Edward Bouverie Pusey · 12 of 21

Main Body · Part 12

“Now Pope Innocent III. could not address himself worse than to a Greek Emperor, in order to broach these principles unknown to antiquity. The Latin princes, ignorant for the most part to the degree that they could not read, believed in these matters all that the Clerks told them, of whom they took counsel; and these Clerks had all studied in the same schools, and drawn from the same source, the Decretum of Gratian. Among the Greeks all respectable persons studied, laymen as well as Clerks; and instructed themselves in the original books, Scripture, the Fathers, the ancient Canons; but they were not acquainted with the false Decretals fabricated in the West and written in Latin. So they had preserved the ancient discipline on all the points which I have here marked. You have seen that all their Bishops, and even their Patriarchs, were judged and often deposed in Councils; that permission was not asked of the Pope to assemble them, nor appeal made to him from their judgments. He was not applied to for the translations of Bishops, or the founding of Bishoprics: the Canons, comprised in the ancient code of the Greek Church, were followed. I do not say that this Church was exempt from abuses; I have marked many on different occasions, and I know that the Patriarchs of Constantinople had claimed an excessive authority by the favour of the Emperors, who had even much encroached on the Ecclesiastical power; but still the ancient formalities were always outwardly maintained, the Canons were known and respected.

“You will say, perhaps, ‘one must not be astonished that the Greeks did not apply to the Pope, either for appeals, or for all the rest, since from the time of Photius they no longer recognized him as head

of the Church.’ But did they apply to him before? And in the times when they were most united with the Roman Church did they observe any thing of that which I call the new discipline? They were far enough from doing it, since the Latins themselves did it not, and this discipline was yet unknown to all the Church. Moreover, do not deceive yourself in that, the schism of the Greeks is not so ancient as is commonly believed: I will show it in another discourse but in the mean time I remark to you, that it scarcely took shape before the taking of “Constantinople by the Latins. Besides, I do not see that in the disputes we have had with the Greeks, from the time of Leo IX., and Michael Cerularius, we have reproached them with holding Councils without the Pope’s permission, and the rest of the points in question; and I do not see any more that Gregory VII. and his successors have cited to Rome Greek Bishops, and treated them as they treated the Latin; they knew well that they would not have obeyed.”

Then after two sections on the temporal power of the Pope (as being equally derived from a forgery, the donation of Constantine), and its evils, he resumes:—

“The spiritual power of the Pope having extended itself to such a degree by the conclusions drawn from the false Decretals, he was obliged to commit his powers to others: for it was impossible that he should go everywhere, or cause everybody to come to him. Hence came the Legations so frequent from the eleventh century. Now the Legates were of two sorts, Bishops or Abbots of the country, or Cardinals sent from Ro me. Legates taken on the spot were further different: the one established by a particular commission of the Pope, the other by the prerogative of their See, and these called themselves Legati nati, as the Archbishops of Mayence, and Canterbury. The Legates come from Rome called themselves Legates a latere, to mark that the Pope had sent them from his person, and this expression was drawn from the Council of Sardica. “The Legati nati did not willingly endure the Pope’s naming others to the prejudice of their privileges, but the Pope had more confidence in those he had chosen, than in Prelates with whom he was little acquainted, or who suited him not. Now, amongst those whom he chose, the most favourable were they whom he took on the spot, because they were mo re capable of judging and ordering with knowledge of the cause than foreigners come from a distance. So you have seen with what urgency Ivo of Chartres begged the Popes not to send these foreign Legates. They were not received in England, any more than in France, unless they had been asked for by the king. The Bishops hardly endured seeing themselves presided over by foreign Bishops, still less by a Cardinal Priest or Deacon, under pretext of his being Legate, for until then all Bishops took rank before Cardinals which were not so. “But what rendered the Legates a latere more odious was their pride, luxury, and avarice. They travelled neither at their own expense nor that of the Pope, but of the country whither they were sent; and they went in great pomp, that is, with a suite of at least twenty-five horses, for to this the third Council of Lateran had limited them. Wherever they passed, they caused themselves to be treated magnificently by the Bishops and Abbots, to such a degree that the monasteries were sometimes reduced to sell the sacred vessels of their Churches to provide for such expenses. You have seen complaints of this. Nor was this all: they must have presents made them besides; they received such from the princes to whom they were directed, and often from the parties to whom they rendered justice; at least the expeditions were not gratuitous. In fine, the Legations were gold mines for the Cardinals, and they returned from them generally laden with riches. You have seen what S. Bernard said of it, and with what admiration he speaks of a disinterested Legate. “The most ordinary result of a Legation was a Council, which the Legate convoked at the place and time that he judged suitable. He presided there, and decided the affairs which came up, and published certain rules of discipline, with approbation of the Bishops, who for the most part did nothing else but applaud; for it does not appear that there was much deliberation. Thus were insensibly abolished the Provincial Councils, which each Metropolitan was bound to hold every year according to the Canons: the dignity of the Archbishops, overshadowed by that of the Legates, degenerated into titles and ceremonies,

such as having a pall and causing a cross to be borne before them; but they had no longer authority over their suffragans, and Councils of Legates only were now seen. Now, to remark it in passing, I doubt not that the frequent Legations have been the source of the distinguished rank which the Cardinals of the Roman Church have since held: for each Church had its own, that is to say, Priests and Deacons attached to certain titles. But as in these Councils the Cardinal Legates were seen above not only Bishops, but Archbishops, Primates, and Patriarchs, men became accustomed to join in the title of Cardinal the idea of a dignity which only yielded to that of the Pope. The state dress of the Cardinals confirms this thought: the cape and hat were the dress on a journey, which belonged to the Legates: red was the colour of the Pope, and it was the better to represent him that the Legates wore it, according to the remark of a Greek historian.

“Here, however, is one of the greatest changes which the discipline of the Church has suffered, the cessation of the Provincial Councils, and the diminution of the authority of the Metropolitans. Was, then, that beautiful order, so .wisely established from the birth of the Church, and so advantageously practised during eight or ten centuries, to be overturned without deliberation, without inquiry, without cognizance of cause? But what reason could have been alleged for it? Were foreign Legates, who knew not either the manners or the language of the country, and who only sojourned there in passing, more proper than the ordinary pastors to judge in differences, and restore discipline? And when they had published fine rules in a Council, could they be assured that these would be observed after their departure, if the Bishops did not lend their hand to it? Let us conclude upon this point as upon the rest, the ancient discipline has not been changed to establish a better. Thus we do not see that, during the frequent Legations, religion has been more flourishing.

“The Bishops and Metropolitans were so ignorant of their rights, that they sought with eagerness for the powers of Legates, not considering the advantage of a proper and independent, though less, authority, over one more extended, but borrowed and precarious. It seemed they could do nothing any longer by themselves, unless the authority of the Pope supported them: and the Pope willingly granted them these favours, which they could have done without, and which always extended his power. It is the same, in proportion, with the custom, so frequent then, of causing agreements made between Churches, and donations to their profit, to be confirmed by the Pope: as if these acts would have been less valid without the confirmation. Right is assumed by favours asked without necessity: and claims are so made to render them necessary.”

Then, after a section on evils from the large subsidies to Rome, in order to support the Court of Rome, when from the eleventh century the Popes were compelled to quit Rome, he resumes:—

“I well feel that it is sad to direct notice to these unedifying facts: and I fear that those who have more piety than enlightenment may derive thence occasion of offence. They will perhaps say, that these facts should have been dissembled in the history, or that, after having reported them, they ought not to have had attention drawn to them in a treatise. But truth is the foundation of history: and to suppress a part of it is not to recount it truly.” ...” If these disorders had in such sense ceased, that no vestige of them any more remained, perhaps they might have been left buried in eternal oblivion; but we see only too much their fatal consequences. The heresies which for two hundred years [1723] have been rending the Church, the ignorance and superstition which reign in some Catholic countries, the corruption of morality by new maxims, are but too sensible effects of them. And is it not useful to know whence evils so great have come?”

And after further reflections of the same sort:—

... “Can one still, in the light of our century, maintain the donation of Constantine and the Decretals of Isidore? And if these documents cannot be defended, can one approve the results drawn from

them? Let us then candidly admit that Gregory VII. and Innocent III., deceived by these documents, and the bad reasonings of the theologians of their times, have pushed their authority too far, and have rendered it odious by stretching it: and let us not attempt to support excesses, of which we see the causes and the fatal effects. For at last, whatever one may say, it is evident that the first centuries furnish us with a greater number of holy Popes than the last, and that the manners and discipline of the Roman Church were much purer. Now it is not credible that the Popes have begun to know their rights, and to exercise their power in its full extent, only since their life has been less edifying, and their especial flock less well regulated. This reflection supplies a disagreeable prejudice against the new maxims.

“Of all the changes of discipline, I see none which has brought the Church into greater disrepute, than the rigour exercised against heretics and other excommunicated persons.”

He then contrasts the principles of the Ancient Church, as evinced in the case of the Priscillianists, in S. Augustine as to the Manichees and others, with the practice after the eighth century. His last head is, “The Changes in Penitences:”—

“I finish these sad reflections by the change introduced into penitences. Public penitences were turned into torments and temporal penalties.” ... 16. “It is true that the multitude of indulgences, and the facility of gaining them, were a great obstacle to the zeal of the most enlightened confessors. It was difficult to persuade a sinner to fast and discipline himself, who could buy off this by a trifling alms, or the visit of a Church. For the Bishops of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries granted these indulgences to all sorts of pious works, as the building of a church, the maintenance of an hospital, in fact every public work, a bridge, a causeway, the pavement of a high road. These indulgences were indeed but a part of the penitence, but if several of them were joined, the whole might be bought off. These are the indulgences which the 4th Lateran Council calls (Can. 62.) ‘indiscreet and superfluous,’ which render the keys of the Church contemptible, and unnerve the satisfaction of penitence. To repress this abuse, the Lateran Council directs that at the dedication of a Church the indulgence given should not exceed a year, even if several Bishops should be present: for each claimed to give his own.”

Then, after some more observations on the relaxation of the ancient discipline by indulgences, he concludes:—

“Here I end by remarking to you what I think I have proved, that the changes which have taken place in the discipline of the Church since the last five or six hundred years, have not been introduced by the authority of Bishops and Councils, to correct the ancient practice: but by negligence, by ignorance, by error, founded on false documents, as the Decretals of Isidore, and on the bad reasonings of the scholastic Doctors. God grant that we may profit by the favour He has shown us of being born in a more enlightened age; and that if we cannot bring back the ancient discipline, we may at least know how to esteem it, revere, and regret it.”

Fleury says in another place, of the supposititious writings after the seventh century,

“Of all these false documents the most pernicious were the Decretals attributed to the Popes of the first four centuries, which have inflicted an incurable wound on the discipline of the Church, by the new

maxims which they introduced concerning the judgments of the Bishops, and the authority of the Pope.”

The forgery of the Decretals after they had “passed for true during eight centuries” was owned by all, even in the Church of Borne. But the system built upon the forgery abides still. The Greek Church could not be admitted to Communion with the West, without merging its whole Patriarchal or Episcopal system, such as it inherited from the times of the undivided Church, so that her Bishops should be the mere delegates of the Roman Pontiff, liable to be deposed at his mere will, as the eighty French Bishops were by Pope Pius VII. in his Concordat with Napoleon 1. Our Communion was rejected, because our forefathers used the same freedom which the Church of S. Augustine enjoyed. Yet what of human authority Rome clings to in her day of power, she may exchange for the strength of union in a day of weakness. Concordats have been one step in this direction since the Reformation. The times are in God’s Hands. I used to think that our office in this day was that of him who “arbores serit, quse alteri prosint saeculo.” We seemed to me in the position of the Heaven-controlled Seer, “I see Him, but not nigh; I behold Him, but not now.” And meanwhile our office was within ourselves. We could not propose union, while we ourselves are so disunited. I hoped that the pressing storm of unbelief, which I have seen in the distance these forty years, would drive together those who love Jesus. I hoped that, as we became united in the truth and in the characteristic principles of our Church, those other great portions of the Church, East and West, would see that “God is in us of a truth.” While we we said Bishop Andrewes’s prayer for the Catholic Church, Oikoumenikh, ‘Anatolikh, Dutikh, ‘Hmetera, we hoped that the time was drawing on, when “Eastern, Western, our own,” would melt, in visible communion too, into the one “Œcumenical.”

What times may be coming on the earth, He Alone knoweth, Whose they are. Troubles are threatening our Western Christendom everywhere. Whether or how they shall break, or whether they shall be averted, God Alone knoweth. We only know that, before our Lord shall come, there will be “s uch tribulation as hath never been before,” and “the apostasy,” an apostasy so great that former apostasies (even that awful apostasy through Mohammed) shall not deserve the name; and such “deceivableness of Satan,” that, “if possible, they should deceive the very elect.”

From this trouble the Roman Church has no more ground of exemption than our

own. Our Lord’s words, “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the faith on the earth? “seem to imply that, ere He comes, the objective faith, “the faith,”—not only as the life of individuals, but as held by the Church,—“the Catholic faith,” will be very much obscured, and may be found among few only. We have not seen such a triumph of Satan over the faith here, as that reign of his in the capital of France. Faber anticipated a new “Age of Mary,” which was to be connected “with the Second Advent of her Son.” Alas! who shall say what will be the cause of the falling away before that Second Advent? De Montford speaks of those as “the free-thinkers of these [his] times,” who did not believe that the Holy Trinity has made the Blessed Virgin the dispensatrix of all which They possess and will bestow upon man. Several of the Roman Catholic Bishops wrote of the belief in the Immaculate Conception, before it was declared an Article of faith, as being so believed as “of faith,” that for their people to doubt of it, would be to doubt of all. What then, as I said, if they should discover hereafter that so much, which they have been taught as certain truth in regard to the Blessed Virgin, has no Divine foundation? There must be some terrible inward cause, why so large a portion of the Church shall lose faith, as, it seems probable, will lose it before our Lord comes. The victims of Antichrist must have lost Christ out of their hearts already. Shocking as it is to think of, the collapse of an ungrounded system as to the prerogatives of her, whom God, by His wondrous condescension, has brought into a nearer relation to Himself than any other mere created being, might shake the whole faith of those whose faith was worked into one with it. People are taught that to believe in Christ involves all this vast belief in the Blessed Virgin, coextensive with the belief in Him. What if this should fail? Such an “Age of Mary,” as Faber anticipates, might, not unconceivably, by the collapse of the belief, bury in the ruins the faith in Jesus also. It is very observable how the presence of the English Church keeps this belief from taking the forms which it does where it is unchecked. This may be one of her offices in God’s hands. She preserves the entire faith, such as our Lord left it with the Apostles, to evangelize the world. She believes all which the undivided Church believed, as of faith. Why should not the Church again be united in that faith which she held, before a miserable quarrel first caused her disunion? Pious Roman Catholics too have felt that the Churches are mutually weakened, that faith and morals and life are alike injured in each by these mutual divisions. Apart from other evils, the strength is wasted against each other, which should be concentrated against the common foe of Jesus and of all who are His.

The organic reunion of Christendom, and of the Protestant bodies too, has been held to be possible, even by the Ultramontanes in the Roman Church. Cardinal Wiseman quoted, nearly a quarter of a century ago, the expressions of “the profound and pious Möhler.” “After observing,” he says, “that no Catholic can refuse to acknowledge with humiliation the corruptions of past ages, that this proof lies in the very existence of

Protestantism which could not have existed without them; he thus concludes: ‘Apprenez done une fois, ô Protestants, la grandeur des abus que vous nous reprochez sur la grandeur de vos propres égarements. Voilà le terrain, sur lequel les deux églises se recontreront un jour, et se donneront la main. Dans le sentiment de nôtre faute commune, nous devons nous écrier, et les uns et les autres, ‘Nous avons tous manqués, l’Eglise seule ne peut faillir; nous avons tous pêchés, l’Eglise seule est pure de toute souillure.’”

You will well remember the glowing words of our friend, who is at once a statesman and a theologian, earnest for the cause of Christ, and zealous for His truth and His Church.

“The name of the Count De Maistre has become one of European celebrity. He is one of the writers who have had the very largest share in shaping the modern tendencies of the devout and energetic portion of the Roman Catholics of Western Europe. He is, unhappily, of the ‘most strictest sect’ of that Church; of that Ultramontane school which has been from its first origin alike needful and dangerous to the Roman system; and he has defined its principles with even an augmented sharpness, and wound them up to a higher intensity than they had before attained.

“Yet listen to the words in which he writes of the Church of England:—

“Si jamais les Chrétiens se rapprochent, comme tout les y invite, il semble que la motion doit partir de 1’Eglise de l’Angleterre. Le presbytérianisme fut une œuvre Francaise, et par conséquent une œuvre exagérée. Nous sommes trop éloignés des sectateurs d’un culte trop peu substantiel; il n’y a pas moyen de nous entendre; mais l’Eglise Anglicane, qui nous touche d’une main, touche de l’autre ceux que nous ne pouvons toucher; et quoique, sous un certain point de vue, elle soit en butte aux coups des deux partis, et qu’elle présente le spectacle un peu ridicule d’un révolté qui prêche l’obeissance, cependant elle est très précieuse sous d’autres aspects, et pent être considérée comme une de ces intermèdes chimiques, capable d’approcher des élémens inassociables de leur nature.’

“It is now sixty years since thus a stranger and an alien, a stickler to the extremest point for the prerogatives of his Church, and nursed in every prepossession against ours, nevertheless, turning his eye across the Channel, although he could then only see her in the lethargy of her organization and the dull twilight of her learning, could nevertheless discern that there was a very special work written of God for her in Heaven, and that she was VERY PRECIOUS to the Christian world. Oh! how serious a rebuke to those who, not strangers, but suckled at her breast not two generations back, but the witnesses now of her true and deep repentance and of her reviving faith and love, yet (under whatever provocation) have written concerning her even as men might write that were hired to make a case against her, and by an adverse instinct in the selection of evidence, and a severity of construction, such as no history of the deeds of man can bear, have often, too

often in these last years, put her to an open shame.

“But what a word of hope and encouragement to every one who, as convinced in his heart of the glory of her providential mission, should unshrinkingly devote himself to defending within her borders the full and whole doctrine of the Cross, with that mystic symbol now as ever gleaming down on him from Heaven, now as ever showing forth its inscription—in hoc signo vinces.”

And now God seems again to be awakening the yearning to be visibly one, and He Who Alone, the Author of peace and the Lover of concord, must have put it into men’s minds to pray for the Unity of Christendom, will, in His time, we trust, fulfil the prayer which He Himself has taught. It is not our insular self-importance; it is from beyond the seas that the voice has come, yea, it is, we trust, His Voice, “Who ruleth the seas and the noise of his waves, and the tumult of the people,” Who has called to us to prepare ourselves to be such as He may employ for the reunion of Christendom. The authorities of the great Russian Church (we hear, as sounds floating on the breeze) look favourably on the wish for restored communion. Our position gives us an advantage towards her also: because, while we are widespread enough to be no object of contempt, there can be no dread on either side of any interference with the self-government of each, in the portion of God’s heritage which, in His Providence, each occupies. We have no ground to fear in regard to her, lest she should force back upon us that vast practical system, still prevalent in the Western Church, which was one occasion, and is the justification, of our isolated condition. We had nothing to do with the great schism of the East and West. Convinced that (as the Council of Florence states) the Greek and Latin Fathers, though using different language, meant the same as to the Procession of God the Holy Ghost, we should have nothing to ask of her,—except Communion. With regard to her too, we may have a Providential Office, that we too have received the Filioque, not by any act of our own, but as circulated insensibly throughout the Latin Church; and while we could not part with what, through so many centuries, has been the expression of our common faith, we might still reject with Anathema the heresy which, since Photius, has been imputed to it, and which the Greek Church now seems, by an inveterate prejudice, to think to be involved in it. Yet it is plain that, long after the schism, her great writers and Bishops did not think so. Else they could not have proposed to the Latin Church, only to remove the word from the Creed, while continuing to teach or sing it

elsewhere as they pleased. For had they thought the formula to contain heresy, “this would have involved connivance in, and assent to, heresy. But if the objection lies only to the informality or mistake of altering the common Creed, this, it seems, was unintentional on the part of the Western Church; and we clearly had nothing to do with it; nor had we with what seems to have been a mistake on the part of the Council of Florence who, laying down that the two formulae had been used in the same sense by the great fathers, the 6ta rov Tlov by the Greek, the Filioque by the Latin, drew the strange inference that the Greek should adopt the formula used by the Latin fathers. We had no share in this; we only ask to continue to use the formula, which, without any act of our own, has been the expression of our faith immemorially. The Greeks, who value so much an inherited faith, could not, we trust, be insensible to the claim. If, on such terms and on such explanations of our belief as she may require and we could give, communion should be restored between us, a great step would have been gained towards the reunion of all Christendom.

The largeness of the hopes and longings may, we trust, draw down the more favour from Him Who “maketh men to be of one mind in one house.” A plan, which should embrace the Greek Church also, would facilitate what English Catholics most desire, authoritative explanations. Cardinal Wiseman, in his memorable letter to Lord Shrewsbury, laid down as a principle, “We must explain to the utmost.” The Church of England and the Council of Trent have long seemed to me at cross purposes. In some cases, at least, the Council of Trent proposed the minimum, of which it would accept, but left a maximum, far beyond the letter of the Council, to be thereafter, as it was before, the practical system of the Church. The Church of England, in her Articles, protested against that maximum, the practical system which she saw around her; but, in many cases, she laid down no doctrine at all on the subject upon which she protested. She made negative

statements to show against what she protested, but. set down no positive statement to explain what, on the same subject, she accepted. Thus, in view of a Council, which was expected to be under Italian influence, and in which she did not expect to be fairly heard, she protested that “General Councils may and have erred “(which is so far true); but since she was employed only on the defensive on one side, she left it to be gathered from elsewhere that there are Councils which were “allowed and received of all men,” which she also accepted. And so, as to other points also. It may be that, on any such negotiations, she might offer such explanations of the Thirty-nine Articles, as the Roman and Greek Churches would accept, such as are suggested by Bossuet, or by the Commonitorium of Du Pin; or, according to the precedent of the Council of Florence, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Council of Trent (which was so largely directed against errors of Luther) might pass away and be merged in the Eighth General Council of the once-more united Christendom. It is not, we trust, without some great purpose of His love, that God has so marvellously preserved the English Church until now. Life is the token of God’s Presence in the Church; for out of Him there is no life. Dr. Manning grants, as to individuals in the English Church, that, in common with all the baptized, they, having been in Baptism made the children of God and members of Christ, are, if they have continued in that grace, members of Christ still. He admits, what he cannot deny without heresy, that they are real Christians. Even as to the number of these he cast doubts. He dwells on the fact, that many of the English people are unbaptized (these are, of course, not members of any Church); he leaves out of the question all who have fallen from Baptismal grace by mortal sin, only speaking of “the great difficulty and uncertainty of their restoration.” And then he speaks of a small residuum whom he supposes to live on and grow in the grace which they received at their Baptism. His mode of admitting the fact implies his opinion of the rareness of such cases. Catholic missionaries have known it as a fact, and he himself, too, as to some whom they have received into the Church. “There are to be found amongst the English people individuals who practise in a high degree the four cardinal virtues, and, in no small degree, though with the limits and blemishes inseparable from their state, the three