authority of the whole Church, to which he, Cyprian, would without doubt have yielded, if at that time the truth of this question had been established by the investigation and decree of a general council. …. “It is safe for us not to advance with any rash opinion about things which have been neither started in a local catholic council nor completed in a plenary one, but to assert, with the confidence of a fearless voice, that which, under the government of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, has been conjrmed by consent of the universal Church. (De Baptismo contra Donatistas, Book I. [A.D. 401]). “[After quoting the heretical portion of Celestius' libellus he proceeds:] This his opinion Pelagius was afraid or ashamed to bring out to you; but his disciple, without any obscurity, was neither ashamed nor afraid to publish it openly before the apostolic see.. But the very merciful prelate of that see, when he saw I him carried headlong with such presumption like a madman, until he might recover, if that were possible, preferred to bind him bit by bit by question and answer, rather than to I strike him with a severe sentence, which would thrust him down that precipice over which he seemed to be already I hanging. I do not say " had fallen ", but " seemed to be hanging" ; for earlier in the same libellus he had promised before I speaking of such questions: "If by chance any error of ignorance has crept in, human as we are, it may be corrected by - your sentence.” “So the venerable Pope Zosimus, holding to this foreword, urged the man, inflated with false doctrine, to condemn what he was accused of by the deacon Paulinus, and to give his I assent to the letters of the apostolic see which had emanated from his predecessor of holy memory. He refused to condemn what the deacon objected, but he dared not resist the letters of blessed Pope Innocent, nay, he promised " to condemn whatever that see should condemn".: Thus gently treated, as if a madman, that he might be pacified, he was still not thought fit to be released from the bonds of excommunication. But a delay of two months1 was granted, that an answer might be received from Africa, and so an opportunity of recovery was given him by a medicinal gentleness in his sentence. For, indeed, he would be cured, if he would lay aside his obstinate vanity, and attend to what he promised, and would read those letters to which he professed to consent. But after the rescripts were duly issued fiom the African council of bishops, there were very good reasons why the sentence should be carried out against him, in strictest accordance with equity. . . . For though Pelagius tricked the investigation in Palestine, seeming to clear himself before it, he entirely failed in imposing on the church at Rome (where, as you are aware, he was well known), although he tried even this ; but as I said, he entirely failed. For the most blessed Pope Zosimus recollected what his exemplary predecessor had thought of these very proceedings. He considered what was felt about this man by the trusty Romans, whose faith deserved to be spoken of in the Lord, and whose resounding zeal for catholic truth against his error he saw burning harmoniously. The man had lived among them for a long while, and his opinions could not be hidden. . . . “This being so, you of course feel that episcopal councils, and the apostolic see, and the whole Roman church, and the Roman Empire, which by God's grace has become Christian, have been most righteously moved against the authors of this wicked error, until they recover from the snares of the devil. “For the time, indeed, Pelagius seemed to say what was agreeable to the catholic faith, but in the end he had no power to deceive that see. Indeed after the replies of the council of Africa, into which province this pestilent doctrine had stealthily made its way, without, however, spreading widely or sinking deeply, other opinions also of this man were, by the care of some faithful brethren, discovered and brought to light at Rome, where he had dwelt for a very long while, and had already engaged in sundry discourses and controversies. In order to procure the condemnation of these opinions, Pope Zosimus, as you may read, annexed them to his letter which he wrote for publication throughout the catholic world.” (De Peccato Original [A.D. 418]). “Do you think they are therefore to be despised, because they are all of the western church, and we have mentioned no eastern bishop ? What are we to do, since they are Greeks and we are Latins? I think you ought to be satisjied with that part of the world in which the Lord willed to crown thejrst of his apostles with a glorious martyrdom. If you had been willing to hear blessed Innocent, the president of that church, you would then have freed your perilous youth from the Pelagian snares. For what could that holy man answer to the African councils except what from of old the apostolic see and the Roman church with the rest steadfastly holds? Yet you charge his successor with the crime of prevarication, because he would not go against the apostolic doctrine, and the sentence of his predecessor. . . . Take care how you reply to S. Innocent, who has no view on this matter except that of those men, western fathers, to whom I have introduced you, in case it is of any use. He himself sits with these too, after them in time though before them in place… “…Necessity therefore compelled that we should, at least by our assembly, crush their immodesty, and restrain their audacity. In truth your cause is anyhow jnished by a competent decision of bishops in common. There is no more need of examination with you, but merely to make you acquiesce in the sentence, or to restrain your turbulence…. “...He did not go back from his predecessor, Innocent, whom you feared to name ; but you preferred Zosimus, because he first dealt leniently with Celestius, since the latter, in these your statements, said that if anything was displeasing he was prepared to correct it, and promised to consent to the letters of Innocent.” (Contra Julianum Pelagianum [A.D. 422]) Since you persist in asserting that freedom, acting rightly or wrongly, cannot perish through sheer misuse, let the blessed Pope Innocent, pontiff of the Roman church, answer. Replying on your affairs to the episcopal councils of Africa he said, "Having experienced free will . . ." Do you see what the catholic faith does through its minister? (Opus Imperfectum contra Julianum, Book 6 [A.D. 430]). “You [Pope Boniface] who mind not high things, however loftily you are placed, did not disdain to be a friend of the lowly, and to return ample love. . . . I have ventured to write to your blessedness about these things which are now claiming the episcopal attention to viligance on behalf of the Lord's flock…. “…Since the heretics do not cease to growl at the entrances to the Lord's fold, and on every side to tear open the approaches so as to plunder the sheep redeemed at such a price; and since the pastoral watch-tower is common to all of us who discharge the episcopal office (although you are preeminent therein on a loftier height), I do what I can in respect of my small portion of the charge, as the Lord condescends to grant me, by the aid of your prayers, to oppose their pestilent and crafty writings. . . . . . . These words. . . I determined to address especially to your holiness, not so much for your learning as for your examination, and, perchance anything should displease you, for your correction.” (Contra duas Epistolas Pelagianorum [A.D. 420]). “Moreover, they, the Pelagians, accuse the Roman clergy, writing, "They, driven by the fear of a command, have not blushed to be guilty of the crime of prevarication : contrary to their previous judgement, wherein, by the acts, they had assented to the catholic dogma, they later pronounced that man's nature is evil". Nay, but the Pelagians conceived a false hope that their new and horrible dogma could prevail upon the catholic minds of certain Romans, when those crafty spirits . . . were treated with more lenity than the stricter discipline of the Church required. For while so many important ecclesiastical documents were passing to and fro between the apostolic see and the African bishops . . . what sort of letter or what decree is found of the late Pope Zosimus in which he declared that we must believe that man is born without any taint of original sin? He certainly never said this ; he never wrote it at all. But since Celestius had written this in his pamphlet, merely among those matters on which he confessed he was still in doubt and desired to be instructed . . . the willingness to amend, and not the falsehood of the dogma, was approved. Therefore his pamphlet was called catholic, because if by chance in any matters a man thinks otherwise than what the truth demands, it reveals a catholic mind not to define them with the greatest accuracy, but to reject them when they are detected and pointed out. . . . This was thought to be the case with him when he replied that he consented to the letters of the late Pope Innocent, in which all doubt about this matter was removed. In order that this might be made fuller and clearer in him, matters were held up until letters should come from Africa, in which province his craftiness had somehow become more clearly known. Eventually these letters came to Rome, declaring that for slow-witted and anxious men, it was not sufficient that he confessed his general consent to the letters of Innocent, but that he ought openly to revoke the mischievous statements which he had made in liis pamphlet. For if he did not do this, many people of insufficient intelligence would be more likely to believe that those poisons of the faith in his pamphlet had been approved by the apostolic see, because it had been affirmed by that see that the pamphlet was catholic, than to believe that the poisons had been amended because of his answer that he consented to the letters of Pope Innocent. . . . “But if, which God forbid, it had been judged in the Roman church that those dogmas of Celestius or Pelagius, condemned by Pope Innocent, should be pronounced worthy of approval, the mark of prevarication would rather have to be branded on the Roman clergy for this. To sum up, in the first place the letters of the most blessed Pope Innocent, in reply to the letters of the African bishops, have equally condemned this error which these men are trying to commend to us. Likewise his successor, the holy Pope Zosimus, never said or wrote that this dogma which these men think concerning infants is to be held. Besides, when Celestius tried to clear himself, he bound him by repeated interruptions l to consent to the aforesaid letters of the apostolic see. Surely then, provided the stability of the most ancient and robust faith was maintained, whatever in the meanwhile was done more leniently with Celestius was the most merciful persuasion of correction, not the most pernicious approval of wickedness. And since afterwards Celestius and Pelagius were condemned by the repeated authority of the same priesthood, this was the proof of a severity for a while withheld, but at length of necessity carried out, not a violation of that previously known, or a new recognition of truth. “ . . . These are the words of the venerable Bishop Innocent to the council of Carthage on this affair . . . What could be more clear or more manifest than that judgement of the apostolic see? To this Celestius professed that he assented, when, it being said to him by your holy predecessor, Zosimus, "Do you condemn all that is flung about in your name? ", He himself replied, "I condemn them in accordance with the judgement of your predecessor, Innocent ' ” (Contra dzcas Epistolas Pelagianorum, Book 2 [A.D. 420]). Proof of the Papacy Tool

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An article from St. Alphonus Liguori's "The History of Heresies and Their Refutation" < Heresies Tool Issac-Joseph Berruyer's Errors The abstruse matters treated of in this Chapter will not, perhaps, be interesting to the general reader; but several will be desirous to study profoundly the mysteries of the Faith, and to them this will be highly interesting and instructive. SUMMARY OF THESE ERRORS. I. Jesus Christ was created in time, by an operation ad extra, natural Son of God, of one God, subsisting in three Persons, who united the Humanity of Christ with a Divine Person. II. Jesus Christ, during the three days he was in the sepulchre, as he ceased to be a living man, consequently ceased to be the Son of God, and when God raised him again from the dead, he again begot him, and caused him to be again the Son of God. III. It was the Humanity alone of Christ which obeyed, prayed, and suffered; and his oblations, prayers, and meditations were not operations, produced from the Word, as from a physical and efficient principle, but, in this sense, were mere actions of his Humanity. IV. The miracles performed by Jesus Christ were not done by his own power, but only obtained by him from the Father by his prayers. V. The Holy Ghost was not sent to the Apostles by Jesus Christ, but by the Father alone, through the prayers of Jesus Christ. VI. Several other errors of his on various subjects. 1. Reading in the Bullarium of Benedict XIV. a Brief, which begins " Cum ad Congregationem" &c., published on the 17th of April, 1758, I see there prohibited and condemned the second part of a work (the first having been condemned in 1734), entitled the "History of the People of God, according to the New Testament," written by Father Isaac Berruyer; and all translations of the work into any language whatever are also condemned and prohibited. The whole of Berruyer’s work, then, and the Latin Dissertations annexed, and the Defence, printed along with the Italian edition, are all condemned, as containing propositions false, rash, scandalous, favouring and approaching to heresy, and foreign to the common sense of the Fathers and the Church in the interpretation of Scripture. This condemnation was renewed by Pope Clement XIII., on the 2nd of December, 1758, and the literal Paraphrase of the Epistles of the Apostles, after the Commentaries of Hardouin, was included in it: " Quod quidem Opus ob doctrine fallaciam, et contortas Sacrarum Litterarum interpretationes scandali mensuram implevit." With difficulty, I procured a copy of the work, and I took care also to read the various essays and pamphlets in which it was opposed. It went, however, through several editions, though the author himself gave it up, and submitted to the sentence of the Archbishop of Paris, who, with the other Bishops of France, condemned it. Besides the Pontifical and Episcopal condemnation, it was prohibited, likewise, by the Inquisition, and burned by the common hangman, by order of the Parliament of Paris. Father Zacchary, in his Literary History, says that he rejects the Work, likewise, and that the General of the Jesuits, whose subject F. Berruyer was, declared that the Society did not recognize it. 2. I find in the treatises written to oppose Berruyer’s work, that the writers always quote the errors of the author in his own words, and these errors are both numerous and pernicious, especially those regarding the Mysteries of the Trinity, and the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, against which especially the devil has always worked, through so many heresies; for these Mysteries are the foundation of our Faith and salvation, as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God made man, the fountain of all Graces, and of all hope for us; and hence, St. Peter says that, unless in Jesus, there is no salvation: " Neither is there salvation in any other" (Acts, iv, 12). 3. I was just concluding this Work, when I heard of Berruyer’s work, and the writings opposing it; and, to tell the truth, I was anxious to conclude this work of mine, and rest myself a little after the many years of labour it cost me; but the magnitude and danger of his errors induced me to refute his book as briefly as I could. Remember that, though the work itself was condemned by Benedict XIV. and Clement XIII., the author was not, since he at once bowed to the decision of the Church, following the advice of St. Augustine, who says that no one can be branded as a heretic, who is not pertinaciously attached to, and defends his errors: " Qui sententiam suam, quamvis falsam, atque perversam, nulla pertinaci animositate defendunt corrigi parati cum invenerint, nequaquam sunt inter Hrereticos deputandi." 4. Before we commence the examination of Berruyer’s errors, I will give a sketch of his system, that the reader may clearly understand it. His system is founded principally on two Capital Propositions, both as false as can be. I say Capital ones, for all the other errors he published depend on them. The first and chief proposition is this, that Jesus Christ is the natural Son of one God, but of God subsisting in three Persons; that is to say, that Jesus Christ is Son, but not Son of the Father, as Principal, and first Person of the Trinity, but Son of the Father subsisting in three Persons, and, therefore, he is, properly speaking, the Son of the Trinity. The second proposition, which comes from the first, and is also what I call a Capital one, is this, that all the operations of Jesus Christ, both corporal and spiritual, are not the operations of the Word, but only of his humanity, and from this, then, he deduced many false and damnable consequences. Although, as we have already seen, Berruyer himself was not condemned, still his book is a sink of extravagancies, follies, novelties, confusion, and pernicious errors, which, as Clement XIII. says, in his Brief, obscure the principal Articles of our Faith, so that Arians, Nestorians, Sabellians, Socinians, and Pelagians, will all find, some more, some less, something to please them in this work. There are mixed up with all this many truly Catholic sentiments, but these rather confuse than enlighten the mind of the reader. We shall now examine his false doctrine, and especially the first proposition, the parent, we may say, of all the rest. BERRUYER SAYS THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS MADE IN TIME, BY AN OPERATION AD EXTRA, THE NATURAL SON OF GOD, ONE SUBSISTING IN THREE PERSONS, WHO UNITED THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST WITH A DIVINE PERSON. 5. He says, first: " Jesus Christus D. N. vere dici potest et debet naturalis Dei Filius; Dei, inquam, ut vox ilia Deus supponit pro Deo uno et vero subsistente in tribus personis, agente ad extra, et per actionem transeuntem et liberam uniente humanitatem Christi cum Persona Divina in unitatem Persons" (1). And he briefly repeats the same afterwards: "Filius factus in tempore Deo in tribus Personis subsistenti" (2). And again: "Non repugnat Deo in tribus Personis subsistenti, fieri in tempore, et esse Patrem Filii naturalis, et veri." Jesus Christ, then, he says, should be called the Natural Son of God, not because (as Councils, Fathers, and all Theologians say) the Word assumed the humanity of Christ in unity of Person; and thus our Saviour was true God and true man true man, because he had a human soul and body, and true God, because the Eternal Word, the true Son of God, true God generated from the Father, from all eternity, sustained and terminated the two Natures of Christ, Divine and human, but because, according to Berruyer, God, subsisting in three Persons, united the Word to the humanity of Christ, and thus Jesus Christ is the natural Son of God, not because he is the Word, born of the Father, but because he was made the Son of God in time, by God subsisting in three Persons, " uniente humanitatem Christi cum Persona Divina." (1) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 59. (2) Idem, ibid, . 60. Again, he repeats the same thing, in another place: "Rigorose loquendo per ipsam formaliter actionem unientem Jesus Christus constituitur tan turn Filius Dei naturalis." The natural Son, according to Hardouin’s and Berruyer’s idea; because the real natural Son of God, was the only begotten Son, begotten from the substance of the Father; and hence, the Son that Berruyer speaks of, produced from the three Persons, is Son in name only. It is not repugnant, he says, to God to become a Father in time, and to be the Father of a true and natural Son, and he always explains this of God, subsisting in three Divine Persons. 6. Berruyer adopted this error from his master, John Hardouin, whose Commentary on the New Testament was condemned by Benedict XIV., on the 28th of July, 1743. He it was who first promulgated the proposition, that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God as the Word, but only as man, united to the Person of the Word. Commenting on that passage of St. John, " In the beginning was the Word, “ he says: " Aliud esse Verbum, aliud esse Filium Dei, intelligi voluit Evangelista Joannes. Verbum est secunda Ss. Trinitatis Persona; Filius Dei, ipsa per so quidem, sed tamen ut eidem Verbo hypostatice unita Christi humanitas." Ilardouin, therefore, says that the Person of the Word was united to the humanity of Christ, but that Jesus Christ then became the Son of God, when the humanity was hypostatically united to the Word; and, on this account, he says, he is called the Word, in the Gospel of St. John, up to the time of the Incarnation, but, after that, he is no longer called the Word, only the Only-begotten, and the Son of God: "Quamobrem in hoc Joannis Evangelic Verbum appellatur usque ad Incarnationem. Postquam autem caro factum est, non tam Verbum, sed Unigenitus, et Filius Dei est." 7. Nothing can be more false than this, however, since all the Fathers, Councils, and even the Scriptures, as we shall presently see, clearly declare that the Word himself was the only-begotten Son of God, who became incarnate. Hear what St. Paul says: " For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" (Phil, ii, 5, &c.) So that the Apostle says, that Christ, being equal to God, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. The Divine Person, which was united with Christ, and was equal to God, could not be the only-begotten Son of God, according to Hardouin, but must be understood to be the Word himself, for, otherwise, it would not be the fact that He who was equal to God emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. St. John, besides, in his First Epistle (v, 20), says: " We know that the Son of God is come." He says, " is come;" it is not, therefore, true, that this Son of God became the Son, only when he came, for we see he was the Son of God before he came. The Council of Chalcedon (Act. v) says, speaking of Jesus Christ: " Ante sæcula quidem de Patre genitum secundum Deitatem, et in novissimis autem diebus propter nos et propter nostram salutem ex Maria Virgine Dei Genitrice secundum Humanitatem……………. non in duas personas parti turn, sed unum eundemque Filium, et unigenitum Deum Verbum." Thus we see it there declared, that Jesus Christ, according to the Divinity, was generated by the Father, before all ages, and afterwards became incarnate in the fulness of time, and that he is one and the same, the Son of God and of the Word. In the Third Canon of the Fifth General Council it is declared: " Si quis dixerit imam naturam Dei Verbi incarnatam dicens, non sic ea excipit, sicut Patres docuerunt, quod ex Divina natura et humana, unione secundum subsistentiam facta, unus Christus effectus talis ………………anathema sit." We see here there is no doubt expressed that the Word was incarnate, and became Christ, but it was prohibited to say absolutely that the Incarnate Nature of the Word was one. We say, in the Symbol at Mass, that we believe in one God, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father, before all ages. Jesus Christ is not, therefore, the Son of God, merely because he was made the Son in time, or because his humanity was united to the Word, as Hardouin says, but because his humanity was assumed by the Word, who was already the Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. 8. All the Fathers teach that the Son of God who was made man is the very Person of the Word. St. Irenaeus (3) says: " Unus et idem, et ipse Deus Christus Verbum est Dei." St. Athanasius (4) reproves those who say: " Alium Christum, alium rursum esse Dei Verbum, quod ante Mariam, et sæcula erat Filius Patris." St. Cyril says (5): " Licet (Nestorius) duas naturas esse dicat carnis et Verbi Dei, differentiam significans attamen unionem non confitetur; nos enim illas adunantes unum Christum; unum eundem Filium dicimus." St. John Chrysostom (6), reproving Nestorius for his blasphemy, in teaching that in Jesus Christ there were two Sons, says: "Non alterum et alterum, absit, sed unum et eundem Dom. Jesum Deum Verbum carne nostra amictum," &c. St. Basil writes (7): "Verbum hoc quod erat in principio, nec humanum erat, nec Angelorum, sed ipse Unigenitus qui dicitur Verbum; quia impassibiliter natus, et Generantis imago est." St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (8) says: " Unus est Deus Pater Verbi viventis perfectus pcrfecti Genitor, Pater Filii unigcniti." St. Augustine says (9): " Et Verbum Dei, forma qurcdam non formata, sed forma omnium formarum existens in omnibus. Quærunt vero, quomodo nasci potuerit Filius coævus Patri: nonne si ignis æternus esset, coævus esset splendor?" And in another passage he says (10): " Christus Jesus Dei Filius est, et Deus, et Homo; Deus ante omnia secula, Homo in nostro seculo. Deus, quia Dei Verbum: Homo autem, quia in unitatcm personæ acccssit Vcrbo anima rationalis, et caro." Eusebius of Ccscrca says (11), not like Hardouin: " Non cum apparuit, tune et Filius: non cum nobiscum, tune et apud Deum: sed qucmadmodum in principio erat Verbum, in principio erat in principio erat Verbum, de Filio dicit." We would imagine that Eusebius intended to answer Hardouin, by saying that the Word, not alone when he became incarnate and dwelt amongst us, was then the Son of God, and with God, but as in the beginning he was the Word, so, in like manner, he was the Son; and hence, when St. John says: " In the beginning was the Word," he meant to apply it to the Son. It is in this sense all the Fathers and schoolmen take it, likewise, as even Hardouin himself admits, and still he is not ashamed to sustain, that we should not understand that it is the Word, the Son of God, who became incarnate, though both Doctors and schoolmen thus understand it. Here are his words: " Non Filius stilo quidem Scripturarum sacrarum, quamquam in scriptis Patrum, et in Schola etiam Filius." (3) St. Iræneus, l 17, adv. Hæres. (4) St. Athan. Epist. ad Epictetum. (5) St. Cyrill. in Commonitor. ad Eulogium. (6) St. Chrisost. Hom. 3, ad c. 1, Ep. ad Cæsar. (7) St. Basil. Horn, in Princ. Johann. (8) St. Greg. Thaumat. in Vita St. Greg. Nyss. (9) St. August. Serm. 38, de Verb. Dom. (10) St. August, in Euchirid, c. 3o. (11) Euseb. Ces. l. I, de Fide. 9. This doctrine has been taken up, defended, and diffusely explained, by Berruyer; and to strengthen his position, even that Jesus Christ is not the Son of the Father, as the first Person of the Trinity, but of one God, as subsisting in the three Divine Persons, he lays down a general rule, by which he says all texts of the New Testament in which God is called the Father of Christ, and the Son is called the Son of God, should be understood of the Father subsisting in three Persons, and the Son of God subsisting in three Persons. Here are his words: " Omnes Novi Testamenti textus, in quibus aut Deus dicitur Pater Christi, aut Filius dicitur Filius Dei, vel inducitur Deus Christum sub nomine Filii, aut Christus Deum sub nomine Patris interpretans: vel aliquid de Deo ut Christi Patre, aut de Christo ut Dei Filio narratur, intelligendi sunt de Filio facto in tempore secundum carnem Deo uni et vero in tribus Personis subsistenti." And this rule, he says, is necessary for the proper and literal understanding of the New Testament: " Hæc notio prorsus necessaria est ad litteralum et germanam intelligentiam Librorum Novi Testamenti" (12). He previously said that all the writers of the Old Testament who prophesied the coming of the Messiah should be understood in the same sense: " Cum et idem omnino censendum est de omnibus Vet. Testamenti Scriptoribus, quoties de future Messia Jesu Christo prophetant" (13). Whenever God the Father, or the first Person, he says, is called the Father of Jesus Christ, it must be understood that he is not called so in reality, but by appropriation, on account of the omnipotence attributed to the Person of the Father: " Recte quidem, sed per appropriationem Deus Pater, sive Persona prima, dicitur Pater Jesu Christi, quia actio uniens, sicut et actio creans, actio cst omnipotcntiao, cujus attributi actiones Patri, sive prima Personæ, per appropriationem tribuuntur" (14). (12) P. Berruyer, t. 8, p. 89 & 98. (13) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 8, (14) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 83. 10. This false notion of the Filiation of Jesus Christ Berruyer founds on that text of St. Paul (Rom. i, 3, 4): " Concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh, who was predestined the Son of God in power," &c. Now, these words, " his Son, who was made to him according to the flesh," he says, prove that Jesus Christ was the Son of God made in time according to the flesh. We reply, however, to this, that St. Paul, in this passage, speaks of Jesus Christ not as Son of God, but as Son of man; he does not say that Jesus Christ was made his Son according to the flesh, but " concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh;" that is, the Word, his Son, was made according to the flesh, or, in other words, was made flesh was made man, as St. John says: " The Word was made flesh." We are not, then, to understand with Berruyer, that Christ, as man, was made the Son of God; for as we cannot say that Christ, being man, was made God, neither can we say that he was made the Son of God; but we are to understand that the Word being the only Son of God, was made man from the stock of David. When we hear it said, then, that the humanity of Jesus Christ was raised to the dignity of Son of God, that is, understood to have taken place by the communication of the idioms founded on the unity of Person; for the Word having united human nature to his Person, and as it is one Person which sustains the two Natures, Divine and human, the propriety of the Divine Nature is then justly affirmed of man, and the propriety of God, of the human nature he assumed. How, then, is this expression, " who was predestined the Son of God in power," to be taken? Berruyer endeavours to explain it by a most false supposition, which we will presently notice. It is, he says, to be understood of the new filiation which God made in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for when our Lord died, as his soul was separated from his body, he ceased to be a living man, and was then no longer, he said, the Son of God; but when he rose again from the dead, God again made him his Son, and it is of this new filiation St. Paul, he says, speaks in these words: " Who was predestinated the Son of God in power, according to the spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead (Rom i. 4). Commentators and Holy Fathers give different interpretations to this text, but the most generally received is that of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Estius, and some others, who say that Christ was from all eternity destined to be united in time, according to the flesh, to the Son of God, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who united this man to the Word, who afterwards wrought miracles, and raised him from the dead. 11. To return to Berruyer. In his system he lays it down for a certainty, that Jesus Christ is the natural Son of one God, subsisting in three Persons. Is Christ, then, the Son of the Trinity? an opinion which shocked St. Fulgentius (15), who says that our Saviour, according to the flesh, might be called the work of the Trinity; but, according to his birth, both eternal and in time, is the Son of God the Father alone: " Quis unquam tantæ reperiri possit insania?, qui auderet Jesum Christum totius Trinitatis Filium prædicare? Jesus Christus secundum carnem quidem opus est totius Trinitatis; secundum vero utramque Nativitatem solius Dei Patris est Filius." But Berruyer’s partizans may say that he does not teach that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Trinity; but granting that he allows two filiations one eternal, the filiation of the Word, and the other in time, when Christ was made the Son of God, subsisting in three Persons he must then, of necessity, admit that this Son made in time was the Son of the Trinity. He will not have Jesus Christ to be the Word, that is, the Son generated from the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, from all eternity. If he is not the Son of the Father, whose Son is he, if not the Son of the Trinity? Had he any Father at all? There is no use in wasting words on the matter, for every one knows that in substance it is just the same to say the Son of one God subsisting in three Persons, as to say the Son of the Trinity. This, however, is what never can be admitted; for if we said Christ was the Son of the three Persons, it would be the same, as we shall prove, as to say that he was a mere creature; but when we say he is the Son, we mean that he was produced from the substance of the Father, or that he was of the same substance as the Father, as St. Atha-nasius teaches (16): " Omnis films ejusdem essentiæ est proprii parentis, alioquin impossibile est, ipsum verum esse filium." St. Augustine says that Christ cannot be called the Son of the Holy Ghost, though it was by the operation of the Holy Spirit the Incarnation took place. (15) St.Fulgent. Fragm. 32, I. 9. (16) St. Athan. Epist. 2, ad Scrapion. How, then, can he be the Son of the three Persons? St. Thomas (17) teaches that Christ cannot be called the Son of God, unless by the eternal generation, as he has been generated by the Father alone; but Berruyer wants us to believe that he is not the Son, generated by the Father, but made by one God, subsisting in three Persons. 12. To carry out this proposition, if he understands that Jesus Christ is the Son, consubstantial to the Father, who subsists in three Persons, he must admit four Persons in God, that is, three in which God subsists, and the fourth Jesus Christ, made the Son of the Most Holy Trinity; or, in other words, of God subsisting in three Persons. If, on the other hand, he considers the Father of Jesus Christ as one person alone, then he falls into Sabellianism, recognizing in God not three distinct Persons, but one alone, under three different names. He is accused of Arianism by others, and, in my opinion, his error leads to Nestorianism. He lays down as a principle, that there are two generations in God one eternal, the other in time one of necessity, ad intra the other voluntary, ad extra. In all this he is quite correct; but then, speaking of the generation in time, he says that Jesus Christ was not the natural Son of God the Father, as the first Person of the Trinity, but the Son of God, as subsisting in three Persons. 13. Admitting this, then, to be the case, it follows that Jesus Christ had two Fathers, and that in Jesus Christ there are two Sons one the Son of God, as the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, who generated him from all eternity the other, the Son made in time by God, but by God subsisting in three Persons, who, unking the humanity of Jesus Christ (or, as Berruyer says, uniting that man, hominem ilium,) to the Divine Word, made him his natural Son. If we admit this, however, then we must say that Jesus Christ is not true God, but only a creature, and that for two reasons, first because Faith teaches us that there are only two internal operations (ad intra) in God, the generation of the Word, and the spiration of the Holy Ghost; every other operation in God is external (ad extra), and external operations produce only creatures, and not a Divine Person. (17) St. Thom. 3, p. 711, 32, art. 3. The second reason is because if Jesus Christ were the natural Son of God, subsisting in three Persons, he would be the Son of the Trinity, as we have already stated, and that would lead us to admit two grievous absurdities first, the Trinity, that is, the three Divine Persons would produce a Son of God; but as we have already shown, the Trinity, with the exception of the production of the Word and the Holy Ghost, ad intra, only produces creatures, and not Sons of God. The second absurdity is, that if Jesus Christ was made the natural Son of God by the Trinity, he would generate or produce himself (unless we exclude the Son from the Trinity altogether), and this would be a most irrational error, such as Tertullian, charged Praxeas with: " Ipse se Filium sibi fecit" (18). Therefore, we see, according to Berruyer’s system, that Jesus Christ, for all these reasons, would not be true God, but a mere creature, and the Blessed Virgin would be, as Nestorius asserted, only the Mother of Christ, and not, as the Council decided, and Faith teaches, the Mother of God; for Jesus Christ is true God, seeing that his humanity had only the Person of the Word alone to terminate it, for it was the Word alone which sustained the two natures, human and Divine. 14. Berruyer’s friend, however, says that he does not admit the existence of two natural Sons one from eternity, the other in time. But then, I say, if he does not admit it, where is the use of torturing his mind, by trying to make out this second filiation of Jesus Christ, made in time the natural Son of God, subsisting in three Persons. He ought to say, as the Church teaches, and all Catholics believe, that it is the same Word who was from all eternity the natural Son of God, generated from the substance of the Father, who assumed human nature, and has redeemed mankind. But Berruyer wished to enlighten the Church with the knowledge of this new natural Son of God, about whom we knew nothing before, telling us that this Son was made in time, not from the Father, but by all the three Divine Persons, because he was united to, or, as he expressed it, had the honor of the Consortium of the Word, who was the Son of God from all eternity. We knew nothing of all this till Berruyer and his master, Hardouin, came to enlighten us. (18) Tertull. adv. Praxcam, n. 50. 15. Berruyer, however, was grievously astray in asserting that Jesus Christ was the natural Son of one God, subsisting in three Persons. In this he has all Theologians, Catechisms, Fathers, Councils, and Scripture, opposed to him. We do not deny that the Incarnation of the Word was the work of the three Divine Persons; but neither can it be denied that the Person who became incarnate was the only Son, the second Person of the Trinity, who was, without doubt, the Word himself, generated from all eternity by the Father, who, assuming human nature, and uniting it to himself in unity of Person, wished by this means to redeem the human race. Hear what the Catechisms and the Symbols of the Church say; they teach that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God made in time by the Trinity, as Berruyer imagines, but the eternal Word, born of the Father, the principal and first Person of the Most Holy Trinity. This is what the Roman Catechism teaches: " Filium Dei esso (Jesum) et verum Deum, sicut Pater est, qui eum ab æterno genuit"(19). And again (N. 9), Berruyer’s opinion is directly impugned: " Et quamquam duplicem ejus nativitatem agnoscamus, unum tamen Filium esse credimus; una enim Persona est, in quam Divina et humana natura convenit." The Athanasian Creed says that the Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created, but begotten; and speaking of Jesus Christ, it says that he is God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before all ages; and man, of the substance of his mother, born in time, who, though he is God and man, still is not two, but one Christ one, not by the conversion of the Divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God. As Jesus Christ, therefore, received his humanity from the substance of his mother alone, so he had his Divinity from the substance of his Father alone. (19) Catech. Rom. c. 3. art. 2, n. 11, 16. In the Apostles Creed we say: " I believe in God, the Father Almighty …..and in Jesus Christ, his only Son….. born of the Virgin Mary, …..suffered," &c. Remark, Jesus Christ, his Son, of the Father, the first Person, who is first named, not of the three Persons; and his only Son, that is one Son, not two. In the Symbol of the Council of Florence, which is said at Mass, and which comprises all the other Symbols previously promulgated by the other General Councils, we perceive several remarkable expressions. It says: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages (see, then, this only begotten Son is the same who was born of the Father before all ages), consubstantial to the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and became incarnate," &c. The Son of God, then, who wrought the redemption of mankind, is not he whom Berruyer supposes made in time on this earth, but the eternal Son of God, by whom all things were made, who came down from heaven, and was born and suffered for our salvation. Berruyer, then, is totally wrong in recognizing two natural Sons of God, one born in time of God, subsisting in three Persons, and the other generated by God from all eternity. 17. But, says Berruyer, then Jesus Christ, inasmuch as he was made a man in time, is not the real, natural Son of God, but merely his adopted Son, as Felix and Elipandus taught, and for which they were condemned? But this we deny, and we hold for certain that Jesus Christ, even as man is the true Son of God (See Refutation vii, n. 18), but that does not prove that there are two natural Sons of God, one eternal and the other made in time, because, as we have proved in this work, as quoted above, Jesus Christ, even as man, is called the natural Son of God, inasmuch as God the Father continually generates the Word from all eternity, as David writes: "The Lord hath said to me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee" (Psalm ii, 7). Hence it is that as the Son, previous to the Incarnation, was generated from all eternity, without flesh, so from the time he assumed humanity he was generated by the Father, and will for ever be generated, hypostatically united to his humanity. But it is necessary to understand that this man, the natural Son of God created in time, is the very Person of the Son, generated from all eternity, that is the Word, who assumed the humanity of Jesus Christ, and united it to itself. It cannot be said, then, that there are two natural Sons of God, one, man, made in time, the other, God, produced from all eternity, for there is only one natural Son of God, that is the Word, who, uniting human nature to himself in time is both God and man, and is, as the Athanasian Creed declares, one Christ: " For as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ. And as every man, though consisting of soul and body, is still only one man, one person, so in Jesus Christ, though there is the Word and the humanity, there is but one Person and natural Son of God." 18. Berruyer’s opinion also is opposed to the First Chapter of the Gospel of St. John, for there we read: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" and then it is said that it was this same Word which was made flesh: " And the Word was made flesh." Being made flesh does not mean that the Word was united to the human person of Jesus Christ, already existing, but it shows that the Word assumed humanity in the very instant in which it was created, so that from that very instant the soul of Jesus Christ and his human flesh became his own proper soul and his own proper flesh, sustained and governed by one sole Divine Person alone, which is the Word, which terminates and sustains the two Natures, Divine and human, and it is thus the Word was made man. Just pause for a moment ! St. John affirms that the Word, the Son, generated from the Father from all eternity, is made man, and Berruyer says that this man is not the Word, the Son of the eternal God, but another Son of God, made in time by all the three Divine Persons. When, however, the Evangelist has said: " The Word was made flesh," if you say and understand that the Word is not made flesh, are you not doing just what the Sacramentarians did, explaining the Eucharistic words, "This is my body," that the body of Jesus Christ was not his body, but only the figure, sign, or virtue of his body? This is what the Council of Trent reprobates so much in the heretics, distorting the words of Scripture to their own meaning. To return, however, to the Gospel of St. John. The Evangelist says, he dwelt among us. It was the eternal Word, then, which was made man, and worked out man’s redemption, and, therefore, the Gospel again says: "The Word was made flesh and we saw his glory, as it were the glory of the only-begotten of the Father." This Word, then, who was made man in time, is the only-begotten, and, consequently, the only natural Son of God, generated by the Father from all eternity. St. John (I. Epis. iv, 9), again repeats it: " By this has the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him." In this text we must remark that the Apostle uses the word " hath sent." Berruyer then asserts what is false, in saying that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, made in time, for St. John says that he existed Before he " was sent," for in fact it was the eternal Son of the Father that was sent by God, who came down from heaven, and brought salvation to the world. We should also recollect that St. Thomas says (20), that speaking of God, whenever one Person is said to be sent by another, he is said to be sent, inasmuch as he proceeds from the other, and therefore the Son is said to be sent by the Father to take human flesh, inasmuch as he proceeds from the Person of the Father alone. Christ himself declared this in the resurrection of Lazarus, for though he could have raised him himself, still he prayed to his Father that they might know he was his true Son, " That they may believe that thou hast sent me" (John, xi, 42), and hence St. Hilary says (21): " Non prece eguit, pro nobis oravit, ne Filius ignoraretur." 19. Along with all this we have the Tradition of the Fathers generally opposed to Berruyer’s system. St. Gregory of Nazianzen (22) says: " Id quod non erat assumpsit, non duo factus, sed unum ex duobus fieri subsistens; Deus enim ambo sunt, id quod assumpsit, et quod est assumptum, naturæ duæ in unum concurrentes, non duo Filii." St. John Chrysostom (23) writes: "Unum Filium unigenitum, non dividens dum in Filiorum dualitatem, portantem tamen in semetipso indivisarum duarum naturarum inconvertibiliter proprietates;" and again, " Etsi enim duplex natura, verumtamen indivisibilis unio in una filiationis confitenda Persona, et una subsistentia." (20) St. Thomas, p. 1, q. 4, ar. 1. (21) St. Hilar. l. 10, de Trin (22) St. Greg. Naziaii. Orat. 31. (23) St. John Chrysos. Ep. ad Cæsar. et Hom. 3, ad cap. 1 St. Jerom says (24): " Anima et caro Christi cum Verbo Dei una Persona est, unus Christus" St. Dionisius of Alexandria wrote a Synodical Epistle to refute Paul of Samosata, who taught a doctrine like Berruyer; " Duas esse Personas unius, et solius Christi; et duos Filios, unum natura Filium Dei, qui fuit ante sæcula, et unum homonyma Christum filium David." St. Augustine says (25): "Christus Jesus Dei Filius est Deus et Homo: Deus quia Dei Verbum: Homo autem, quia in unitatem Personæ necessit Verbo Anima rationalis et caro." I omit the quotations from many other Fathers, but those who are curious in the matter will find them in the Clypeum of Gonet and in the writings of Petavius, Gotti, and others. 20. Another reflection occurs to my mind. Besides the other errors published by Berruyer, and which follow from his opinions, which we will immediately refute, if the reader goes back to N. 9, he will perceive that the faith of Baptism, as taught by all Christians and Councils is jeopardized. According to his system, all passages in the New Testament in which God is called the Father of Christ, or the Son is called the Son of God, or where anything is mentioned about God, as Father of Christ, the Son of God, must be understood to apply to the Son of God made in time, according to the flesh, and made by that God, subsisting in three Persons. On the other hand, it is certain that Baptism is administered in the Church in the name of the three Persons, expressly and individually named, as Jesus Christ commanded his Apostle to do: " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt, xxviii, 19). But if the general rule laid down by Berruyer, as we have explained it, should be observed, then the Baptism administered in the Church would be no longer Baptism in the sense we take it, because the Father who is named would not be the first Person of the Trinity, as is generally understood, but the Father Berruyer imagined, a Father subsisting in three Divine Persons in a word, the whole Trinity. The Son would not be the Word, generated by the Father, the Principle of the Trinity, from all eternity, but the Son, made in time by all the three Persons, who, being an external work of God, ad extra, would be a mere creature, as we have seen already. (24) St. Hieron. Tract 40, in Jo. (25) St. August, in Euchirid. cap. 33. The Holy Ghost would not be the third Person, such as we believe him, that is, proceeding from the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, and from the Son, the second Person, that is, the Word, generated from all eternity by the Father. Finally, according to Berruyer, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost would not be what they are in reality, and what the whole Church believes them to be, the real Father, the real Son, and the real Holy Ghost, in opposition to what that great theologian, St. Gregory of Nazianzan teaches: " Quis Catholicorum ignorat Patrem vere esse Patrem, Filium vere esse Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, vere esse Spiritum Sanctum, sicut ipse Dominus ad Apostolos dicit: Euntes docete, &c. Hæc est perfecta Trinitas," &c. (26). Read, however, further on the Refutation of the third error, and you will find this fiction more diffusely and clearly refuted. We now pass on to the other errors of this writer, which flow from this first one. (26) St. Greg. Nazian. in Orat. de Fide, post. init. II BERRUYER SAYS THAT JESUS CHRIST, DURING THE THREE DAYS HE WAS IN THE SEPULCHRE, CEASED TO BE A LIVING MAN, AND, CONSEQUENTLY, WAS NO LONGER THE SON OF GOD. AND WHEN GOD AGAIN RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD, HE ONCE MORE GENERATED HIM, AND AGAIN MADE HIM THE SON OF GOD. 21. One must have a great deal of patience to wade through all these extravagant falsehoods. Christ, he says, during the three days he was in the sepulchre, ceased to be the natural Son of God: "Factum est morte Christi, ut homo Christus Jesus, cum jam non esset homo vivens, atque adeo pro triduo quo corpus ab Anima separatum jacuit in sepulchro, fieret Christus incapax illius appellationis, Filius Dei (1); and he repeats the same thing in another part of his work, in different words: " Actione Dei unius, Filium suum Jesum suscitantis, factum est, ut Jesus qui desierat essc homo vivens, et consequenter Filius Dei, iterum viveret deinceps non moriturus." This error springs from that false supposition we have already examined, for supposing that Jesus Christ was the Son of God subsisting in three Persons, that is the Son of the Trinity by an operation ad extra, he was then a mere man, and as by death he ceased to be a living man, he also ceased to be the Son of God subsisting in three Persons; because if Jesus Christ were the Son of God, as first Person of the Trinity, then in him was the Word, which, being hypostatically united to his soul and body, could never be separated from him, even when his soul was by death separated from his body. 22. Supposing, then, that Jesus Christ, dying, ceased to be the Son of God, Bcrruycr must admit that in those three days in which our Lord’s body was separated from his soul, the Divinity was separated from his body and soul. Let us narrow the proposition. Christ, he says, was made the Son of God, not because the Word assumed his humanity, but because the Word was united to his humanity, and hence, he says, as in the sepulchre he ceased to be a living man, his soul being separated from his body, he was no longer the Son of God, and, therefore, the Word ceased to be united with his humanity. Nothing, however, can be more false than this, for the Word assumed and hypostatically and inseparably united to himself in unity of Person the soul and body of Jesus Christ, and hence when our Lord died, and his most holy body was laid in the tomb, the Divinity of the Word could not be separated either from the body or the soul. This truth has been taught by St. Athanasius (2): " Cum Deitas neque Corpus in sepulchro dcsereret, neqno ab Anima in inferno separarctur." St. Gregory of Nyssa writes (3): " Deus qui totum homincm per suam cum illo conjunctionem in naturam Divinam mutaverat, mortis sempore a neutra illius, quam semel assumpserat, parte recessit;" and St. Augustine says (4): " Cum credimus Dei Filium, qui sepultus est, profecto Filium Dei dicimus et Carnem, quæ sola sepulta est." (1) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 63. (2) St. Athanasius, contra Apollinar l. 1, w. 15. (3) St. Greg. Nyss. Orat. 1 in Christ. Resur. (4) St. Aug. Tract 78, in Joan. w. 2. 23. St. John of Damascus tells us the reason the soul of Christ had not a different subsistence from his body, as it was the one Person alone which sustained both: " Neque enim unquam aut Anima, aut Corpus peculiarem atque a Verbi subsistentia diversam subsistentiam habuit" (5). On that account, he says, as it was one Person which sustained the soul and body of Christ, although the soul was separated from the body, still the Person of the Word could not be separated from them: " Corpus, et Anima simul ab initio in Verbi Persona existentiam habuerant, ac licet in morte divulsa fuerint, utrumque tamen eorum unam Verbi Personam, qua subsisteret, semper habuit." As, therefore, when Jesus descended into hell, the Word descended, likewise, with his soul, so, while his body was in the sepulchre, the Word was present, likewise; and, therefore, the body of Christ was free from corruption, as David foretold: "Nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption" (Psalm, xv, 10). And St. Peter, as we read in the Acts (ii, 27), shows that this text was applied to our Lord lying in his tomb. It is true, St. Hilary (6) says, that, when Christ died, the Divinity left his body; but St. Ambrose (7) explains this, and says, that all the Holy Doctor meant to say was, that, in the Passion, the Divinity abandoned the humanity of Christ to that great desolation, which caused him to cry out: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" (Matt, xxvii, 46). In his death, therefore, the Word abandoned his body, inasmuch as the Word did not preserve his life, but never ceased to be hypostatically united with him. Christ never, then, could cease to be the Son of God in the sepulchre, as Berruyer teaches; for it is one of the axioms of all Catholic schools (8): " Quod semel Verbum assumpsit, nunquam misit" The Word, having once assumed human nature, never gives it up again. But when Berruyer admits, then, that the Word was united in the beginning in unity of Person with the body and soul of Jesus Christ, how can he afterwards say that, when the soul was separated from the body, the Word was no longer united with the body? This is a doctrine which surely neither he nor any one else can understand. (5) St. Jo. Damasc. 1. 3, de Fide, c. 27. (6) St. Hilar. r. 33, in Matth. part 2, pag. 487. (7) St. Ambros. I. 10, in Luc. c. 13. (8) Cont. Tournely, de Incarn. t, 4, 24. When Berruyer says that Jesus Christ, at his death, ceased to be the natural Son of God, because he was no longer a living man, he must, consequently, hold that the humanity, previous to his death, was not sustained by the Person of the Word, but by its own proper human subsistence, and was a Person distinct from the Person of the Word. But, then, how can he escape being considered a Nestorian, admitting two distinct Persons in Jesus Christ. Both Nestorius and Berruyer are expressly condemned by the Symbol promulgated in the Council of Constantinople, which says that we are bound to believe in one God, the Father Almighty, and in one only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, and consubstantial to the Father, who, for our salvation, came down from heaven, and became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, suffered, was buried, and rose again the third day. It is, therefore, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, generated by the Father from all eternity, and who came down from heaven, that was made man, died, and was buried. But, how could God die and be buried? you will say. By assuming human flesh, as the Council teaches. As another General Council, the Fourth of Lateran, says (9), as God could not die nor suffer, by becoming man he became mortal and passible: " Qui cum secundum Divinitatem sit immortalis et impassibilis, idem ipse secundum humanitatem factus est mortalis et passibilis." 25. As one error is always the parent of another, so Berruyer having said that Jesus Christ in the sepulchre ceased to be the natural son of God, said, likewise, that when God raised Christ-man again from the dead, he again generated him, and made him Man-God, because, by raising him again, he caused him to be his Son, who, dying, ceased to be his Son. We have already (N. 18) alluded to this falsehood. He says: " Actione Dei unius, Filium suum Jesum suscitantis, factum est, ut Jesus, qui desierat esse homo vivens, et consequenter Filius Dei, iterum viveret deinceps non moriturus." He says the same thing, in other words, in another place: " Deus Christum hominem resuscitans, hominem Deum iterate generat, dum facit resuscitando, ut Filius sit, qui moriendo Filius esse desierat" (10). (9) Conc. Lat. IV. in cap. Firmiter, de Summ. Trin. &c. (10) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 66. We should, indeed, be rejoiced to hear of this new dogma, never before heard of, that the Son of God twice became incarnate, and was made man first, when he was conceived in the holy womb of the Virgin, and, again, when he arose from the tomb. We should, indeed, feel obliged to Berruyer, for enlightening us on a point never before heard of in the Church. Another consequence of this doctrine is, that the Blessed Virgin must have been twice made the Mother of God; for, as Jesus ceased to be the Son of God while in the tomb, so she ceased also to be the Mother of God at the same time, and then, after his resurrection, her Divine Maternity was again restored to her. In the next paragraph we will examine even a more brainless error than this. I use the expression, "brainless," for I think the man’s head was more in fault than his conscience. A writer, who attacked Berruyer’s errors, said that he fell into all these extravagancies, because he would not follow the Tradition of the Fathers, and the method they employed in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and the announcement of the unwritten Word of God, preserved in the Works of these Doctors and Pastors. It is on this account, as the Prelate, the Author of " The Essay," remarks, that Berruyer, in his entire work, does not cite one authority either from Fathers or Theologians, although the Council of Trent (Sess. iv, Dec. de Scrip. S.) expressly prohibits the interpretation of the Sacred Writings, in a sense contrary to the generality of the Fathers. We now pass on to the examination of the next error a most pernicious and enormous one. III. BERRUYER SAYS THAT IT WAS THE HUMANITY ALONE OF CHRIST THAT OBEYED, PRAYED, AND SUFFERED, AND THAT HIS OBLATIONS, PRAYERS, AND MEDITATIONS, WERE NOT OPERATIONS PROCEEDING FROM THE WORD, AS A PHYSICAL AND EFFICIENT PRINCIPLE, BUT THAT, IN THIS SENSE, THEY WERE ACTIONS MERELY OF HIS HUMANITY. 26. Berruyer says that the operations of Jesus Christ were not produced by the Word, but merely by his humanity, and that the hypostatic union in no wise tended to render the human nature of Christ a complete principle of the actions physically and super naturally performed by him. Here are his words: "Non sunt operationes a Verbo elicitæ………….. sunt operationes totius humanitatis" (1). He had already written (2): " Ad complementum autem naturæ Christi humanæ, in rationo principii agentis, et actiones suas physice sive supernaturaliter producentis, unio hypostatica nihil omnino contulit." In another passage he says that all the propositions regarding Christ, in the Scriptures, and especially in the New Testament, are directly and primarily verified in the Man-God, or, in other words, in the Humanity of Christ, united to the Divinity, and completed by the Word in the unity of Person, and this, he says, is the natural interpretation of Scripture: " Dico insuper, omnes et singulas ejusdam propositiones, quæ sunt de Christo Jesu in Scripturis sanctis, præsertim Novi Testamenti, semper et ubique verificari directe et primo in homine Deo, sive in humanitate Christi, Divinitati unita et Verbo, completa in imitate personæ………Atque hæc est simplex obvia, et naturalis Scripturas interpretandi methodus," &c. (3). 27. In fine, he deduces from this, that it was the Humanity alone of Christ that obeyed, and prayed, and suffered that alone was endowed with all the gifts necessary for operating freely and meritoriously, by the Divine natural and supernatural cohesion (concursus): " Humanitas sola obedivit Patri, sola oravit, sola passa est, sola ornata fuit donis et dotibus omnibus necessariis ad agendum libere et meritorie (4). Jesu Christi oblatio, oratio, et mediatio non sunt operationes a Verbo elicitæ tamquam a principio physico et efficiente, sed in eo sensu sunt operationes solius humanitatis Christi in agendo, et merendo per concursum Dei naturalem et supernaturalem completæ" (5). By this Berruyer deprives God of the infinite honour he received from Jesus Christ, who, being God, equal to the Father, became a servant, and sacrificed himself. He also deprives the merits of Jesus Christ of their infinite value, as they were the operations of his humanity alone, according to him, and not performed by the Person of the Word, and, consequently, he destroys that hope which we have in those infinite merits. Besides, he does away with the strongest motive we have to love our Redeemer, which is the consideration that he, being God, and it being impossible that he could suffer as God, took human flesh, that he might die and suffer for us, and thus satisfy the Divine justice for our faults, and obtain for us Grace and life everlasting. But what is more important even, as the Roman Censor says, if it was the Humanity of Christ alone which obeyed, prayed, and suffered, and if the oblations, prayers, and mediation of Christ were not the operations of the Word, but of his Humanity alone, it follows that the Humanity of Christ had subsistence of its own, and, consequently, the human Person of Christ was distinct from the Word, and that would make two Persons. (1) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 53. (2) Idem, p. 22. (3) Idem,;p. 18, 19. (4) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 20, 21, & 23. (5) Idem,p. 53. 28. Berruyer concludes the passage last quoted, " Humanitas sola obedivit," &c., by these words: " Ille (inquam) homo, qui hæc omnia egit, et passus est libere et sancte, et cujus humanitas in Verbo subsistebat, objectum est in recto immediatum omnium, quæ de Christo sunt, narrationum" (6) It was the man, then, in Christ, and not the Word, that operated: " Ille homo qui hæc omnia egit." Nor is that cleared up by what he says immediately after: " Cujus humanitas in Verbo subsistebat;" for he never gives up his system, but constantly repeats it in his Dissertations, and clothes it in so many curious and involved expressions, that it would be sufficient to turn a person’s brain to study it. His system, as we have previously explained it, is, that Christ is not the Eternal Word, the Son, born of God the Father, but the Son, made in time by one God, subsisting in three Persons, who made him his Son by uniting him to the Divine Person; so that, rigorously speaking, he says he was formally constituted the Son of God, merely by that action which united him with the Divine Person: "Rigorose loquendo, per ipsam formaliter actionem unientem cum Persona Divina." He, therefore, says that God, by the action of uniting the Humanity of Christ with the Word, formed the second filiation, and caused Christ-Man to become the Son of God, so that, according to his opinion, the union of the Word with the Humanity of Christ was, as it were, a means to make Christ become the Son of God. All this, however, is false, for when we speak of Jesus Christ, we cannot say that that man, on account of being united with a Divine Person, was made by the Trinity the Son of God in time; but we are bound to profess that God, the Eternal Word, is the Son, born of the Father from all eternity, born of the substance of the Father, as the Athanasian Creed says, " God, of the substance of the Father, born before all ages," for, otherwise, he never could be called the natural Son of God. He it is who, uniting to himself Humanity in unity of Person, has always sustained it, and he it is who performed all operations, who, notwithstanding that he was equal to God, emptied himself, and humbled himself to die on a cross in that flesh which he assumed. (6) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 53 & 95. 29. Berruyer’s whole error consists in supposing the humanity of Christ to be a subject subsisting in itself, to which the Word was subsequently united. Faith and reason, however, would both teach him that the Humanity of Christ was accessary to the Word which assumed it, as St. Augustine (7) explains: " Homo autem, quia in unitatem personæ accessit Verbo Anima et Caro." Berruyer, however, on the contrary, says that the Divinity of the Word was accessary to the Humanity; but he should have known, as Councils and Fathers teach, that the Humanity of Jesus Christ did not exist until the Word came to take flesh. The Sixth Council (Act. 11) reproved Paul of Samosata, for teaching, with Nestorius, that the humanity of Christ existed previous to the Incarnation. Hence, the Council declared: " Simul enim caro, simul Dei Verbi caro fuit; simul animata rationabiliter, simul Dei Verbi caro animata rationabiliter." St. Cyril (8), in his Epistle to Nestorius, which was approved of by the Council of Ephesus, writes: " Non enim primum vulgaris quispiam homo ex Virgine ortus est, in quem Dei Verbum deinde Se dimiserit; sed in ipso Utero carni unitum secundum carnem progcnitum dicitur, utpote sure carnis generationem sibi ut propriam vindicans." St. Leo the Great (9), reprobating the doctrine of Eutyches, that Jesus Christ alone, previous to the Incarnation, was in two natures, says: " Sed hoc Catholicæ mentes auresque non tolerant natura quippe nostra non sic assumpta est, ut prius creata postea sumeretur, sed ut ipsa assumption crearetur." St. Augustine, speaking of the glorious union of the Humanity of Christ with the Divinity, says: "Ex quo esse Homo cœpit, non aliud cœpit esse Homo> quam Dei Filius" (10). And St. John of Damascus (11) says: " Non quemadmodum quidam falso prædicant, mens ante carnem ex Virgine assumptam Deo Verbo copulata est, et turn Christi nomen accepit." (7) St. Augus. in EucMrid. c. 35. (8) St. Cyrill. Ep. 2, ad Nestor. (9) St. Leo, Ep. ad Julian. (10) St. Aug. in Euchir. c. 36(11) St, Jo. Dam. l. 4 Fide orth, c.6. 30. Berruyer, however, does not agree with Councils or Fathers, for all the passages of Scripture, he says, which speak of Jesus Christ are directly verified in his humanity united to the Divinity: " Dico insupere omnes propositiones quæ sunt de Christo in Scripturis verificari directe et primo in homine Deo, sive in humanitate Christi Divinitati unita," &c. (12). So that the primary object of all that is said regarding Christ, is according to him, Man-God, and not God-Man: " Homo-Deus, non similiter Deus-homo objectum primarium," &c.; and again, as we have already seen, that Jesus Christ was formally constituted the natural Son of God, solely by that act which united him to the Word: " Per ipsam formatter actionem unientem Jesus Christus constituitur tantum Filius Dei naturalis." This, however, is totally false, for Jesus Christ is the natural Son of God, not on account of the act which united him to the Word, but because the Word, who is the natural Son of God, as generated by the Father from all eternity, assumed the humanity of Christ, and united it to himself in the unity of Person. Berruyer then imagines that the humanity was the primary object in recto, and self- subsisting, to when the Word was united, and that by this union Christ-Man was subsequently made the Son of God in time. Hence, he says, that the humanity alone obeyed, prayed, and suffered: and it was that man (Christ), he says, who did all those things: " Ille (inquam) homo qui hæc omnia egit objectum est in recto immediatum eorum, quæ de Christo sunt," &c. In this, however, he is wrong. Faith tells us that we ought to regard as the primary object, the Eternal Word, who assumed the humanity of Christ, and united it to himself hypostatically in one Person, and thus the soul and body of Jesus Christ became the proper soul and body of the Word. (12) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 18. When the Word, St. Cyril says, assumed a human body, that body was no longer strange to the Word, but was made his own: "Non est alienum a Verbo corpus suum" (13). This is what is meant by the words of the Creed; " He came down from heaven, and was incarnate, and was made man." Hence we, following the Creed, say God was made man, and not, as Berruyer says, man was made God; for this mode of expression would lead us to think that man, already subsisting, was united with God, and we should then, as Nestorius did, suppose two Persons in Christ; but faith teaches us that God was made man by taking human flesh, and thus there is but one Person in Christ, who is both God and man. Neither is it lawful to say (as St. Thomas instructs us) (14), with Nestorius, that Christ was assumed by God as an instrument to work out man’s salvation, since, as St. Cyril, quoted by St. Thomas, teaches, the Scripture will have us to believe that Jesus Christ is not an instrument of God, but God in reality, made man: " Christum non tanquam instrumenti officio assumptum dicit Scriptura, sed tanquam Deum vere humanatum." 31. We are bound to believe that there are in Christ two distinct Natures, each of which has its own will and its own proper operations, in opposition to the Monothelites, who held that there was but one will and one operation in Christ. But, on the other hand, it is certain that the operations of the human nature of Jesus Christ were not mere human operations, but, in the language of the schools, Theandric, that is, Divine-human, and chiefly Divine, for although, in every operation of Christ, human nature concurred, still all was subordinate to the Person of the Word, which was the chief and director of all the operations of the humanity. The Word, says Bossuet, presides in all; the Word governs all; and the Man, subject to the direction of the Word, has no other movements but Divine ones; whatever he wishes and does is guided by the Word (15). St. Augustine says that as in us the soul governs the body, so in Jesus Christ the Word governed his humanity: " Quid est homo," says the saint, " anima habens corpus. Quid est Christus? Verbum Dei habens hominem." St. Thomas says: " Ubicunque sunt plura agentia ordinata, inferius movetur a superiori………. Sicut autem in homine puro corpus movetur ab animo ………….ita in Domino Jesu Christo humana natura movebatur et regebatur a Divina" (16). (13) St. Cyr. Epist. ad Nestor. (14) St. Thom. 3;p. qu. 2, ar. 6, ad 4. (15) Bossuet, Diss. Ilistor. p. 2.(16) St. Thom, p. 3, q. 19, a. 1. All, then, that Berruyer states on the subject is totally false: " Humanitas sola obedivit Patri, sola passa est, Jesu Christi oblatio, oratio, et mediatio non sunt operationes a Verbo elicitæ tanquam a principio physico et efficiente. Ad complementum naturæ Christi humanæ in ratione principii producentis, et actiones suas sive physice sive supernaturaliter agentis, nihil onmino contulit unio hypostatica." If, as the Roman Censor says, it was the humanity alone of Christ that obeyed, prayed, and suffered; and if the oblations, prayers, and mediation of Jesus Christ were not operations elicited by the Word but by his humanity alone, so that the hypostatic union had, in fact, added nothing to the humanity, for the completion of the principle of his operations, it follows that the humanity of our Redeemer operated by itself, and doing so must have had subsistence proper to itself, and a proper personality distinct from the Person of the Word, and thus we have, as Nestorius taught, two Persons in Christ. 32. Such, however, is not the fact. All that Jesus Christ did the Word did, which sustained both Natures, and as God could not suffer and die for the salvation of mankind, he, as the Council of Lateran said, took human flesh, and thus became passible and mortal: "Qui cum secundum Divinitatem sit immortalis et impassibilis, idem ipse secundum humanitatem factus est mortalis et passibilis." It was thus that the Eternal Word, in the flesh he assumed, sacrificed to God his blood and his life itself, and being equal to God became a mediator with God, as St. Paul says, speaking of Jesus Christ: " In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins; who is the image of the invisible God for in him were all things created in heaven and on earth Because in him it has well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell" &c. (Col. i, 13). According to St. Paul, then, it is Jesus Christ who created the world, and in whom the plenitude of the Divinity dwells. 33. One of Berruyer’s apologists says, however, that when his master states, that the humanity alone of Christ obeyed, prayed, and suffered, that he then speaks of this humanity as the physical principle Quo, that is, the medium by which he operates, and this physical principle belonged to the humanity alone, and not to the Word, for it is through his humanity that he suffered and died. But we answer, that the Humanity, as the principle, Quo, could not act of itself in Christ, unless put in motion by the principle, Quod that is, the Word, which was the one only Person, which sustained the two Natures. He it was who principally performed every action in the assumed Humanity, although it was by means of that he suffered, prayed, and died. That being the case, how can Berruyer be defended, when he says that it was the Humanity alone which prayed and suffered? How could he say that the oblations, prayers, and mediation of Christ were operations elicited by the Word? And, what is even of greater consequence, how could he say that the hypostatic union had no influence on the actions of Christ Nihil omnino contulit unio hypostatica? I said already that the Word was the principal agent in all operations. But, say those of the other side: Then, the Humanity of Christ performed no operations? We answer that the Word did all; for, though the Humanity might also act, still, as the Word was the sole Person sustaining and completing this Humanity, he (the Word) performed every operation both of the soul and body, for both body and soul, by the unity of Person, became his own. Everything, then, which Jesus Christ did his wishes, actions, and sufferings all belonged to the Word, for it was he who determined everything, and his obedient Humanity consented and executed it. Hence it is that every action of Christ was holy and of infinite value, and capable of procuring every grace, and we are, therefore, bound to praise him for all. 34. The reader, then, should totally banish from his mind the false idea which Berruyer (as the author of the "Essay" writes) wished to give us of Christ, that the Humanity was a being, existing of itself, to whom God united one of his Sons by nature; for, as will be seen, by referring back to N. 11, there must have been, according to him, two natural Sons one, generated by the Father from all eternity; the other, in time, by the whole Trinity; but, then, Jesus Christ, as he teaches, was not, properly speaking, the Word made incarnate, according to St. John " The Word was made flesh" but was the other Son of God, made in time. This, however, is not the doctrine of the Holy Fathers; they unanimously teach that it was the Word (17). St. Jerome writes: " Anima et Caro Christi cum Verbo Dei una Persona est, unus Christus" (18). St. Ambrose (19), showing that Jesus Christ spoke sometimes according to his Divine, and, at other times, according to his human nature, says: " Quasi Deus sequitur Divina, quia Verbum est, quasi homo dicit humana." Pope Leo says: " Idem est qui mortem subiit, et sempiternus esse non desiit." St. Augustine says: " Jesus Christus Dei Filius est, et Deus, et homo. Deus ante omnia secula, homo in nostro seculo. Deus quia Dei Verbum, Deus enim erat Verbum: homo autem, quia in unitatem personæ accessit Verbo Anima, et Caro ………Non duo Filii, Deus, et homo, sed unus Dei Filius" (20). And, in another place (Cap. 36): " Ex quo homo esse cœpit, non aliud ccepit esse homo, quam Dei Filius, et hoc unicus, et propter Deum Verbum, quod illo suscepto caro factum est, utique Deus ut sit Christus una persona, Verbum et homo." The rest of the Fathers speak the same sentiments; but it would render the Work too diffuse to quote any more. 35. The Holy See, then, had very good reasons for so rigorously and so frequently condemning Berruyer’s Book; for it not alone contains many errors, in opposition to the doctrines of the Church, but is, besides, most pernicious, because it makes us lose that proper idea we should have of Jesus Christ. The Church teaches that the Eternal Word that is, the only natural Son of God (for he had but one natural Son, who is, therefore, called the only-begotten, born of the substance of God the Father, the first Person of the Trinity), was made man, and died for our salvation. Berruyer, on the contrary, would have us to believe that Jesus Christ is not the Word, the Son, born of the Father from all eternity, but another Son, which only he and Hardouin knew anything about, or, rather, dreamed of, who, if their ideas were founded in fact, would have the name alone, and the honour of being called the Son of God; for, in order that Jesus Christ should be the true natural Son of God, it was requisite that he should be born of the substance of the Father, but the Christ, according to Berruyer, was made in time by the whole Trinity. The whole idea, then, we had hitherto formed of our Redeemer is totally changed. (17) St. Hieron. Tract. 49, in Joan. (18) St. Ambr. ap. St. Leon, in Ep. 134. (19) St. Leo, Serm. 66. (20) St. Augu. in Euchirid. c. 35. We considered him to be God, who, for our salvation, humbled himself to take human flesh, in order to suffer and die for us; whereas Berruyer represents him to us, not as a God made man, but as a man made the Son of God, on account of the union established between the Word and his Humanity. Jesus Christ crucified is the greatest proof of God’s love to us, and the strongest motive we have to induce, nay, as St. Paul says, to force us, to love him " For the charity of Christ presseth us" (II. Cor. v, 14) is to know that the Eternal Word, equal to the Father, and born of the Father, emptied himself, and humbled himself to take human flesh, and die on a cross for us; but, according to Berruyer’s system, this proof of Divine love to us, and this most powerful motive for us to love him, falls to the ground. And, in fine, to show how different is Berruyer’s errors from the truth taught by the Church: The Church tells us to believe that Jesus Christ is God, made man, who, for us, suffered and died, in the flesh he assumed, and who assumed it solely to enable him to die for our love. Berruyer tells us, on the contrary, that Jesus Christ is only a man, who, because he was united by God to one of the Divine Persons, was made by the Trinity the natural Son of God, and died for the salvation of mankind; but, according to Berruyer, he did not die as God, but as man, and could not be the Son of God at all, according to his ideas; for, in order to be the natural Son of God, he should have been born of the substance of the Father, but, according to Berruyer, he was a being ad extra, produced by the whole Trinity, and if he was thus an external product, he could not have been anything but a mere creature; consequently, he must admit two distinct Persons in Christ one Divine, and one human. In fine, if we held this man’s doctrine, we could not say that God " loved us, and delivered himself up for us" (Ephcs. v, 2); for, according to him, it was not the Word " who delivered himself up for us," but the Humanity of Christ, honored, indeed, by the union with the Word, that alone it was which suffered, and was subjected to death. Let him keep these opinions to himself, however, for every faithful Catholic will say, with Saint Paul: "I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me" (Gal. ii, 20). And we will praise and love with all our hearts that God who, being God, made himself man, to suffer and die for every one of us. 36. It is painful to witness the distortion of Scripture which Berruyer has recourse to in every part of his work, but more especially in his Dissertations, to accommodate it to his false system, that Jesus Christ was the Son of one God, subsisting in three Persons. We have already (N. 7) quoted that text of St. Paul (Phil, ii, 5, &c.): " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant," &c. Here is conclusive evidence to prove that the Word, equal to the Father, emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, in becoming man. Berruyer says, on the contrary, that it was not the Word, not the Divine Nature, which humbled itself, but the human, conjoined with the Divine Nature: " Humiliat sese natura humana naturæ Divinæ physice conjuncta." To consider the Word humbled to become incar nate, and die on the cross, would, he says, be degrading the Divinity; it should, therefore, he says, be only understood according to the communication of the idioms, and, consequently, as referring to the actions of Christ after the hypostatic union, and, therefore, he says it was his Humanity that was humbled. But in that case we may well remark, what is there wonderful in the humiliation of humanity before God? That prodigy of love and mercy which God exhibited in his Incarnation, and which astonished both heaven and earth, was when the Word, the only-begotten Son of God, equal to the Father, emptied himself (exinanivit), in becoming man, and, from God, became the servant of God, according to the flesh. It is thus all Fathers and Catholic Doctors understand it, with the exception of Berruyer and Hardouin; and it is thus the Council of Chalcedon, also (Act. V.), declared that the Son of God, born of the Father, before all ages, became incarnate in these latter days (novissimis diebus), and suffered for our salvation. 37. We will take a review of some other texts. St. Paul (Heb. i, 2) says, that God " in these days hath spoken to us by his Son by whom he also made the world." All the Fathers understand this, as referring to the Word, by whom all things were created, and who was afterwards made man; but Berruyer explains the passage, " By whom he also made the world," thus: In consideration of whom God made the world. He explains the text of St. John, " By him all things were made," in like manner, that in regard of him all things were made, so that he does not even admit the Word to be the Creator. But hear St. Paul, on the contrary. God, speaking to his Son, says: " Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever In the beginning, O Lord, didst thou found the earth, and the works of thy hands are the heavens" (Ileb. i, 8, 10). Here God does not say that he created the heavens and the earth in consideration or in regard of his Son, but that the Son himself created them; and hence St. Chrysostom remarks: " Nunquam profecto id asserturus, nisi conditorem Filium, non ministrum arbitraretur, ac Patri et Filio pares esse intelligent dignitates." 38. David says: " The Lord hath said to me, thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee" (Psalm ii, 7). Berruyer says that the expression, " This day have I begotten thee," has no reference to the eternal generation, as all understand it, but to the generation in time, of which he is the inventor, when Jesus Christ was made in time the Son of one God, subsisting in three Persons. He thus explains the text, " This day have I begotten thee": I will be your Father, and you will be my Son that is, according to the second filiation, made by the one God in three Persons, as he imagines. 39. St. Luke says: " And, therefore, also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke, i, 35). Berruyer says that these words do not refer to Jesus Christ, as the Word, but as man; for the expression " Holy" is not adapted to the Word, but rather to Humanity. All Doctors, however, understand by the Holy One, the Word, the Son of God, born before all ages. Bossuet sagaciously remarks, that the expression, " Holy," when it is only an adjective, properly speaking, is adapted to the creature; but when, as in the present case, it is a substantive, it means Holiness essentially, which belongs to God alone. 40. St. Matthew (xxviii, 19) tells us, that Christ said to his disciples: " Going, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Berruyer says, then, that, by the name of Father, the first Person of the Trinity is not meant, but the God of the Jews that is, one God, subsisting in three Persons; by the name of the Son, the Word is not understood, but Christ, as man, made the Son of God, by the act by which God united him to the Word. He says nothing at all about the Holy Ghost. Now, by this doctrine the Sacrament of Baptism is not alone deranged, but totally abolished, I may say; because, according to him, we would not be baptized, at first, in the name of the Father, but in the name of the Trinity, and Baptism, administered after this form, as all theologians hold, with St. Thomas, would be null and void (21). In the second place, we would not be baptized in the name of the real Son of God that is, the Word, who became incarnate, but in the name of that Son, invented by Berruyer, made in time by the Trinity a Son which never did nor ever can exist, because there never was nor will be any other natural Son of God, unless that only-begotten one, generated from all eternity from the substance of the Father, the Principle, and first Person of the Trinity. The second generation, made in time, or, to speak more exactly, the Incarnation of the Word, did not make Christ the Son of God, but united him in one Person with the true Son of God; that did not give him a Father, but merely a Mother, who begot him from her own substance. Rigorously speaking, this cannot be called generation, for the generation of the Son of God is that alone which was from eternity. The Humanity of Christ was not generated by God, but was created, and was begotten solely by the Virgin Mary. Berruyer says, that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God by two titles first, by begetting the Word; and, secondly, by giving Christ his humanity, since, as he says, the union established between this humanity and the Word has caused Jesus Christ to be made the Son of God. Both reasons, however, are false, for, first, we cannot say that the Blessed Virgin begot the Word, for the Word had no Mother, but only a Father, that is God. Mary merely begot the Man, who was united in one Person with the Word, and it is on that account that she, the Mother of the Man, is justly called the true Mother of God. His second reason is equally false, that the Blessed Virgin has contributed, with her substance, to make Jesus Christ become the Son of God, one subsisting in three Persons, for, as we have proved, this supposition is totally false, so that, by attributing thus two Maternities to the Blessed Virgin, he does away with it altogether, for one destroys the other. Berruyer mangles several other texts; but I omit them, not to weary the reader with such folly any longer. (21) St. Thomas, 3, p. qu. 60, art. 8. IV. THE MIRACLES WROUGHT BY JESUS CHRIST WERE NOT PERFORMED BY HIS OWN POWERS, BUT OBTAINED FROM HIS FATHER, BY HIS PRAYERS. 41. Berruyer says that Jesus Christ wrought his miracles in this sense alone, that he operated, with a beseeching power, by means of his prayers: " Miracula Christus efficit, non precatio …………prece tamen et postulatione……….. eo unice sensudicitur Christus miraculorum effector." In another place, he says that Christ, as the Son of God (but the Son in his sense that is, of one God, subsisting in three Persons) had a right, by his Divinity, that his prayers should be heard. Remark the expression, " his prayers." Therefore, according to Berruyer, our Saviour did not work miracles by his own power, but obtained them from God by his prayers, like any other holy man. This doctrine, however, once admitted, we should hold, with Nestorius, that Christ was a mere human person, distinct from the Person of the Word, who, being God, equal to the Father, had no necessity of begging the Father to grant him power to work miracles, since he had all power himself. This error springs from the former capital ones we have refuted that is, that Christ is not the Word, but is that Son of God existing only in his imagination, his Son merely in name, made in time by God, subsisting in three Persons, and, also, that in Christ it was not the Word that operated, but his Humanity alone: " Sola humanitas obedivit, sola passa est," &c. 42. He was just as much astray in this proposition, that Christ wrought miracles merely by prayer and supplication, as he was in his previous statements. St. Thomas, the prince of theologians, teaches, " that Christ wrought miracles by his own power, and not by prayer, as others did" (1). And St. Cyril says, that he proved, by the very miracles he wrought, that he was the true Son of God, since he performed them not by the power of another, but by his own: " Non accipiebat alienam virtutem." Only once, says St. Thomas (2), did he show that he obtained from his Father the power to work miracles; that was in the resurrection of Lazarus, when imploring the power of his Father, he said: " I know that thou nearest me always, but because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me" (John, xi, 42). But, as the holy Doctor remarks, he did this for our instruction, to show us that in our necessities we should have recourse to God, as he had. St. Ambrose, then, tells us not to imagine, from this fact of Lazarus, that our Saviour prayed to his Father for power to perform the miracle, as if he had not power to work it himself; that prayer, he says, was intended for our instruction: " Noli insidiatrices aperire aures, ut putcs Filium Dei quasi infirmum rogare, ut impetret quod implere non posit…… ad præcepta virtutis suæ nos informat exemplo" (3). St. Hilary says just the same; but he also assigns another reason: Christ, he says, did not require to pray, but he did so to make us believe that he was in reality the Son of God: " Non prece eguit, pro nobis oravit, ne Filius ignoraretur" (4). 43. St. Ambrose (5) remarks, that when Jesus Christ wished, he did not pray, but commanded, and all creatures obeyed the sea, the winds, and diseases. He commanded the sea to be at rest, and it obeyed: " Peace, be still" (Mark, iv, 39). He commanded that disease should leave the sick, and they were made whole: " Virtue went out from him, and healed all" (Luke, vi, 19). He himself tells us that he could do, and did, every thing equal to his Divine Father: " For whatsoever things he (the Father) doth, these the Son also doth in like manner For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life, so the Son also giveth life to whom he will" (John, v, 19, 21). (1) St. Thom. 3, p. q. 44, art. 4. (2) Idem, ibid, qu. 21, art. 1, ad 1. (3) St. Ambros. in Luc. (4) St. Hilar. l. 10, de Trinit. (5) St. Ambros. l. 3, de Fide, c. 4. St. Thomas says (6), that the miracles alone which Christ wrought were sufficient to make manifest the Divine power which he possessed: " Ex hoc ostendebatur, quod haberet virtutem coæqualem Deo Patri." This was what our Lord said to the Jews when they were about to stone him: " Many good works have I showed from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me? The Jews answered him: For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because that thou, being a man, maketh thyself God. Jesus answered them: You say: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works," &c. (John, x, 32, &c.) We have said enough on this subject. V. THE HOLY GHOST WAS NOT SENT TO THE APOSTLES BY JESUS CHRIST, BUT BY THE FATHER ALONE, AT THE PRAYER OF CHRIST. 44. Berruyer says that the Holy Ghost was not sent to the Apostles by Jesus Christ, but by the Father, at his prayer: " Ad orationem Jcsu Christi, quæ voluntatis ejus efficacis signum erit, mittet Pater Spiritum Sanctum. Quæ quasi raptim delibavimus de Jesu Christo missuro Spiritum Sanctum, quatenus homo Deus est Patrem rogaturus." 45. This error is also a necessary consequence of the former ones; that is, Jesus Christ, the Word, did not operate, but the Humanity alone, or the Man made the Son of one God subsisting in three Persons, by reason of the union of the Person of the Word with the Humanity; and from this false supposition he deduces this present falsehood, that the Holy Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, but by the Father, at the prayer of Jesus Christ. If he said that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Word, but from the Father alone, he would fall into the Greek heresy already refuted (Ref. iv); but he rather leans to the heresy of Nestorius, who, admitting two Persons in Christ, a Divine and a human Person, said, consequently, that the Divine Person dwelling in Jesus Christ, together with the Father, sent the Holy Ghost; and the human Person in Christ obtained from the Father, by his prayers, that the Holy Spirit should be sent. Berruyer does not expressly say this; but when he asserts that the Holy Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, only by his prayer alone, he appears to believe, either that there is no Divine Person in Christ at all, or that there are two Persons one Divine, which sends, of himself, the Holy Ghost; the other human, which obtains, by his prayers, that he may be sent. He shows that that is his opinion, when he says that in Jesus Christ it was the Humanity alone that acted and suffered, that is, the Man alone made in time the Son of God by the whole three Persons. This was not, certainly, the Word who was born of the Father alone before all ages. (6) St. Thom. 3 p. q, 43, art. 4. But the Word, he says, was already united to the Humanity of Christ in unity of Person; but then we should remember, that according to his opinion the Word had nothing to do, for it was only the Humanity that acted in Christ. That being the case, of what service was the union of the Word in unity of Person with the Humanity? Merely, as he said, that by means of the hypostatic union Christ might be made the Son of God, of the three Divine Persons; and hence, he says, the operations of Christ were not elicited by the Word, but merely by his humanity, and the hypostatic union gave no value to his actions: "in ratione principii agentis unio hypostatica nihil omnino contulit." 46. With what face could Berruyer assert that the Holy Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, when he himself several times said he was, and promised his Apostles that he would send them the Paraclete: " But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father" (John, xv, 26); " For if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John, xvi, 7). Listen to this ! Christ says that he sent the Holy Ghost; and Berruyer says that the Holy Ghost was not sent by him, but only at his prayer. Perhaps he will argue that Christ himself said: " I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete" (John, xiv, 16). But we answer with St. Augustine, that Christ then spoke as man; but when he spoke as God, he said not once, but several times, " whom I will send to you." And again he says: " The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things" (John, xiv, 26). St. Cyril, explaining this text, says, " in my name," that is, by me, because he proceeds from me. It is certain the Holy Ghost could not be sent unless by the Divine Persons alone, who were his Principle, the Father and the Son. If, then, he was sent by Jesus Christ, there can be no doubt that he was sent by the Word, who operated in Jesus Christ, and the Word being equal to the Father, and with the Father, co-principle of the Holy Ghost, had no necessity to pray to the Father (as Berruyer says) that he might be sent; for as the Father sent him, so did he likewise. VI. OTHER ERRORS OF BERRUYER ON DIFFERENT SUBJECTS. 47. Those writers who have refuted Berruyer’s work remark several other errors which, though they may not be clearly opposed to Faith, still, in my opinion, are most extravagant, and totally opposed to the general opinion of Fathers and Theologians. I will here refute some of the most strange and reprehensible. 48. In one place he says: " Revelatione deficiente, cum nempe Deus ob latentes causas eam nobis denegare vult, non est cur non teneamur saltem objecta credere, quibus religio naturalis fundatur." Speaking here of the revelation of the mysteries of the Faith, he says, that should no such revelation be made to us, we are, at all events, obliged to believe those objects on which natural religion is based. And then he assigns the reasons subsequently: " Religio pure naturalis, si Deus ea sola contentus esse voluisset, propriam fidem, ac revelationem suo habuisset modo, quibus Deus ipse in fidelium cordibus, et animo inalienabilia jura sua exercuisset." Now the extravagance of this doctrine is only equalled by the confused manner in which it is stated. It would appear that he admits that true believers can be found professing mere natural religion alone, which, according to him, has, in a certain way, its own faith, and its own revelation. Then in mere natural religion there must be a faith and revelation with which God is satisfied. But, says Berruyer’s friend, he intends this a mere hypothesis; but this does not render it less objectionable, for it would lead us to believe that God would be satisfied with a religion purely natural, without faith in the merits of Jesus Christ, and sufficient to save its professors. St. Paul answers this, however, for he says: " Then Christ died in vain" (Gal. ii, 21.) If natural religion be sufficient to save those who neither believe nor hope in Jesus Christ, then he died in vain, for man’s salvation. St. Peter, on the contrary, says that salvation can only be obtained in Christ: "Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved" (Acts, iv, 12). If any infidels, either under the New or Old Law have been saved, it has only been because they knew the Grace of the Redeemer, and hence St. Augustine says that it was granted to no person to live according to God, and save his soul, to whom Jesus Christ has not been revealed, either as promised or already come: " Divinitas autem provisum fuisse non dubito, ut ex hoc uno sciremus etiam per alias Gentes esse potuisse, qui secundum Deum vixerunt, eique placuerunt, pertinentes ad spiritualem Jerusalem: quod nemini concessum fuisse credendum est, nisi cui divinitus revelatus est unus Mediatur Dei, et hominum homo Christus Jesus, qui venturus in carne sic antiquis Sanctis prænunciabatur, quemadmodum nobis venisse nuntiatus est" (1). 49. This is the faith required for the just man to live always united with God: " The just man liveth by faith," says the Apostle: " But that in the law no man is justified with God it is manifest, because the just man liveth by faith" (Gal. iii, 11). No one, says St. Paul, can render himself just in the sight of God, by the law alone, which imposes commandments, but gives no strength to fulfil them. Neither can we, since the fall of Adam, fulfil them merely by the strength of our free will; the assistance of Grace is requisite, which we should implore from God, and hope for through the mediation of our Redeemer. (1) St. Aug. l. 18 de C. D. c. 47. " Ea quippe fides," says St. Augustine (2), "justos sanavit antiques, quæ sanat, et nos, idest Jesu-Christi, fides mortis ejus." In another passage he tells us the reason of this (3): " Quia sicut credimus nos Christum venisse, sic illi venturum; sicut nos mortuum, ita ilia moriturum." Where the Jews went astray was in presuming, without prayer, or faith in a Mediator to come, to be able to observe the law imposed on them. When God commanded Moses to ask them if they wished to perform all that he would reveal to them, they answered: "All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do" (Exod. xix, 8). But after this promise our Lord said to them: " Who shall give them to have such a mind to fear me, and to keep all my commandments at all times?" (Deut. vi, 29). They say that they desire to fulfil the commandments, but who will give them power to do so? By this God means that if they had the presumption to hope to fulfil them, without praying for Divine assistance, they could never accomplish it. Hence it was that immediately after they forsook the Lord, and adored the golden calf. 50. The Gentiles, who, by power of their own wills alone expected to make themselves just, were even more blind than the Jews. What more has Jupiter, says Seneca, than other good men, only a longer life: " Jupiter quo antecedit virum bonum? diutius bonus est. Sapiens nihilo so minoris æstimat, quod virtute ejus spatio breviore clauduntur" (4). And again he says Jupiter despises worldly things, because he can make no use of them, but the wise man despises them, because it is his will to do so: " Jupiter uti illis non potest, Sapiens non vult" (5). A wise man, he says, is like a God in every thing, only that he is mortal: " Sapiens, excepta mortalitate, similis Deo" (6). Cicero said we could not glory in virtue, if it was given to us by God: " Do virtute rete gloriamur, quod non contingeret, si id donum a Deo, non a nobis, haberemus" (7). (2) St. Aug. de Nat. et Grat. p. 149. (3) St. Aug. de Nupt. et concup. l. 2 p. 113 (4) Seneca, Eplst. 73. (5) Idem, de Constantia Sap. c. R, (6) Idem, Epist. 53. And again he says: " Jovem optimum maximum appellant, non quod nos justos, sapientes efficiat, sed quod incolumes, opulentos," &c. See here the pride of those wise men of the world, who said that virtue and wisdom belonged to themselves, and did not come from God. 51. It was this presumption which blinded them more and more every day. The most learned among their sages, their philosophers, as they had a greater share of pride, were the most blind, and although the light of nature taught them to know that there was but one God, the Lord and Creator of all things, still, as the Apostle says, they did not avail themselves of it to thank and praise God as they ought: " Because that, when they knew God they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks: but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise they became fools" (Rom. i, 21). The presumption of their own wisdom increased their folly. Nay, so great was their blindness that they venerated as Gods not only their fellow-mortals, but the beasts of the field: " And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds and of four-footed beasts and of creeping things" (ver. 22.) Hence it was that God deservedly abandoned them to their own wicked desires, and they slavishly obeyed their most brutal and detestable passions: " Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness," &c. (ver. 24). The most celebrated among the ancient sages is Socrates, who, it is said, was persecuted by the Idolaters, for teaching that there was but one supreme God, and still he called them who accused him of not adoring the gods of his country calumniators, and ordered his disciple Zenophon before his death to sacrifice a cock he had in his house in honor of Esculapius. St. Augustine tells us (8) that Plato thought sacrifices ought to be offered to a multiplicity of gods. The most enlightened among the Gentiles, the great Cicero, though he knew there was only one supreme God, still wished that all the gods recognised in Rome should be adored. Such is the wisdom of the sages of Paganism, and such is the faith and natural religion of the Gentiles which Berruyer exalts so much that he says that it could, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ, make people good and innocent, and adopted children of God. (7) Cicero de Nat. Deor. p. 253. (8) St. Aug. de Civit. Dei, I. 8, c. 12. 52. We now proceed to examine the other foolish opinions of this work. He says: " Relate ad cognitiones explicitas, aut media necessaria, quæ deficere possent, ut eveherentur ad adoptionem filiorum, dignique fierent cralorum remuneratione, præsumere debemus, quod viarum ordinariarum defectu in animabus rectis ac innocentibus bonus Dominus cui deservimus, attenta Filii sui mcdiatione, opus suum perficeret quibusdam omnipotentiæ rationibus, quas liber um ipsi est nobis haud dctegere" (9). He says, then, that when the means necessary for salvation are wanting, we ought to presume that God will save the souls of the upright and innocent, by certain measures of his omnipotence, which he has not revealed to us. What an immensity of folly in few words. He calls those souls upright and innocent who have no knowledge of the means necessary for salvation, and, consequently, know nothing of the mediation of the Redeemer a knowledge of which, as we have seen, has been, at all times, necessary for the children of Adam. Perhaps, these upright and innocent souls were created before Adam himself, for, if they were born after his fall, they are undoubtedly children of wrath. How, then, can they be exalted up to the adoption of the children of God, and, without faith in Jesus Christ (out of whom there is no salvation), and without Baptism, enter into heaven, and enjoy the beatific vision of God? We have always believed, and do still, that there is no other way of obtaining salvation, but by the mediation of Christ. He himself says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John, xiv, 6). And again: " I am the door; by me, if any man go in, he shall be saved" (John, x, 9). St. Paul says: " For by him we have access to the Father" (Ephes. ii, 18). Berruyer, however, tells us that there is another way a hidden one, by which God saves those upright souls who live in the religion of nature a way, of which neither Scripture, Fathers, nor Ecclesiastical Writers tell us anything. All Grace and hope of salvation is promised to mankind, through the mediation of Jesus Christ. (9) Berruyer, t. I, p. 58. If you read Selvaggi, the Annotator of Moshoim (10), you will see that all the Prophecies of the Old Testament, and even the historical facts narrated, all speak of this in a prophetic sense, as St. Paul says: " These things were done in a figure" (I. Cor. x, 6).Our Saviour himself proved to the disciples, in the journey to Emmaus, that all the Scriptures of the Old Law spoke of him: " Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things that were concerning him" (Luke, xxiv, 27). And still Berruyer says, that souls, under the Law of Nature, were adopted as Children of God, without any knowledge of the mediation of Jesus Christ. 53. How could those persons obtain the adoption of the children of God without Jesus Christ, when it is he who has given to the Faithful the power "to become the children of God." Berruyer says: " Quod adoptio prima, eaque gratuito, cujus virtute ab Adamo usque ad Christum, intuitu Christi venturi fideles omnes sive ex Israel, sive ex Gentibus facti sunt filii Dei, non dederit Deo nisi filios minores semper et parvulos usque ad tempus præfinitum a Patre. Vetus hæc itaque adoptio præparabat aliam, et novam quasi parturiebat adoptionem superioris ordinis." He then admits two adoptions the first and the second. The latter is that which exists in the New Law; the former, that by which all those who have received the Faith among the Jews or Gentiles, in regard to the promised Messiah, and these were only, as it were, younger children of God, minors. This ancient adoption, he said, prepared, and, we may say, brought forth, another one of a superior order; but those who were adopted under this ancient one, scarcely deserved to be named among the faithful " Vix filiorum nomen obtinerent." It would take volumes to examine all the extravagant opinions and extraordinary crotchets of this writer, which were never heard of by Theologians before. The adoption of children of God, as St. Thomas says (11), gives them a right to a share in his birthright that is, Eternal Beatitude. Now, supposing Berruyer’s system to be true, as the ancient adoption was of an inferior order, we ask, would it give a right to entire beatitude, or only to an inferior or partial sort, corresponding to the adoption? It is quite enough to state such paradoxical opinions, and the reader will perceive that they refute themselves. The truth of the matter is, that there never was but one true Religion, which never had any other object but God, nor no way of approaching to God unless through Jesus Christ. (10) Selvag. in Mosh. vol. 1, n. GS. (11) St. Thom. 3, p. q. 23, a. 1. It is the blood of Jesus Christ which has taken away all the sins of the world, and saved all those who are saved, and it is the Grace of Jesus Christ that has given children to God. Bcrruycr says, that the Natural Law inspired Faith, Hope, and Charity. What folly ! These Divine virtues are gifts infused by God; and how, then, could they be inspired by the Law of Nature. Why, Felagius himself never went so far as that. 54. In another place, he says: " Per annos quatuor millo quotquot fucrunt primogeniti, et sibi successerunt in heriditate nominis illius, Filius Hominis, debitum nascendo contraxerunt." And again: " Per Adami hominum Parentis, et Primogeniti lapsum oneratum est nomen illud, sancto quidem, sed pœnali debito satisfaciendi Deo in rigore justitise, et peccata hominum expiandi." Berruyer then says that, for four thousand years, the first-born were obliged to make satisfaction for the sins of mankind. This opinion would bear rather heavy on me, as I have the misfortune to be the first-born of my family, and it would be too hard that I should make atonement, not only for my own manifold sins, but also for the crimes of others. But can he tell us where this obligation is laid down. He appears to think that the law of nature imposed it: " Erat præceptum illud quantum ad substantiam naturale." But no one with a grain of sense will admit this to be a precept of the law of nature, when neither the Scriptures nor the Canons of the Church make any allusion to it. It is not, then, imposed by the law of nature, nor by any positive command of God, for all children of Adam, as well as the first-born, are born with the guilt of original sin (with the exception of our Lord and his Immaculate Mother), and all are equally bound to have them selves cleaned from this stain. 55. Berruyer leaves the first-born alone, then, and applies this new doctrine of his to our Lord. All those, he says, from whom Jesus Christ sprung were first-born down to Joseph, and hence, in the person of Christ, by the succession inherited from St. Joseph, all the rights and all the debts of his first-born ancestors was united; but as none of these could satisfy the Divine justice, the Saviour, who alone could do so, was bound to make satisfaction for all, for he was the chief among the first-born, and on that account, he says, he was called the Son of Man. This title, however, St. Augustine says, was applied to our Lord as a title of humility, and not of majority or obligation. As the Son of Man, then, he says, he was the first-born among men; and as the Son of God, he was bound, according to the rigour of justice, to sacrifice himself to God for his glory, and the salvation of mankind: " Dobitum contraxerat in rigore justitiæ fundatum, qui natus erat Filius hominis, homo Primogenitus simul Dei Unigenitus, ut so Pontifex idem, et hostia ad gloriam Dei restituendam, salutemque hominum rcdimendam Deo Patri suo exhiberet." Hence, he says that Christ, by a natural precept, was bound, ex condigno, to satisfy the Divine Justice by his Passion: " Offere Se tamen ad satisfaciendum Deo ex condigno, et ad expiandum hominis peccatum, quo satis erat passione sua, Jesus Christus Filius hominis, et Filius Dei præcepto naturali obligabatur." Christ, therefore, he says, as the Son of Man, and the first-born of man, contracted a debt, obliging him, in rigorous justice, to atone to God, by his Passion, for the sins of mankind. We answer, that our Saviour could not, either as Son of Man, or first-born of man, contract this strict obligation to make satisfaction for mankind. He could not be obliged, as the Son of Man, for it would be blasphemous to assert that he incurred original sin: " Accepit enim hominem, says St. Thomas (12), absque peccato." Neither could he be obliged to it, as the first-born among men. It is true, St. Paul calls him the first-born among many brethren; but we must understand in what sense the Apostle applies this term. The text says: " For whom he foreknew he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren" (Rom. viii, 29). The Apostle here instructs us, that those whom God has foreseen will be saved, he has predestined to be made like unto Jesus Christ, in holiness and patience, poor, despised, and persecuted, like him on earth. (12) St. Thom. 3 p. q. H, a. 3. 56. Berruyer, however, asserts, that according to strict justice Christ could not be the mediator of all mankind, if he was not at the same time Man-God, and the Son of God, and thus make full satisfaction for the sins of man. But St. Thomas says (13) that God could be satisfied in two ways in regard to man’s sin, perfectly and imperfectly perfectly, by the satisfaction given him by a Divine Person, such as was given him by Jesus Christ; imperfectly, by accepting the satisfaction which man himself could make, and which would be sufficient, if God wished to accept it. St. Augustine says those are fools who teach that God could save mankind in no other manner, unless by becoming man himself, and suffering all he did. He could do so if he wished, says the Saint; but then their folly would not be satisfied: " Sunt stulti qui dicunt: * Non poterat aliter sapientia Dei homines liberare, nisi susciperet hominem, et a peccatoribus omnia ilia pateretur. Quibus dicimus, poterat omnino; sed si aliter faceret, similiter vestra? stultitiæ displiceret " (14). 57. Such being the case, it is insufferable to hear Berruyer assert that Christ, as the Son of Man, and firstborn of man, had contracted, in rigorous justice, the obligation of sacrificing himself to God, by dying for the satisfaction of man’s sins, and obtaining salvation for them. It is true in another place he says that the Incarnation of the Son of God was not a matter of necessity, but merely proceeded from God’s goodness alone; but then he contradicts himself (see n. 55). No matter what his meaning was, one thing is certain that Christ suffered for us, not because he was obliged to do so by necessity, but of his own free will, because he voluntarily offered himself up to suffer and die for the salvation of mankind: " He was offered because it was his own will" (Isaias, liii, 7). He says himself: "I lay down my life no man taketh it away from me, I lay it down of myself" (John, x, 17, 18). In that, says St. John, he shows the extraordinary love he bore to mankind, when he sacrificed even his life for them: "In this we have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life for us. This sacrifice of love was called his decease by Moses and Elias on the Mount of Thabor: " They spoke of his decease, which he should accomplish in Jerusalem." (13) St. Thorn, p. 3, ar. 1, ad. 2. (14) St. August, lib de Agone Christiano, c. 11. 58. I think I have said enough about Berruyer’s errors; the chief and most pernicious of all, the first and third, I have rather diffusely refuted. In these the fanatical author labours to throw into confusion all that the Scriptures and Councils teach regarding the great mystery of the Incarnation, the foundation of Christianity itself, and of our salvation. In conclusion, I protest that all that I have written in this Work, and especially in the Refutation of Heresies, I submit to the judgment of the Church. My only glory is, that I am her obedient child, and as such I hope to live and die.

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“So the collectors of the half-shekel say to the apostle Peter, "Does not your master pay the half-shekel?" Having said which, they agreed that the master pays for all the disciples. Now the Saviour, when he orders it to be given for himself and Peter, seems to have paid out for all; so just as all were included in the Saviour, by virtue of his office as teacher, likewise after the Saviour all were included in Peter. For he appointed him to be their head,l that he might be the shepherd of the Lord's flock. For amongst other things he says to the disciples: "Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation" ; and he says to Peter, "Behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat ; but I have prayed for thee, that " thy faith fail not, and do thou later, being converted, strengthen thy brethren". What ambiguity is there? Did he pray for Peter, but not pray for James and John, not to mention the others? It is clear that all are included in Peter, for by praying for Peter, he is seen to have prayed for all. For always a people I ' is blamed and praised in him that is set over.” (Quaestiones ex Nouo Testamento [A.D. 370]). “. . By the apostles who were somewhat distinguished among their colleagues, whom also he, Paul, because of their constancy calls "pillars", and who had always been intimate with the I Lord, even beholding his glory on the mount, by them he I [Paul] says the gift which he received from God was approved ; so that he would be worthy to have primacy4 in preaching to the Gentiles, even as Peter had the primacy in preaching to the ~ circumcision. And even as he gives colleagues to Peter, outstanding men among the apostles, so he also joins to himself Barnabas, who was associated with him by divine choice; yet I he claims the privilege of primacy granted by God for himself alone, even as it was granted to Peter alone among the apostles, in such a way that the apostles of the circumcision stretched out their right hands to the apostles of the Gentiles to manifest a harmony of fellowship, that both parties, knowing that they had received from the Lord a spirit of completeness in the imparting of the gospel, might show that they were in no way appointing one another.” (Commentaria in XI11 Epistolas Beati Pauli, on Galatians 2:9-10). < Proof of the Papacy Tool Ambrosiaster St. Peter, Shepherd “So the collectors of the half-shekel say to the apostle Peter, "Does not your master pay the half-shekel?" Having said which, they agreed that the master pays for all the disciples. Now the Saviour, when he orders it to be given for himself and Peter, seems to have paid out for all; so just as all were included in the Saviour, by virtue of his office as teacher, likewise after the Saviour all were included in Peter. For he appointed him to be their head,l that he might be the shepherd of the Lord's flock. For amongst other things he says to the disciples: "Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation" ; and he says to Peter, "Behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat ; but I have prayed for thee, that " thy faith fail not, and do thou later, being converted, strengthen thy brethren". What ambiguity is there? Did he pray for Peter, but not pray for James and John, not to mention the others? It is clear that all are included in Peter, for by praying for Peter, he is seen to have prayed for all. For always a people I ' is blamed and praised in him that is set over.” (Quaestiones ex Nouo Testamento [A.D. 370]). “. . By the apostles who were somewhat distinguished among their colleagues, whom also he, Paul, because of their constancy calls "pillars", and who had always been intimate with the I Lord, even beholding his glory on the mount, by them he I [Paul] says the gift which he received from God was approved ; so that he would be worthy to have primacy4 in preaching to the Gentiles, even as Peter had the primacy in preaching to the ~ circumcision. And even as he gives colleagues to Peter, outstanding men among the apostles, so he also joins to himself Barnabas, who was associated with him by divine choice; yet I he claims the privilege of primacy granted by God for himself alone, even as it was granted to Peter alone among the apostles, in such a way that the apostles of the circumcision stretched out their right hands to the apostles of the Gentiles to manifest a harmony of fellowship, that both parties, knowing that they had received from the Lord a spirit of completeness in the imparting of the gospel, might show that they were in no way appointing one another.” (Commentaria in XI11 Epistolas Beati Pauli, on Galatians 2:9-10). Proof of the Papacy Tool

“The Pope of Rome, the head of the Christian priesthood, whom in Peter, the Lord commanded to confirm his brethren.” (John VI, Patriarch of Constantinople, Epist. ad Constantin. Pap. ad. Combefis, Auctuar. Bibl. P.P. Graec.tom. ii. p. 211, seq. [A.D. 715]). < Proof of the Papacy Tool John VI, Patriarch of Constantinople Keys, St. Peter “The Pope of Rome, the head of the Christian priesthood, whom in Peter, the Lord commanded to confirm his brethren.” (John VI, Patriarch of Constantinople, Epist. ad Constantin. Pap. ad. Combefis, Auctuar. Bibl. P.P. Graec.tom. ii. p. 211, seq. [A.D. 715]). Proof of the Papacy Tool

“The Roman Apostolic Church is the mother of all Churches and has never been shown to have wandered from the path of Apostolic tradition, nor being deformed, succumbed to heretical novelties according to the promise of the Lord himself, saying, ‘I have prayed for thee, etc.’ [Lk 22:32]” ([Pope Saint Lucius I, Martyr, Epist. I ad Episcopos Hispaniae et Galliae [A.D. 253-254]). < Proof of the Papacy Tool Pope St. Lucius I “The Roman Apostolic Church is the mother of all Churches and has never been shown to have wandered from the path of Apostolic tradition, nor being deformed, succumbed to heretical novelties according to the promise of the Lord himself, saying, ‘I have prayed for thee, etc.’ [Lk 22:32]” ([Pope Saint Lucius I, Martyr, Epist. I ad Episcopos Hispaniae et Galliae [A.D. 253-254]). Proof of the Papacy Tool

< Back to Collection Missa Papae Marcelli Category Renaissance Composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina About

The Fourth Council of Constantinople was the eighth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church held in Constantinople from 5 October 869, to28 February 870. The council was called by Emperor Basil I the Macedonian, with the support of Pope Hadrian II. It deposed and anathemized Photius, a layman who had been appointed as Patriarch of Constantinople, and reinstated his predecessor Ignatius. The Council also reaffirmed the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea in support of icons and holy images. 08. The Fourth Council of Constantinople, 869-70 A.D. The Fourth Council of Constantinople was the eighth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church held in Constantinople from 5 October 869, to28 February 870. The council was called by Emperor Basil I the Macedonian, with the support of Pope Hadrian II. It deposed and anathemized Photius, a layman who had been appointed as Patriarch of Constantinople, and reinstated his predecessor Ignatius. The Council also reaffirmed the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea in support of icons and holy images. Read the Documents of the Council Source: Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Council_of_Constantinople_(Catholic_Church)#:~:text=The%20Fourth%20Council%20of%20Constantinople,bishops%20later%20never%20exceeded%20103.

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“Because the sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be past by, who said, ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’, these words are proved by the real effect which has followed; because in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has ever been kept immaculate, and holy doctrine celebrated there. Wherefore, by no mens desiring to be separated from its faith and doctrine, and following in all things the constitutions of the Fathers, and chiefly of the holy Prelates of the Apostolic See, we anathematize all heresies…Condemning particularly, Photius and Gregory of Syracuse, parricides, that is, who have not feared to put out their tongue against their Spiritual father [Pope Nicholas of Rome]. Since, following in all things the Apostolic See, and observing in all things the Apostolic See, and observing in all things its constitutions, we hope that we may be worthy to be in one communion which the Apostolic See sets forth, in which is the complete and true solidity of the Christian religion. But this my profession I have written with my own hand, and delivered to thee, most holy Hadrian [the Pope current] Supreme Pontiff and Universal Pope” (Papal legates asked that every Bishops should sign this profession of faith, A.D. 869, Mansi XVI, 27 [Ybarra: “Church Fathers & Papal Infallibility”]). “Of the wounds and sores of human members, art has produced many physicians; of whom one has treated this disease, and another tha, using in their experience amputation or cure. But of these, which are in the members of our Saviour Christ and God, the Head of us all, and of His spouse the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Supreme Chief and most powerful Word, Orderer, and Healer, and Master, the God of all, hath produced one singular pre-eminent and most Catholic physician, your fraternal Holiness, and paternal goodness. Wherefore He said to Peter, the great and supreme Apostle, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church’, and again, ‘I will give to you the keys of the kingdom, and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven’. For such blessed words He did not, surely, according to a sort of lot, circumscribe and define to the prince of the Apostles alone [to exclusively Peter], but transmitted by him [Peter] to all , who, after him, according to him, were to be made supreme pastors, and most divine and sacred Pontiffs of OLDEN ROME. And, therefore, from of old, and the ancient times, when heresies and contradictions have arisen, many of those who preceded there your Holiness and supreme Paternity, have many times been made the pluckers-up and destroyers of evil tares, and of sick members, plague-struck and incurable: being, that is, successors of the prince of the Apostles, and imitating his zeal in the faith, according to Christ: and now in our times, your Holiness hath worthily exercised the power given to you by Christ.” (Patriach Ignatius of Constantinople, Letter to St. Pope Nicholas the Great, Mansi, XVI, 47). “That headship of divine power, which the Maker of all things has bestowed on his elect Apostles, he hath, by establishing its solidity on the unshaken faith of Peter, prince of the Apostles, made his see pre-eminent, yea, the First. For, by the word of the Lord it was said to him, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church’. Moreover, Peter so entirely ceases not to maintain for his own people the structure of the Universal Church unshaken and rooted in the strength of faith, from the firmness of the Rock, which is Christ, that he hastens to reform by the rule of right faith the madness of the wandering. For, according to the faithful maintenance of the Apostolical tradition, as yourselves know, the holy Fathers have often met, by whom it has both been resolved and observed, that without the consent of the Roman See and the Roman Pontiff no emergent deliberation should be terminated” (St. Pope Nicholas the Great to Emperor Michael, Mansi XVI, 59). “Because the whole number of believers seeks doctrine, asks for the integrity of the faith, and those who are worthy the deliverance from crimes — from this holy Roman Church, which is the head of all churches, it behoves us, to whom it is entrusted, to be anxious, and the more fervently to be set on watch over the Lord’s flock…” (St. Pope Nicholas the Great to Photius, Mansi XVI, 69). “Wherefore, because, as your wisdom knows, we are bound by the care of all Christ’s sheep, holding through the abundance of heavenly grace, his place, to whom is especially said by God, ‘Feed My sheep’, and again ‘And thou, when thou are converted, confirm they brethren’ we could not dissimulate or reglect, but that we should visit our sheep dispersed and scattered, and confirm in the faith and good conduct our brethren and neighbors” (St. Pope Nicholas the Great to all Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Bishops subject to Constantinople, Mansi XVI , 101). “Obey those set over you, and be subject to them, for they watch for your souls, as those that shall give account: thus Paul the great Apostle commands. Therefore, holding the most blessed Pope Nicholas for the organ of the Holy Spirit, as too, most holy Pope Hadrian, his successor, we decree and approve that all things, which by them at different times have been set forth and promulged synodically, as well for the defense of the Church of Constantinople, as for the expulsion of the Photius, be kept and maintained” (Canon 2, Mansi XVI, 160). “We believe that the saying of the Lord that Christ addressed to his holy apostles and disciples, Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever despises you despises me, was also addressed to all who were likewise made supreme pontiffs and chief pastors in succession to them in the catholic church. Therefore we declare that no secular powers should treat with disrespect any of those who hold the office of patriarch or seek to move them from their high positions, but rather they should esteem them as worthy of all honour and reverence. This applies in the first place to the most holy pope of old Rome, secondly to the patriarch of Constantinople, and then to the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Furthermore, nobody else should compose or edit writings or tracts against the most holy pope of old Rome, on the pretext of making incriminating charges, as Photius did recently and Dioscorus a long time ago. Whoever shows such great arrogance and audacity, after the manner of Photius and Dioscorus, and makes false accusations in writing or speech against the see of Peter, the chief of the apostles, let him receive a punishment equal to theirs. “If, then, any ruler or secular authority tries to expel the aforesaid pope of the apostolic see, or any of the other patriarchs, let him be anathema. Furthermore, if a universal synod is held and any question or controversy arises about the holy church of Rome, it should make inquiries with proper reverence and respect about the question raised and should find a profitable solution; it must on no account pronounce sentence rashly against the supreme pontiffs of old Rome.” (Canon 21, Mansi XVI, 174). < Proof of the Papacy Tool The 4th Council of Constantinople Papal Supremacy, Apostolic See, Keys, Rock of the Church, Papal Authority, Chief of the Apostles, Papal Infallibility, Peter's Faith, Prince of the Apostles, Validating a Council, The Roman See “Because the sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be past by, who said, ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’, these words are proved by the real effect which has followed; because in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has ever been kept immaculate, and holy doctrine celebrated there. Wherefore, by no mens desiring to be separated from its faith and doctrine, and following in all things the constitutions of the Fathers, and chiefly of the holy Prelates of the Apostolic See, we anathematize all heresies…Condemning particularly, Photius and Gregory of Syracuse, parricides, that is, who have not feared to put out their tongue against their Spiritual father [Pope Nicholas of Rome]. Since, following in all things the Apostolic See, and observing in all things the Apostolic See, and observing in all things its constitutions, we hope that we may be worthy to be in one communion which the Apostolic See sets forth, in which is the complete and true solidity of the Christian religion. But this my profession I have written with my own hand, and delivered to thee, most holy Hadrian [the Pope current] Supreme Pontiff and Universal Pope” (Papal legates asked that every Bishops should sign this profession of faith, A.D. 869, Mansi XVI, 27 [Ybarra: “Church Fathers & Papal Infallibility”]). “Of the wounds and sores of human members, art has produced many physicians; of whom one has treated this disease, and another tha, using in their experience amputation or cure. But of these, which are in the members of our Saviour Christ and God, the Head of us all, and of His spouse the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Supreme Chief and most powerful Word, Orderer, and Healer, and Master, the God of all, hath produced one singular pre-eminent and most Catholic physician, your fraternal Holiness, and paternal goodness. Wherefore He said to Peter, the great and supreme Apostle, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church’, and again, ‘I will give to you the keys of the kingdom, and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven’. For such blessed words He did not, surely, according to a sort of lot, circumscribe and define to the prince of the Apostles alone [to exclusively Peter], but transmitted by him [Peter] to all , who, after him, according to him, were to be made supreme pastors, and most divine and sacred Pontiffs of OLDEN ROME. And, therefore, from of old, and the ancient times, when heresies and contradictions have arisen, many of those who preceded there your Holiness and supreme Paternity, have many times been made the pluckers-up and destroyers of evil tares, and of sick members, plague-struck and incurable: being, that is, successors of the prince of the Apostles, and imitating his zeal in the faith, according to Christ: and now in our times, your Holiness hath worthily exercised the power given to you by Christ.” (Patriach Ignatius of Constantinople, Letter to St. Pope Nicholas the Great, Mansi, XVI, 47). “That headship of divine power, which the Maker of all things has bestowed on his elect Apostles, he hath, by establishing its solidity on the unshaken faith of Peter, prince of the Apostles, made his see pre-eminent, yea, the First. For, by the word of the Lord it was said to him, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church’. Moreover, Peter so entirely ceases not to maintain for his own people the structure of the Universal Church unshaken and rooted in the strength of faith, from the firmness of the Rock, which is Christ, that he hastens to reform by the rule of right faith the madness of the wandering. For, according to the faithful maintenance of the Apostolical tradition, as yourselves know, the holy Fathers have often met, by whom it has both been resolved and observed, that without the consent of the Roman See and the Roman Pontiff no emergent deliberation should be terminated” (St. Pope Nicholas the Great to Emperor Michael, Mansi XVI, 59). “Because the whole number of believers seeks doctrine, asks for the integrity of the faith, and those who are worthy the deliverance from crimes — from this holy Roman Church, which is the head of all churches, it behoves us, to whom it is entrusted, to be anxious, and the more fervently to be set on watch over the Lord’s flock…” (St. Pope Nicholas the Great to Photius, Mansi XVI, 69). “Wherefore, because, as your wisdom knows, we are bound by the care of all Christ’s sheep, holding through the abundance of heavenly grace, his place, to whom is especially said by God, ‘Feed My sheep’, and again ‘And thou, when thou are converted, confirm they brethren’ we could not dissimulate or reglect, but that we should visit our sheep dispersed and scattered, and confirm in the faith and good conduct our brethren and neighbors” (St. Pope Nicholas the Great to all Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Bishops subject to Constantinople, Mansi XVI , 101). “Obey those set over you, and be subject to them, for they watch for your souls, as those that shall give account: thus Paul the great Apostle commands. Therefore, holding the most blessed Pope Nicholas for the organ of the Holy Spirit, as too, most holy Pope Hadrian, his successor, we decree and approve that all things, which by them at different times have been set forth and promulged synodically, as well for the defense of the Church of Constantinople, as for the expulsion of the Photius, be kept and maintained” (Canon 2, Mansi XVI, 160). “We believe that the saying of the Lord that Christ addressed to his holy apostles and disciples, Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever despises you despises me, was also addressed to all who were likewise made supreme pontiffs and chief pastors in succession to them in the catholic church. Therefore we declare that no secular powers should treat with disrespect any of those who hold the office of patriarch or seek to move them from their high positions, but rather they should esteem them as worthy of all honour and reverence. This applies in the first place to the most holy pope of old Rome, secondly to the patriarch of Constantinople, and then to the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Furthermore, nobody else should compose or edit writings or tracts against the most holy pope of old Rome, on the pretext of making incriminating charges, as Photius did recently and Dioscorus a long time ago. Whoever shows such great arrogance and audacity, after the manner of Photius and Dioscorus, and makes false accusations in writing or speech against the see of Peter, the chief of the apostles, let him receive a punishment equal to theirs. “If, then, any ruler or secular authority tries to expel the aforesaid pope of the apostolic see, or any of the other patriarchs, let him be anathema. Furthermore, if a universal synod is held and any question or controversy arises about the holy church of Rome, it should make inquiries with proper reverence and respect about the question raised and should find a profitable solution; it must on no account pronounce sentence rashly against the supreme pontiffs of old Rome.” (Canon 21, Mansi XVI, 174). Proof of the Papacy Tool

The Council of Chalcedon was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bithynia (modern-day Kadıköy) from 8 October to 1 November 451 AD. The council was attended by over 520 bishops or their representatives, making it the largest and best-documented of the first seven ecumenical councils. The principal purpose of the council was to re-assert the teachings of the ecumenical Council of Ephesus against the teachings of Eutyches and Nestorius. Such doctrines viewed Christ's divine and human natures as separate (Nestorianism) or viewed Christ as solely divine (Monophysitism). 04. The Council of Chalcedon, 451 A.D. The Council of Chalcedon was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bithynia (modern-day Kadıköy) from 8 October to 1 November 451 AD. The council was attended by over 520 bishops or their representatives, making it the largest and best-documented of the first seven ecumenical councils. The principal purpose of the council was to re-assert the teachings of the ecumenical Council of Ephesus against the teachings of Eutyches and Nestorius. Such doctrines viewed Christ's divine and human natures as separate (Nestorianism) or viewed Christ as solely divine (Monophysitism). Read the Documents of the Council Source: Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Chalcedon