Peter's name; or, A divine credential in a name

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B E R K E L E lT\

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF

Peter's IRame

or
a SHvine Crebential in a IRame

or

A Divine Credential in a Name

BY T. SMYTH-VAUDRY, C.PR.,
of the Archdiocese of Chicago

LOAN STACK

NIHIL OBSTAT.

JOANNES PINNEL,

Censor deputatus.

IMPRIMATUR.

f JOANNES ANTONIUS,

Ep. Sti. Antonii.

In festo Cathedrae S. Petri Romae, A. D. 1909.

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY T. SMYTH-VAUDRY.

GENERAL DIVISIONS

First Part,-

Peter's name proclaims him possessor of all
Church-power, under Christ.

Second Part,—

Peter's name proclaims him the source of all
Church-power, under Christ.

699

FIRST PART

Peter's name proclaims him possessor of all Church-power
under Christ 13

NOTE I
Peter's name means, scripturally, Christ's other self 13

NOTE II

Peter's name is the scriptural equivalent of the Catholic

term "Pope" 24

NOTE III

Peter's name means, scripturally, the sovereign Ruler,
infallible Teacher, and High Priest of the Church. ... 28

NOTE IV

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to the
Fathers 34

NOTE V

Peter's name means, scripturally and patristically, the
Church's Foundation, Bulwark, Capstone, and fining
Mark 41

SECOND PART

Peter's name proclaims him the source of all Church-
power, under Christ 51

NOTE VI
A glance at the names of Jesus and Peter 51

Table of Contents 9

NOTE VII

Peter's name means, scripturally, that Peter is, under
and with Christ, the alpha or co-beginning of the
Church 56

NOTE VIII

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the entity of the Church 66

NOTE IX

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of Church authority 68

NOTE X

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or

perennial source of the infallibility of the Church 71

NOTE XI

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or

perennial source of the indefectibility of the Church 75

NOTE XII

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the Church's compactness and
solidity 76

NOTE XIII

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the one-ness and unicity of the
Church 77

NOTE XIV

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
ministerial source of the holiness of the Church 81

NOTE XV

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the Catholicity or universality of
the Church . 83

io Table of Contents

NOTE XVI

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the Apostolicity of the Church 86

NOTE XVII

Peter's name means, scripturally, the Apostle more deeply
beloved of the L,ord than any other Apostle 99

NOTE XVIII

Peter's name means, scripturally, the Rock or perennial
source of anti-pharisaism, i. e. of the restoration of
the fallen — the uplifter of the down-trodden and
of the fallen 103

NOTE XIX

Comparative view of the threefold power vested in the
Church 125

NOTE XX

Did all the Apostles receive their jurisdiction from Christ
exclusively ? 134

NOTE XXI

Comparative powers of Peter and of the other Apostles 138

NOTE XXII

How can it be known that the extraordinary jurisdiction
and the personal infallibility of each of the Apostles
do not endure in their successors ? 147

NOTE XXIII

Comparative Church-powers of Christ and of Peter.... 150

NOTE XXIV

The alternative: either Peter or Atheism . . 154

,

Peter's Name Proclaims Him

POSSESSOR
of all Church-power, Under Christ

Peter's name proclaims him possessor of
all Church-power, under Christ.

(By Church-power we understand the threefold
power vested in the Church by our divine Lord, viz.,
the ruling, teaching, and sanctifying power: the royal,
prophetic, and sacerdotal office.)

NOTE I

Peter's name means, scripturally, Christ's other self
A startling similarity

In our notes on the Names of Jesus and Peter
in Holy Writ, we have seen that these two names, by
reason of the startling similarity of treatment which
they receive in the Scriptures, forcibly suggest a cor-
responding similarity or identity of office in their
respective bearers. In fact, the Word of God af-
firms such identity of office (viz., the papal office) in
Jesus and Peter, by applying the papal title of the Rock
to the Master as well as to His Chief Apostle : Matt. 7.
24; 16. 18; John i. 42; i Cor. 10. 4.

Let us glance, once more, at the marvelous simi-
larity of treatment and the sovereign pre-eminence
bestowed by Holy Writ on the names of Jesus and
Peter.

14 Peter's Name;

(a) The New Testament invariably ranges the
Apostles under Jesus in its every mention of them
in connection with the Master.

The New Testament likewise systematically ranges
all the Apostles under Peter in its four catalogs of
the Apostles, and in its every mention by name of a
fraction or group of the Apostolic College in con-
nection with him.

(b) The New Testament groups the Apostles even
anonymously under the head-name of Jesus.

In precisely the same manner, does it group
the Apostles even anonymously under the head-
name of Peter as the future or actual successor of
Christ in the visible headship of the Church — thus
putting Peter on a relative level of authority with
Christ Himself not only by ranging all under him
but by suppressing all names except Christ's and
Peter's.

(c) The New Testament makes more frequent
mention of Jesus by name than of all the Apostles
and disciples.

The new Testament likewise makes more frequent
mention of, and consequently devotes more attention
to, Peter, — by name, singly and individually — than to
any other Apostle, not excepting St. Paul and the two
other leading Apostles, St. John and St. James.

In short, the names of Jesus and Peter hold the
first, the most conspicuous and the most commanding
position in Holy Writ.

A Triple Scale of ever-ascending grandeur

It is now our purpose, in this series of Notes, to
take a closer view of the scriptural meaning and im-
port of the name of Peter, j

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 15

It is a name which is very far from receiving its
due meed of praise and admiration. Who ever adverts
to its triple force and import? For, Peter's name is
a triple scale of ever ascending grandeur — a triple
firmament superposed one over the other and rising
up to heights which angel wings can never mount.

First, it alone is scripturally, and all in one, a title
of office, a personal proper name, and a God-given
name.

Second, it alone is scripturally and all in one, a
title of office, a personal proper name, a God-given
name, and a Divine name besides — i. e., one of God's
own scriptural names and titles.

Third, it is a name which God shares with none,
except Christ and Simon Barjona — to the exclusion
of all the rest of creation.

(First) Peter's name alone is scripturally, and all
in one, a title of office, a personal proper name, and a
God-given name.

It is a God-given name; not conferred by an
Angel, like Israel's (Gen. 32. 28), or by a prophet,
but by the Lord Incarnate in person: (John i. 42;
Mark 3. 16.)

The surname of Boanerges was indeed conferred
on James and John by our Lord himself (Mark 3. 17).
— not however as an essential, but as a purely incident-
al, addition to their names. It was not a substitute for
the same. Much less was it a title of office. Hence,
they are, ever after, designated in Holy Writ as James
and John, never under the appellation of Boanerges.

1 6 Peter's Name;

But Peter's name was given him both as an es-
sential and perpetual addition to, and substitute for,
that of Simon Barjona, and as an essential perpetual
title of office. Therefore does Holy Writ almost
constantly call him by that Divine name — over one
hundred and sixty times.

Note again that Abraham's name, though God-given
(Gen. 17. 5) is not, like Peter's, a Divine title of
office.

Peter, then, it may be objected, was more favored
of heaven, in one respect at least, than Jesus Himself
— since Jesus received his name through the ministry
of an angel (Matt. i. 21 ; Luke i. 31). The answer
suggests itself at once, that, if Jesus did, outwardly,
receive his name through an angel, He received it in-
wardly, in the sanctuary of his soul, — not only directly
but with infinite directness, from the Father — in the
threefold embrace of his eternal generation, of his
temporal filiation, and of the face-to-face vision.

(Second) Peter's name alone is scripturally, and
all in one, a title of office, a personal proper name, a
God-given name and a Divine name besides, — it be-
ing one of God's own scriptural names and titles.

No such distinction attaches to the names of Abra-
ham and Boanerges. They are God-given, but they
are not God's own personal names and titles.

True, God has been pleased to share some of his
own scriptural names with men and with the heavenly
spirits above. With myriads of the latter, for instance,
does he share the beautiful title of Angel; for, He

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 17

calls himself the Angel, the Angel of the Covenant:
Mai. 3. i ; Matt. n. 10; Mark i. 2; Luke I. 76; and
7.27.

The Creator shares his very name of God with
us, as an earnest of eternal glory as well as of the
super-human, super-angelic, divine nature and dignity
which we receive in baptism. Thus, for instance,
speaketh the Lord to his deified children, in the book
of Psalms : "I have said, Ye are gods and all of you
the sons of the Most High:" Psalm 81. 6; John 10. 34.

He also shares with us His title of Father, as a
title of love. "For this cause," says St. Paul, "I bow
my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named."
Eph. 3. 15.

We should, however, carefully note that God does
not bestow these names of His — Angel, God, Father
— upon any creature as proper individual names, but
only as common names or titles either of office, or
of honor.

On the other hand, Peter's name, which is one
of God's own names and titles, has been conferred
upon Simon Barjona not only as Simon's Divine title
of office but as Simon's own perpetual proper name.
Now, to no other mere creature has God said, as He
did virtually to Peter: "Behold, one of my own
personal names shall be thine own individual proper
name."

For, remember that the Holy Spirit gives the name
of Rock or Peter — to Jehovah, to the Redeemer and

PETER'S NAME 2

1 8 Peter's Name;

Saviour, to the Christ, to God Incarnate and manifest
in the flesh, and finally to Simon Barjona.'

a. THE HoivY SPIRIT CALIFS JEHOVAH "ROCK/' i. e.,
Peter.

And note, in this connection, that, according to the
divine tradition of the old Synagogue, the name "Je-
hovah," considered as a unit, signifies the absolute
oneness of God — whilst, viewed in its four component
Hebrew letters, it signifies God the Father, the Son,
the Holy Ghost, and God Incarnate. Therefore, in
applying the name of Rock to Jehovah, the Holy Spirit
applies it to the blessed Trinity and to the sacred
Humanity of the Redeemer. (See our Notes on the
Church and the Synagogue.)

The Holy Spirit calls Jehovah "Rock," or Peter,
for instance, in Deut..32. 4: "Ascribe ye greatness un-
to our God, the Rock."

i Sam. 2. 2 : Neither is there any rock like our
God.

i Sam. 23. 3 : The God of Israel said, the Rock
of Israel spake — .

Ps. 17. 2, 31: Jehovah is my Rock and my fort-
ress .... Who is a rock, save our God ?

Ps. 29. i : Unto thee will I cry, O Jehovah, my
Rock,

Ps. 72. 26: God is the Rock of my heart.

Is. 26. 4: Trust ye in the Lord forever: for in
the Lord Jehovah is the Rock of ages.

or, a Divine Credential In a Name 19

b. THE: HOLY SPIRIT GIVES THE NAME OF ROCK
OR PETER TO THE REDEEMER AND SAVIOUR: for in-
stance, in Gen. 49. 24 : And the arms of his hands were
made strong by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob
— from thence is the Shepherd, the (Stone or) Rock
of Israel.

Deut. 32. 15: Then he forsook God who made
him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

2 Sam. 22. 47. Jehovah liveth, and blessed be my
Rock; and exalted be the God of the Rock of my
salvation.

Ps. 18. 15. O Jehovah, my Rock and my Re-
deemer !

P. 88. 27: Rock of my salvation.

Ps. 94. i : Make a joyful noise to the Rock of
our salvation.

Note, in connection with Gen. 49. 24, "from thence
is the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel," that Messiah
calls himself the Good Shepherd (John 10. 14) and
the Rock: Matt. 7. 24; and 21. 42.

c. THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVES THE NAME OF ROCK, OR
PETER, TO THE CHRIST — for instance, in i Cor. 10.4:
For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed
them, and that Rock was Christ.

d. THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVES THE NAME OF ROCK,
OR PETER, To GOD INCARNATE and manifest in the flesh
— for instance, in Matt. 7. 24, our Lord praises the

2O Peter's Name;

wisdom of the man who builds his house on the Rock,
i. e., on the Christ himself.

God Incarnate and manifest in the flesh calls Him-
self the Rock or the Stone, in Matt. 7. 24; 21. 42; 21.
44; Luke 20. 17, 18. See also Acts. 4. n ; Eph. 2. 20;
i. Pet. 2.4,6,7,8. —

Many centuries before His advent, THE SYNAGOGUE
HERSELF HAILED MESSIAH AS THE ROCK and as Jeho-
vah, thereby proclaiming him God by nature and by
essence ; for, such is the rabbinical as well as the bibli-
cal import of the term "Jehovah." We could multiply
citations from authorised Jewish sources, but our lim-
ited space restricts us to a few.

Medrasch-Rabba on Lamentations, fol. 68, col. 2,
ed. Amsterdam — says : "What is the name of Messiah ?
Rabbi Abba, son of Cahana, answers : Jehovah is his
Name."

Through Rabbi Solomon Yarhhi, the Synagogue
teaches that "the Rock is King Messiah." (On. Is. 28.

!6.)

The same Rabbi sums up the witness of the ancient
Fathers of the Synagogue in the following sentence,
which he puts in the mouth of Jehovah : "I am he
who has laid that foundation (Is. 28. 16). From of
old have I resolved this thing, and I have raised King
Messiah to be in Sion a tried stone," or rock. (Drach:
Harmonic entre 1'Eglise et la Synagogue, vol. 2, p.
421.)

How beautiful the prayer of the Synagogue through
the royal prophet David: "O Jehovah, my Rock and

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 21

my Redeemer" (Ps. 18. 15). — It is a cry of infinite
yearning that rends the heavens and haunts the ages.
How pathetic the testimony of the Synagogue
through one of her sons, the well-known Jewish writer
Philo. Listen to words of profound sublimity, echo-
ing the purest traditions of the old Jewish Church of
God. Philo (B. c. 30) writes: — "The law -giver says:
'Jehovah hath made His people suck honey out of the
rock and oil out of the hardest rock.' (Deut. 32. 13) —
the solid Rock, the indissoluble Rock that none can
break. Moses designates, by that Rock, the Wisdom
of God, who tenderly feedeth, nurseth and reareth
those who aspire to the incorruptible life. This Rock,
become as it were the mother of all men in the world,
presents to her children a food which she drazvs from
her own substance. . . But all are not found worthy of
that Divine food . . . The inspired writer, employing
somewhere else an equivalent expression, calls that
Rock MANNA, The Divine Word more Spent than
all beings." "The Rock is King Messiah," says the
Synagogue. (See our Notes on the Church and the
Synagogue, pp. 78, 106, etc. — and Drach's Harmonic
entre 1'Eglise et la Synagogue, 2d. vol. pp. 395, 477 —
478, etc.)

(Third) Rock, or Peter, is a name of God which
He shares with none except Christ and Simon Barjona,
to the exclusion of all the rest of creation.

So jealous is Jehovah of the name and title of Rock
that He will not share it with any being in heaven and
on earth, except Jesus Christ and Peter.

22 Peter's Name;

Holy Writ indeed compares Abraham to a quarry
or rock, but confers not that name upon him. The
term is simply applied to him by way of comparison,
not as a proper name. His first name, Abram, was
changed into Abraham, not into Peter. His title was
Father of a multitude, not the Rock, not Cephas.

Inasmuch as Christ's person pertains to the God-
head, Peter is the one and sole personality in all
creation zvith whom God shares His name and title of
Rock. As a human person, Peter alone among all the
sons of Adam, Peter alone, Peter continued in his suc-
cession, enjoys such a unique prerogative.

Behold a wonder of surpassing magnitude and
significance: Jehovah proclaims Jesus Christ, "Rock,"
or "Peter," and He proclaims Simon, "Rock," or
Peter."

What a divine proclamation of Simon Barjona's
office as Christ's "other self" (St. Augustin) : Jeho-
vah-the-Rock, Jesus-the-Rock, Christ-the-Rock, and
Simon-the-Rock !

What a truly divine proclamation of a truly divine
office ! Hear : Jehovah-Peter, Jesus-Peter, Christ-
Peter, and Simon-Peter!

Christ Jesus is the vicarious Rock of Jehovah, and
Peter is the vicarious Rock of God Incarnate — Christ's
"other self," says St. Augustin: Serm. 46.

(See our Notes on the Names of Jesus and Peter
in Holy Writ, page 10, etc.)

"Thou art Peter (or Rock) and upon this Rock
I will build My Church" Matt. 16. 18.

Beza, the heresiarch, who calls the pope "Anti-
christ," is compelled to say of our text:

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 23

"The Lord speaking in Syriac said Kepha

in both places:" — i. e., our Lord said, "Thou art
Kepha and upon this Kepha I will build my Church:
Thou art Rock and upon this Rock I will build my
Church."

Of the Greek translation of this same passage of
S. Matthew, Beza says: "In Greek likewise, petros and
petra differ only in their termination, not in their mean-
ing :" — i. e., in Greek as well as in Syriac the meaning
is: "Thou art Rock and upon this Rock I will build
my Church." (Cfr. C. a Lap. in loco.)

"The writer of the Greek simply gave to the term,
when used as a surname of Simon, a masculine ending
[Petr-o^] for the sake of the grace of language, since
both terms mean a rock." (Breen.)

The ripest Protestant scholarship holds with Dr.
Briggs, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, that "all
attempts to explain the Rock in any other way but
as referring to Peter have ignominiously failed."
(North Amer. Rev., Feb. 15, 1907.)

Another Protestant writer, Dr. Marsh, rightly re-
marks : "It seems a desperate undertaking to prove
that our Saviour alluded to any other person than to
St. Peter, for the words of the passage can indicate
no one else." (Comparative View, app. n. D.) —

A third Protestant divine, Rev. J. S. Thompson,

is not less emphatic : "Protestants have used all

the hardihood of lawless criticism in their attempts to
reason away the Catholic interpretation." (Monotes-
saron, p. 194, Baltimore, 1829: ap. Brandi's Why am
I a Catholic.)

24 Peter's Name;

NOTE II

Peter's name is the scriptural equivalent of the Catholic term
"Pope"

We can never lay too much stress on a fact of
incalculable importance, which is quite commonly over-
looked and neglected: the fact that, both in its scrip-
tural and in its traditional meaning, the term "Peter"
is the exact equivalent of the Catholic term "Pope."

Simon Peter, as a compound name, meant from the
first with the Apostles and their followers — Simon the
Rock, Simon the Head, Simon the Confirmer of the
Faith, the Supreme Ruler, the Vicegerent of Jesus
Christ — in a word, Simon the Pope, as we would say
now-a-days.

We have frequently adverted to this beautiful
and prolific truth; but it is inexhaustible and suscepti-
ble of additional proof.

As "Jesus" is not merely a personal name but a
title of office, so "Peter" is not merely the name of a
person otherwise called Simon; it is moreover a mo-
mentous title of office. As the name of Jesus is ex-
pressive, declarative and commemorative of the Mes-
siahship of Christ, and means literally and really "the
Saviour:" so, by the express will of Christ, the name
of Peter is expressive, declarative and commemorative
of the headship of Simon, and means Simon the Rock,
the Head, the Supreme Ruler. It is the name of the
very office of Christ given to Peter to indicate that
Peter inherits the office of the Master. Christ in-

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 25

vests Peter with his own glorious title of "Rock," the
better to show that Peter is Christ's other self, to use
once more the language of St. Augustin.

Jesus says to Simon, not in so many words, but by
clear implication: ''What more can I do, O Simon,
to proclaim my solemn appointment of thee as my suc-
cessor in office? Behold, as some of the kings of the
earth who have the good of their kingdom at heart most
wisely crown their successors with their own hand be-
fore departing from this life — so do I now myself
crown thee as my successor before I lay down my life
for my beloved kingdom. Yea, as some of the crowned
heads of this world put their crown upon the brow of
their intended successor — so do I now put on thy brow,
O Simon, more than a diadem : I crown thee with my
own royal name and title of office, the most momentous
name and title in the sphere of Church-government,
after that of Jesus. Therefore, even as I am the
Rock or Cephas the First, or Peter the First — so do I
appoint thee Cephas or Peter the Second ; mark, Peter
the Second, not Peter the last. For, as thou art my
official self visibly continued, so wilt thou thyself be
officially and visibly continued in thy succession which,
being, as thou art, the foundation of the Church, must
needs last as long as the Church in order to protect her
from the gates of hell.

I am the one Foundation, and thou, O Peter, art no
other foundation indeed, but the visible force, the
visible effluence, the visible continance of the one
Foundation.

I am the Rock by nature and by right, whilst thou,
O Peter, art the Rock by participation and by grace.

26 Peter's Name;

Thou shalt bear my name, as being personally incor-
porated into my own royal dynasty and the visible
continuance thereof. My Apostles and disciples must
revere thee as such, thy very name being to them all
a perpetual reminder of thy divine vicegerency."

Now, the Apostles and the disciples knew that
Christ's strictly personal office, as the Redeemer of the
world and the Founder of Christianity and the author
of its doctrines, sacraments and essential polity — was
absolutely untransferable, such transference being,
moreover, uncalled for and unnecessary. But they
also knew, from the very name of Peter, that Christ's
visible office as the Rock goes with the bearer of the
name of the Rock and must needs continue here below ;
for, without such a Rock (Christ avers) his Church
would collapse under the powers or gates of hell, Matt.
16. 18: i. e., falsehood or heresy, and internal dis-
ruption or schism.

Peter's name, then, tells the Apostles and the
Church, with Christ's own lips, as it were, that Peter
has inherited the threefold office of the Rock : that he
is the Rock of Authority, the Rock of infallible Truth
and the Rock of the legitimate Priesthood — the Rock
of authority that binds and keeps the Church in the
indivisible unity of the one compact mystic Body of
Jesus Christ. Eph. 4. 16;

Peter is the Rock of authority: for, he is the
Foundation, and as the whole structure follows the
foundation, so does the whole Church follow Peter
as her Christ-appointed ruler.

Peter is the Rock of infallible Truth that binds
and keeps the Church in the indivisible unity of the

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 27

one Faith or doctrine of Jesus Christ, Eph. 4. 5 ; the
Rock or sacrificial Stone of the one legitimate Priest-
hood, that binds and keeps the Church in the indivisible
unity of sacrificial worship and sacramental communion
in Jesus Christ. Eph. 4. 5.

, Yes, Peter is the Rock of the priesthood: for
Christ founded on Peter his zvhole Church — apostolate
and priesthood and laity. Therefore, a priesthood
severed from the foundation (Peter), is out of the
Christ-established order — is unlawful and illegitimate.

Christ's other self, supreme ruler, infallible teacher,
sovereign pontiff holding the visible place and office
of Jesus Christ over the Church : such is the scriptural
face-value and face-meaning of the name of Peter.

Even the Synagogue, though prophetically and his-
torically a mere preparatory school for the universal
or Catholic Church, was nevertheless endowed with an
infallible oracle in her sovereign Pontificate. Was
the type better equipped than the reality? Was the
shadow more solid than the substance? Was a purely
local and national organism better safeguarded against
error and division than the world-embracing organi-
sation founded by God Incarnate in Person?

28 Peter's Name;

NOTE III

Peter's name means, scripturally, the sovereign Ruler, infallible
Teacher, and High Priest of the Church.

That our Lord himself wrote on the very face of
Peter's name the Divine proof of its bearer's supre-
macy, is evident from the text itself and from the
scriptural explanation vouchsafed by the Master of
Wisdom (first) on the occasion of the bestowal of the
name, and (second) on subsequent occasions.

(a) Our Lord explains to his Apostles the original
and divine meaning of the name of Peter as signifying
(Matt. 1 6. 19.) the Key-bearer-in-chief of the King-
dom of God on earth, whose binding and loosing power
is independent and supreme — it being conceded to him
singly, individually and independently, whilst it is only
later on conceded to the other Apostles collectively,
and by consequence, limitedly, in perfect subordination
to the visible head under whom our Lord had already
placed them.

(b) Again, our Lord explains the original and di-
vine meaning of the name of Peter as signifying
(Luke 22. 31) the Confirmer of the Brethren — of all
the Brethren without restriction or exception — the Con-
firmer of the whole Church, the Confirmer whose Faith
can never fail because Christ has prayed to that effect,
and His prayer cannot remain unheard (John n. 42).

(c) Our Lord explains the original and divine
meaning of the name of Peter as signifying (John 21.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 29

15 — 17) the Pastor of the lambs and of the sheep,
i. e., the infallible Guide and supreme Ruler of the
whole flock.

All the above explanations are obviously included
in the Petrine name and the accompanying text itself,
and are regarded in that light by all ancient com-
mentators.

In short, the very name of Peter was conferred
of set purpose by our Lord as being in itself, and by
itself alone, both the best reminder and the most ob-
vious proof of Peter's divine commission and office
as the Christ or the Rock officially continued as
supreme ruler, infallible teacher and sovereign pon-
tiff of the Christian brotherhood.

Infallibility.

A glance at the central Petrine text will suffice
to convince the reader.

"And I say to thee : that thou art Rock and upon
this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it:" Matt. 16. 18.

Our Lord begins by reminding his hearers of the
essential veracity of Him who addresses them: "And
/ say to thee" — i. e., I, who am Truth itself (John 14.
6) — I, who am the Eternal Word of God (John i. i)
— I, whose word shall abide whilst heaven and earth
shall pass away (Matt. 24. 35) — I say that my Church
shall be built on Peter.

Therefore, according to our Lord, His Church has
no existence outside of Peter. Or, to put our Lord's
teaching in a still more intelligible form, out of Peter
there is no Church of Christ and, consequently, no

30 Peter's Name;

salvation. Every church not built on Peter shall
fall a prey to the powers of hell.

Now, a living and divine Foundation out of which
there can be no divine Church, no "pillar and ground
of the truth" (i Tim. 3. 15) — a living and divine
Foundation which, according to the Lord's promise,
shall ever prevent the gates of hell from prevailing
against the Church, i. e., from seducing her into heresy,
schism, and apostasy — such a living and divine Founda-
dation (it is evident) must of necessity be an infallible
Guide to heaven. Else we would have the monstrous
anomaly of an infallible Church built on a fallible
foundation and yet vitally inseparable therefrom. Or,
— in the hypothesis of a fallible Church built on an
equally fallible foundation, — if the Foundation which
our Lord Himself declares essentially inseparable from
His Church, is at the same time officially fallible and
liable to err — then it follows that the divine Church
must, willing or nilling, cling to a false and mislead-
ing Foundation under pain of ceasing to be the Church
of God and of being eternally lost!

Surely, the living and divine Foundation out of
which there can be no Church of Christ and from
which the Church is perpetually drawing her immunity
from the destructive errors signified by the gates of
hell — must be able to discern infallibly truth and error :
else it would unwittingly lend itself to deceivers and
would thus become the unconscious prop or inept abet-
tor of falsehood, the prop of heresy and wickedness.
Thus, the Christ-established Foundation would be-
come the most dreadful underminer, dissolvent and
disrupter of the very Church which it was divinely
and explicitly intended to perpetuate.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 31

Supremacy

It is not enough for the Foundation of the Church
to be inerrant and infallible — i. e., to be able to dis-
tinguish between truth and error, between true and
false teachers; in a word, between those who should
and those who should not be allowed to rest in peace on
the Rock of the Church. The living Foundation must,
moreover, wield adequate authority on each and every
member that claims its recognition, as implied in
Church membership. The living Foundation must
have direct and continuous control over the sheep as
well as over the lambs, in order to eliminate the bad
or dangerous and watch over the good members of the
Flock.

Shorn of that adequate control over every member,
the living Foundation becomes a mere stage-potentate,
a solemn manikin, a King Log, and must passively
lend itself to numberless heresy-breeders or schism-
mongers, who would remain upon the unwilling Foun-
dation in spite and in defiance of the Foundation itself,
and could boldly reply to all opponents: "We are
grounded on the Foundation of the Rock established
by Christ Jesus, and we are therefore members of the
Church — the express will of the living Foundation
to the contrary notwithstanding!"

Thus left at the mercy of all heretics and schis-
matics, the Church would be compelled to harbor them
all — compelled to foster a brood of serpents in her
bosom and to die eventually the ignominious death of
a moral suicide. In a word, shorn of infallibility, the
living foundation would unwittingly lend its counte-
nance to error; shorn of supremacy, the living Foun-

32 Peter's Name;

dation would be compelled to lie ignominiously and
groan helplessly (like the sects) under every form of
error and falsehood. In either case, instead of being
a boon and a blessing, the living Foundation would
be "a scandal in your brother's way" (Rom. 14. 13) —
instead of being a guiding light, it would be "a stumb-
ling block.... before the blind:" (Levit. 19. 14.)

Therefore, either the living Foundation of the
Church is a stumbling block and a scandal, or it is in-
fallible in doctrine and supreme in authority.

And this is precisely the lesson which the word
of God spells out in the name of Peter or Cephas

Peter is infallible: why? His very name tells you
why, viz., because he is the Rock that can never be
blown about, "tossed to and fro and carried about,"
like shifting sands, "by every wind of doctrine."
Eph. 4. 14.

Peter is supreme Ruler : why ? His very name tells
you why, viz., because he is the Rock that makes the
Church hell-proof and invincible (Matt. 16. 18) by
the virtue and force he imparts to her members by
means of his full adequate control and authority over
each and every one of them.

Without the sceptre of supremacy how could he
protect the Church against the gates of hell? How
could he confirm, strengthen, compact together and
energize a body whose members are exempt from and
elude his beneficial control and sovereignty?

Therefore it is that Christ made His own funda-
mental office as teacher, ruler and priest, so absolutely
inseparable from his successor Simon Peter, that He
made it impossible to name Peter without naming,

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 33

in the same word and in the same breath, the funda-
mental office bequeathed to the same august person-
age.

The East and the West unite in acknowledging
that the Word of God proclaims, in and through the
name itself of Peter, the latter's inheritance of Christ's
divine office as the infallible guide and supreme Shep-
herd of the Fold.

PETER'S NAME

34 Peter's Name;

NOTE IV

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to the Fathers

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM :

"When I name Peter, I name that unbroken Rock,
that firm Foundation, the great Apostle, the First of
the Disciples." (Horn, de Poenitentia. )

"He that was really Peter both in name and in
deed!' (Id. on text.)

"The support of the Faith." (Horn, on the Ten
Thousand Talents.)

"The Leader of that Choir."— viz., the Apostolic
College — "the Mouth of the Apostles, the Head of
that Family, the Governor of the whole world, the
Foundation of the Church." (Horn, in illud: Hoc
scitote.)

"The basis of the Church." (Horn, in illud: Vidi
Dominum.)

"The basis of the Faith!' (Contra Lud. et theat.)

Speaking of the same blessed Apostle, St. Chry-
sostom still more emphatically remarks : "Christ in-
serted in His name a guarantee and a sign of solidity
of Faith." (In illud: Paulus vocatus.)

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to
ORIGIN :

"That great Foundation of the Church and most
solid Rock on which Christ founded His Church."
(In Exod., Horn. 5. n. 4.)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 35

According to the COUNCIL, OF CHALCEDON (A. D.
451) ''St. Peter is the Rock and foundation of the
Catholic Church and the Basis of the orthodox Faith."
(Act. 3 etc. in deposing Dioscorus.)

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to
SERGIUS, Metropolitan of Cyprus, A. D. 643 :

"O holy Head, Christ our God hath destined the
Apostolic See to be an immovable foundation: pillar
of the Faith! For, thou art, as the Divine Word
truly said, PETER, and on thee as on a foundation-
stone have the pillars of the Church been fixed"
(Lat. i, Sess. 2., Labbe t. 7., p. 125.)

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to
ST. THEODORE of Studium, A. D. 826:

"O Apostolic Head! O Shepherd of the sheep of
Christ set over them by God! O Door-Keeper of the
Kingdom of Heaven! O Rock of the Faith upon
which the Catholic Church is built: for PETER thou
art."

According to ST. EPIPHANIUS 'Peter' means "the
immovable Rock." (Haer. 59, n. 7.)

According to ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, 'Peter'
means "the second Foundation from Christ." (In
horn, archier. inserta.)

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to
ST. AMBROSE:

"The Apostle in whom is the Church support" —
i. e., against the gates of hell. (On Luke 1. 4, n. 70.)

"Christ is the Rock, but yet He did not deny the
grace of this name to His disciple that He should be

36 Peter's Name;

Peter, because he has from the Rock firm constancy,
immovable Faith." (On Luke, 1. 6, n. 97.)

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to
ST. LEO THE; GREAT, A. D. 461 :

"For thou art Peter, that is, whereas I am the
inviolable Rock; I the corner-stone who made both
one; I the foundation besides which no one can lav
another; yet thou also art a Rock, because thou art
consolidated by my might, that what things alone
are mine by mine power may be common to thee by
participation with me." (Serm. 4 in Natal. Ordin.,
c. 2, ed. Ballerini.)

St. Leo tells us here that St. Peter's name means
scripturally the Rock "by participation," the sharer,
by participation, in "the things" that are Christ's in His
own right — the sharer in Christ's fundamental office as
sovereign ruler, and sovereign teacher, and sovereign
pontiff of the Church.

Still more striking is the language of the saint in
the following sentence :

"That which the Truth ordered remains : and
blessed Peter, persisting in that strength of the Rock
which he received, has not deserted the guidance, once
undertaken, of the Church. For, thus was he set be-
fore the rest that while he is called the Rock — that is,
while he is declared to be the Foundation ; while
he is appointed the Door-Keeper of the Kingdom of
heaven ; while he is promoted to be the Judge of what
shall be bound and what loosed, with the assurance
that his sentence shall be ratified even in heaven —
we might learn through the very mystery of the name

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 37

given to him how he was associated ivith Christ!3
(Serm. 3 on Anniv.)

It is with profound reason, therefore, that the
Church reads in St. Peter's name a great object-lesson
teaching his intimate association and co-partnership
with Christ — he being Christ's visible associate and
co-ad jutor and holding by grace and visibly the three-
fold office which Christ holds by nature and invisibly,
viz., — the kingly or ruling office, the prophetic or
teaching office, and the deific or priestly office.

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to
ST. AUGUSTIN:

"The Rock which the proud gates of hell pre-
vail not against." — i. e., the Rock endowed with in-
fallibility and indefectibility. (In Ps. contra par. Do-
nati.)

According to ST. MAXIMUS: of Turin (7th Cen-
tury), Christ shares with Peter not his office alone
but His very name and title:

"He to whom the Lord granted the participation
of His own title, the Rock." (Serm. pro Natal. SS.
Petri and Pauli.)

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to
ST. EPHREM, one of the purest glories of the Oriental
Church, the most faithful echo of the Church of Anti-
och founded by St. Peter himself :

"O my disciple, Simon, I have constituted thee
the Foundation of the holy Church and have already
named thee the Rock, because thou shalt support my
edifice in its entirety — [Apostles and all]. Thou art
the Inspector of those who build up my Church upon

38 Peter's Name;

earth. If they attempt to build amiss, do thou, O
Foundation, repress them. Thou art the Head of
the fountain whence flows the stream of my doc-
trine. Thou art the Head of my disciples." (Serm. 4
in hebd. sancta, n. i — Hymns and Serm. of S. Ephrem
edited by Lamy, Mechlin 1882, vol. i, p. 412.)

Most eloquently, according to St. Ephrem, does
St. Peter's name proclaim both his supremacy and
his infallibility.

His supremacy : The authority of the Rock must be
commensurate with his responsibility and since he is
bound to "support" the Christian "Edifice in its entire-
ty," he must in simple fairness and justice have control
over every part thereof. He is, by virtue of his office,
the "Inspector" and "Head of the Disciples" and must
have power to correct 'and to "repress." He must, in
short, be supreme in authority as well as in responsi-
bility.

His infallibility: "The head of the foundation
whence flows Christ's doctrine" must be inerrant. The
fountain-head whence flows infallibility itself, truth it-
self, viz., Christ's doctrine — must surely be infallible,
for can an infallible stream flow from a fallible source?

Scriptural meaning of Peter's name according to
ST. MAXIM us, Martyr (7th Century) :

"As the good Shepherd, Peter received the de-
fense of the Flock, so that he who before had been
weak in his own case might become the confirmation
to all (the Apostles not excepted), and he who had
been shaken by the temptation of the question asked
him, might be a Foundation to the rest by the stability

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 39

of his Faith. . . . For, he is called the Rock (a) be-
cause he was the first to lay the foundation of the
Faith, and (b) because, as an immovable Stone, he
holds together the frame-work and the mass of the
whole Christian structure. Peter, therefore, for his
devotion is called the Rock, and the Lord is named the
Rock by his inherent power, as the Apostle says : 'And
they drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them
and the Rock was Christ.' Rightly does he merit to
share the name who, likewise, merits to share the
work." (De Petro Ap., horn. 4.)

The holy martyr could not tell us in more forcible
language that Peter's name scripturally imports the
infallibility and supremacy of its bearer — signifies
scripturally one who is "a Foundation to the rest by
the stability of his Faith" — one who "holds together the
framework and the mass of the whole Christian struc-
ture"— one who, in a word, "shares the name and
the work" or office of the great invisible Head of
the Church.

Again, Peter's name means:

In the estimation of Ignatius of Constantinople
(A. D. 869), "Supreme chief; Most Powerful Word."

According to a Roman Council held in 494, it
means, "Vicar of Christ."

According to the Council of Chalcedon (A. D.
451), "Sovereign Bishop of Bishops." "Sovereign
Priest." "Guardian of the Vine of the Lord."

According to the Bishops of Dardania (A. D. 495),
"Apostolic Lord and 'Father of Fathers."

4O Peter's Name;

According to St. Cyprian, writing to Pope Cor-
nelius, martyred in 252: "The Bishop of the most
holy Catholic Church."

According to the Eastern Clergy, writing to Pope
Hormisdas (A. D. 514) : "Chief Pastor and teacher and
Physician of souls." "True Pastor and Doctor."

(See Library of St. Francis de Sales: Catholic
Controversy, ed. 1886, p. 291 — and Ryder's Contro-
versy, 10 ed., pp. 12 — 20.)

The ancients as well as the moderns, then, saw
in the name of Peter a name which caused them to
"recognize him as Chief" and as the "infallible con-
firmer" of the Faith — to borrow the language of St.
Francis de Sales. (Cath. Controv., Eng. ed. pp. 239
and 297.)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 41

NOTE V

Peter's name means, scripturally and patristically, the Church's
Foundation, Bulwark, Capstone and shining Mark

The divine name of Peter reveals another wonder-
ful prerogative of his, hardly ever adverted to by
modern Catholic divines and writers. As we have
seen, by the name of Peter Holy Writ designates the
office as well as the title of our Lord, the Rock par
excellence. Now, Christ was not only the Head of
the Church of God: He was, by office, the most
shining mark thereof. He was both the visible Head
and the visible, fundamental, unmistakable mark of
the Church. Consequently, the name of Peter sig-
nifying, as it does scripturally, the office of Jesus
Christ, signifies no less obviously the fundamental
mark of the true Church. Where the visible Christ
was there also was the Church of God : such was
the test-sign of the true Church in the earthly days
of our blessed Lord. The same test-sign remains and
endures for ever : where Christ's visible "other self"
is — where His visible Vicegerent is, there the one
true Church is.

The words of the text leave no room for equivoca-
tion. "Thou art Rock," says our Lord, "and upon this
Rock I will build my Church," not temporarily but for
ever, so that "the gates of hell shall not prevail a-
gainst it:" Matt. 16. 18.

The Church being built on the Rock, it follows
that where the Rock is there the Church is. Christ

42 Peter's Name;

virtually says to Peter: "I myself, the Rock, so long
as I remained the visible Rock, i. e., during my whole
mortal life, was personally and by office the most
shining mark of the Church: so thou also, O Peter,
thou the visible Rock, shalt be, as such and by office,
my visible continuation as the fundamental mark of
my Church."

Peter is therefore the highest and most shining
mark of the Church — the zenith-mark, the earth-com-
manding mark that gives conspicuity to the Church.
Wherefore does Christ remind us that the Rock on
which His Church is built is not an underground Rock
but "a mountain." Matt. 5. 14.

The Church is not so founded upon THE MOUN-
TAIN-ROCK as to conceal it from sight. She is built
— as our Lord, addressing her as His Spouse, tells
us — "in the clifts of the Rock:" Cant. 2. 14.

The Word of God emphasizes three features of
the Rock, — viz., its loftiness, its hardness or solidity,
and its refreshing honeyed sweetness.

So solid is it (Wisd. n. 4) that the combined
powers of hell and of this world can never break it:
Matt. 1 6. 1 8.

So lofty is it that it is called "the most highest
Rock" (Wisd. ii. 4), and can be seen of the further-
most extremities of the earth, towering above the tide
of ages.

According to Holy Writ, "the first" Apostolic
Foundation (Peter) "is jasper" — and "the wall" of
the Holy City "is jasper," i. e. Peter.

The Rock is therefore both a foundation and a bul-
wark thrown round about the Church — the foundation

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 43

rising up all around the Church, encompassing her,
spreading itself as a dome over her and terminating
in a sign or mark, or pinnacle, as visible to all as the
face of the sky.

The Rock is, all in one, the foundation that under-
lies— the encircling wall that protects — the cap-stoney
the PINNACLE that surmounts, i. e., the divine mark
that singles out, or the divine index-finger that infall-
ibly points out — the Church of the living God to the
continents and to "the isles of the sea." Is. 24. 15.

It is not enough to say, then, that Peter (or the
Papacy) "is the first proof of the truth of the
Church;" the Word of God goes further and compels
us to add that Peter is the first mark of the true
Church.

CATHOUC TRADITION inosculates with Holy Writ.
For instance, St. Optatus of Milevis (A. D. 370) writes :
"In that our chair which is the first endowment, Peter
sat first... "This mark"— i. e., the Chair of Peter,
"carries with it the Angel" — i. e., the one legitimate
succession or authority: therefore, outside the Chair
of Peter there exists no Church and no succession in
the Apostolic line. (De schism. Donat, 1. 2, c. 2, and 1.

3, c. 9)-

St. Maximus Martyr compares the Chair of Peter
to "a sun of everlasting light." (Opusc. theol., ed.
Combefis, t. 2, p. 72. — See Ryder's Controv., Qth ed.,
p. 16).

St. Chrysostom calls Peter "the Firmament of the
Faith" (On parable of ten talents), "the Firmament

44 Peter's Name;

of the Church" (In illud: Vidi Dominum, horn. 4,
n. 3). So does St. Ambrose (de Virginitate, c. 16).
From which it appears that, in the common estimation
of the East and of the West, Peter is a mark of the
true Church as conspicuous as the sun and the firma-
ment itself. Therefore, according to the same
unimpeachable witnesses, the comprehensive term
"Peter" designates the most prominent mark of the
Church, and is, in itself, as profoundly observed by
St. Chrysostom, both "the guarantee and the mark"
of the infallible Church. (See Wilmers' De Christi
Eccl., p. 180).

Enough has been said to prove that, according to
the witness of Holy Writ and Tradition, the name of
Peter is both the title of our Lord himself and the
God-devised one- word- formula converted by the
Saviour into a proper name to promulgate to all ages,
in one single word, the manifold prerogatives of the
visible Head of the Church. No briefer, or more
comprehensive formula could be devised — and no bet-
ter way of popularising the formula could be adopted
than the making it, as Christ did, the perpetual name
of the greatest historical personage, after Jesus Christ,
in the sphere of Church-government.

It is the one term — a term divine in its origin, scrip-
tural in its import, and traditional in its continuity —
it is the one term that comprises all the titles of Simon
Barjona. If you call him the supreme ruler, or the
infallible teacher, or the sovereign pontiff, or the fun-
damental mark of the Church — you enumerate but
one of his titles. But you enumerate them all when-
ever you name "Peter"; for, you then, ipso facto,

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 45

name scripturally the successor of Jesus Christ, the
visible Head of the Church, her supreme ruler, her in-
fallible teacher, her sovereign pontiff, and her funda-
mental mark.

We can draw but one CONCLUSION from the evi-
dence already adduced: The name of Simon Peter is
unquestionably the scriptural and traditional synonym
for "Simon — Christ's successor in office." Conse-
quently, Peter literally affixes to his two Epistles what
is naw known as the Papal signature. When he com-
pendiously signs himself "Peter," or "Simon-Peter",
he thereby scripturally signs himself : Simon the Vicar
of Jesus Christ as the visible head and foundation of
the Church — Simon the supreme ruler — Simon the in-
fallible teacher — Simon the sovereign pontiff — Simon
the first and fundamental mark of the Church — in
short, Simon the Pope.

Who could exhaust the comprehensiveness of
Peter's name? Not all the Councils, not all the Fath-
ers, not all the Doctors of the Church can fathom its
supernatural depths. Not only is it a wondrous verbal
condensation of all the prerogatives lavished on Peter,
but it is his Divine credential, for it bears, as a scrip-
tural warranty of the manifold prerogatives it signi-
fies, the royal seal and the sign manual of its Divine
inventor, Jesus the Christ.

If we ask: By what right, O Simon, dost thou, a
poor fisherman, presume to command the princes of
tfye Church, thy fellow-Apostles and their successors'
l?y what right dost thou rebuke the arrogant prelatec

46 Peter's Name;

"lordmg it over the clergy" (i Pet. 5.3)? Show thy
credentials. Where are they? The humble Fisher-
man instantly replies : "My credentials are in my name.
Christ named me and made me what He named me,
viz., Peter, the Rock— i. e., Christ's "other self" in
office. My name is the Christ-accredited herald of
my Vicegerency — the Christ-appointed teacher and
preacher thereof — the Christ-issued certificate and pro-
clamation thereof."

Our brief commentary shall not be looked upon as
mere rhetoric but as having ample justification in
Scripture and tradition, in the eyes of those conversant
with patristic literature. Nor need we fall back upon
the Western Fathers exclusively for the proof of our
assertions. The foremost of the Greek Fathers will
again be our favorite authority. Ponder the sublime
wonders which St. John Chrysostom finds in the Divine
name of Peter. The Saint has already told us that
Christ "inserted in Peter's name a guarantee and a
mark of solidity of Faith." If you now ask why
Christ attached such a guarantee and sign of infallible
Faith to the very name of Peter, St. Chrysostom an-
swers : "In order that he" — Peter, "may use his perpe-
tual name as a special authoritative teacher of this
rock-solidity of his." (In illud: Paulus vocatus etc. —
See Wilmers' De Christi Eccl., p. 180).

In other words, Christ's obvious and specific in-
tention, in giving this name and title to Peter, was to
enable him to 4mploy it constantly as a God-chosen
reminder and mark of the Christ-office vested in its
bearer.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 47

The name of Peter is the Christ-given credential,
the Christ-signed Letters Patent accrediting Peter to
all mankind and to all ages as Christ's successor in
office.

Such is the name that Simon Barjona attaches
and signs to his Epistles: it is (we repeat) nothing
less than the Papal signature of the Fisherman: "Sim-
on Peter" and "Simon the Pope," are perfectly inter-
changeable terms.

What A SHORT AND ROYAL ROAD to the truth as
it is in Christ Jesus ! Let us repeat with endless
thanksgiving: Peter, ever living in his successor, is
the Christ-appointed, unmistakable fundamental mark
of the one true Church of God.

Now, where is Peter, or his successor? History
replies, says the Protestant thinker Leibnitz, at one
with Protestant scholarship : The Roman Pontiff alone
is the successsor of Peter, the one contemporaneous
link in the historic line of succession from Peter to
Pius X. He is Peter historically and lineally con-
tinued for nineteen centuries. Yet more, Peter, as the
fundamental mark of the Church of God, is the more
unmistakably identified in his successor in the See
of Rome because no bishop on earth but that of Rome
ever dared to claim the Petrine succession in the queen
city of the universe.

Wherefore the holy Fathers call the See of Rome
"the first of the marks of the Church." "Peter there-
fore," says St. Optatus, "first filled that pre-eminent
Chair" — or Bishopric of Rome — "which is the first of
the marks of the Church." (De Schism. Donat., 1. 2,
c. 2, 3, 4).

Peter's name proclaims him the

SOURCE
of all Church-power Under Christ

PETER'S NAME

Peter's name proclaims him the source
of all Church-power under Christ.

By Church-power we understand the threefold
power vested in the Church by our Divine Lord, viz.,
the ruling, teaching, and sanctifying power — the royal,
prophetic, and deific or priestly power.

NOTE VI

A glance at the names of Jesus and Peter
Over nine hundred times does the New Testament,
by means of the very name of Jesus, proclaim the one
Saviour of the world. In like manner Holy Writ, by
means of the very name of Peter, again and again
proclaims the successor of Christ in the office of the
Rock — in the headship of the Church. For, in the
case of Jesus and Peter above all others, does the name
itself express the office they exercise ; and, consequent-
ly, every mention of the name is a scriptural designa-
tion and proclamation of the office attached thereunto.
Holy Writ itself furnishes a full definition of the
above names as expressive of a great and unique office,
respectively — i. e., Holy Writ teaches us how to regard
and use each of the two names referred to not merely
as the name of a person but as God's own definition of
a jptcial office.

The term "Jesus" is therefore a divine definition
as well as a divine name — and so is the term "Peter"
or "Cephas".

52 Peter's Name;

Meaning of the name of Jesus defined by Holy Writ

(a) ''Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins." Matt. 1.21.

Etymologically, "Jesus" means one who saves, a
satfiour.

Scripturally, it means the Saviour par excellence
the one only Saviour from the evil par excellence, viz.,
sin and its consequences. We say the only Saviour,
for Holy Writ affirms that "He shall save,'.' i. e., He
and no one else, He alone can and shall save.

(b) "This day is born to you a Saviour, who is
Christ the Lord:" Luke 2. 10.

Holy Writ defines still further the name of Jesus
as signifying the promised Saviour, i. e., the Christ or
Messiah, nay, "the Lord" who, "born" in the flesh, is
literally God Incarnate and manifest in the flesh :
i Tim. 3. 16.

(c) "John saw Jesus coming to him and he saith :
behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh
away the sins of the world." John i. 29.

St. John completes the definition of the adorable
Name by telling us how He shall take away the sin
of the world : namely, by being immolated as "the
Lamb of God." "Jesus", then, scripturally means
Saviour and victim — Saviour through the effusion of
his own blood.

The Evangelist intimates plainly enough that, scrip-
turally, the name of Jesus signifies "the Lamb of God
who taketh away the sin of the world ;" the Lamb of
God, i. e., the Lamb of infinite worth who substitutes
His own divine life for our infinite guilt : the. true
paschal Lamb who, by being eaten, substitutes the life

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 53

of God in man for the death of sin in man. "Jesus",
therefore, means, scripturally, the vivifying Lamb,
the deifying Lamb as well as the atoning Lamb of God.

Does not the Lamb Himself say, in the same Gos-
pel of St. John 6. 58:— "As. . .1 live by the Father, so
he that eateth me the same shall live by me." That is,
those who receive me worthily are made, not figurative-
ly but really, "partakers of the divine nature :" 2. Pet.
i. 4.

Therefore, according to Holy Scripture, the name
of Jesus is, truly and strictly speaking, God's own de-
finition of the office of God Incarnate as the Saviour,
Vivifier and Deifier of mankind at the cost of the last
drop of His blood.

Nor does Holy Writ come to a sudden halt after
thus beautifully defining the meaning of the adorable
Name. On the contrary, the thrilling import of the
divine definition is sunk deeper and deeper into the
soul by the scriptural process of iteration. For, inas-
much as the name of Jesus, as defined by Holy Script-
ure, means God Incarnate redeeming us, deifying us
with His precious blood, — it follows that, every time
the Name is repeated in the sacred record, the reader
is virtually admonished as follows :

"Remember, O man, that God Incarnate has re-
deemed thee and deified thee with His own blood."

The constant and multiplied iteration of the Name
impresses and sinks not only the sound thereof but its
divine definition and significance into the heart of the
thoughtful reader. Nine hundred and twenty-five iter-
ations of the Name mean nine hundred and twenty-five
burning ejaculations from the adorable heart of Jesus.

54 Peter's Name;

Nine hundred and twenty-five times therefore does the
Word- of God cry out: "Remember thou, O reader
of the Word : remember thou, O hearer of the Word,
that God Incarnate has redeemed thee and deified thee
with his own blood."

Viewed in the light of Holy Scripture, the nine
hundred /and twenty-five iterations \of the blessed
Name become, as it were, nine hundred and twenty-
five celestial aqueducts — the handiwork of the Holy
Spirit — spanning the infinite immensities to bring the
waters of eternal life, clear through, from the everlast-
ing hills and all the way down to the thirsty deserts of
the human soul, converting the barren desolate wastes
into ever-singing wells and fountains of life and grati-
tude and joy.

Or, to make use of another simile — with each re-
petition of the adorable Name the omnipotent Spirit
sings to the responsive soul the old canticle of Israel:
"Let the well spring up .... the well .... prepared by
the direction of the Lawgiver:" Num. 21. 17. And
from the depths of the soul the mystic well springs up
in ecstasy divine — up to the very lips of God Incarnate,
whose thirst (John 19. 28) it slakes with the sweetly
wooing draughts of love.

Such, in miniature, — aye, in infinitesimal miniature
only — is the practical result or spiritual fruit of Holy
Writ's nine hundred proclamations, in the one word
"Jesus," of the saving and self -immolating and deifying
office of God's Incarnate love.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 55

Meaning of Peter's name defined by Holy Writ
Because Peter holds the Office of Christ as visible
Ruler of the Church, his very name holds in Holy
Writ a position exactly analogous to that held therein
by the name of Jesus. The analogy extends to the
same scriptural process of iteration — the iteration or
repetition of his office-expressing name: a manifolding
process which manifolds well nigh two hundred times
the Divine proclamation of Peter's Divine office.

The King's Vicegerent being the official counterpart
of his Sovereign, Holy Writ very consistently treats
both the person and the name of Peter as the counter-
part of the Master in the sphere of Church-govern-
ment.

We have no less an authority than that of God's
written Word to affirm that the name of Peter means
that its bearer is, (a) under and with Christ, the alpha
or co -beginning of the Church; (b) the visible Rock
or perennial source of the entity of the Church; (c)
of her authority; (d) of her infallibility; (e) of her
indef ectibility ; (f) of her compactness and solidity;
(g) of her one-ness and unicity; (h)of her holiness;
(i)of her catholicity; (j) of her apostolicity ; (k) the
Apostle more deeply beloved of the Lord than any
other apostle; (1) the visible Rock or perennial source
of anti-pharisaism — i. e. of the restoration of the fal-
len.

56 Peter's Name;

NOTE VII

(a) Peter's name means, scripturally, that Peter is, under and
with Christ, the alpha or co -beginning of the Church

"Thou shalt be called Cephas":' John i. 42. By
these words God Incarnate bestows on Simon Barjona
three distinct prerogatives — the first of which is en-
larged upon by all commentators, whilst the second
is frequently overlooked, and the third apparently lost
sight of altogether.

The first prerogative sets Peter apart as the suc-
cessor of Jesus Christ upon earth; the second, as the
name-sake of the Lord who delights in calling him-
self the Rock; the third, as the alpha or co-Beginning,
under and with Christ, of the Church universal.

Both in principle and in fact, Christ there and then
associates and assimilates Peter to Himself as the
first visible Beginning of the Church — as her initial
point of existence preceding in time as well as in
dignity every other member. For, Christ was both
the beginner and the beginning of His Church — and
He here associates Peter to the last-named privilege
by using him as the first material, the first "stone"
actually laid in the construction of His Church.

(i) Our blessed Saviour sets Peter apart as His
successor. "Thou shalt be called Cephas," i. e., thou
shalt be called after me, the Rock; because thou shalt
be my successor, and as I am Cephas the First, so
shalt thou be, in the order of time, Cephas the Second.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 57

Thou shalt bear my name because, after my death,
thou shalt be, in a measure and in the visible order
of the Church, that which I will ever remain in the
invisible order of the same,— viz., the Rock, the foun-
dation or support, the supreme Head.

"All bow the head by divine right before Peter,
and the Primates of the whole world obey him as they
do the Lord Jesus Christ Himself," says the Church
through the great Eastern Father and Saint, Cyril,
patriarch of Alexandria (lib. Thesaur.).

(2) Our Blessed Saviour confers there and then
on Simon Barjona His own name and title of "the
Rock" — "thou shalt be called Cephas" — not in a year
or in a month hence — not after my formal appoint-
ment of the Apostles only — but henceforward and from
this day forth shalt thou be called Cephas. As I
personally addressed Abraham, the father of the old
Covenant, so do I now address thee 'Peter, the Father
of the New Covenant, and in the same terms: "Thou
shalt be called Abraham," said I to Abram of old;
"thou shalt be called Cephas," or Peter, do I now say
to thee, O Simon Barjona. The words "thou shalt be
called Abraham" meant and were understood to mean
that Abram was to be called Abraham from that in-
stant, without any postponement or delay. Similarly,
the words "thou shalt be called Cephas," or Peter,
signify that thou, Simon Barjona, art to be called
Cephas, or Peter, from this very moment.

The Church of Spain was deservedly regarded and
hailed at the Vatican Council as the queen of scrip-
tural knowledge. Now the current Spanish translation
of the New Testament paraphrases John i. 42 as fol-

58 Peter's Name;

lows : "thy name from this very moment shall be,
Rock." (See ad loc. the Spanish translation of Knecht's
Commentary on the N. T.)

In his learned French translation of the Gospel of
St. John, Father T. Calmes designates the first inter-
view of Peter with, the Saviour as "the moment of
his vocation." (On. John 1.42) —

The reader has only to open the Gospel of St.
Matthew (4. 18) to see for himself how clearly the
holy Evangelist intimates that Simon Barjona was al-
ready called and known by the name of Cephas, or
Peter, at the time of the miraculous draught of fishes —
i. e., long before the organization of the Apostolic
college (Matt. 10. I.).

St. Luke intimates the same fact (Luke 5. 8).

Let us revert to the words of the text: "Thou
shalt be called Cephas" (John i. 42) — i. e., "I do here-
by bestow upon thee, yea, even now in presence of thy
brother Andrew (ibid.), my own title of office, as a
pledge of the tremendous office with which I will in
due time invest thee. And the better to emphasize the
importance of thy name, I will once more, in the near
future on a far more solemn occasion, bestow the same
name upon thee before the whole Apostolic college
on the very day of its erection (Luke 6. 14) — to show
that thou art to be the Rock of the Apostles as well
as of the Disciples. Thus did I, in the days of yore,
not once only but on two different occasions, confer
the name of Israel upon my servant Jacob — viz., (a)
when he wrestled victoriously with my angel (Gen.
32. 28), and also when, several years later (b) I ap-
peared to him at Bethel ,(Gen. 35. 10).

or, a Divine Credential In a Name 59

But, as Jacob yields to thee in dignity and in holi-
ness, not twice only but thrice will I call thee to the
divine ministry in store for thee. Twice shalt thou be
called singly and separately (John I. 42; 5. 10), to in-
dicate thy independent supremacy over and above the
eleven other Apostles. And once shalt thou be called
jointly with thy brother Andrew (Luke I. 16), to
show forth the necessity of communion with thee in
order to be a true Fisherman of Jesus Christ.

Nay, more, in addition to thy triple calling, thrice
will I appoint thee the Shepherd, or ruler, of the uni-
versal Fold. (John 21. 15 — 17.)

The Word of God suggests another profound lesson
in its treatment of the names of the two Fathers of
the two Covenants. Abram's name was changed or
converted into another name — Abraham, — even as the
true Synagogue was to be converted and merged in-
to the Catholic Church. Simon's name, however, was
not changed into another, but a new name was added
to the old one. God Incarnate says not to Simon:
Neither shall thy name be called any more Simon"
— whilst He did say to the holy patriarch: "neither
shall thy name be called any more Abram :" Gen. ij. 5.

The unchanged name of "Simon" typifies the
changeless, or final, character of the Church of which
he is the head; — whilst the new name of "Peter"
typifies the new splendors of perfection which, under
Peter, the New Covenant adds to the Old.

But it may further be asked, Why did not our Lord
suppress altogether Peter's former name? Because

60 Peter's Name;

that name was to be a constant, merciful and Provi-
dential reminder not alone of Peter's low extraction,
but of his sinful past and downfall. And nothing
short of such a memento could, humanly speaking,
keep Peter's heart and head from turning dizzy with
pride — raised as he had been upon the highest, aye,
the unutterably sublimest pinnacle of honor and dig-
nity to which mortal man can be raised. For, Abra-
ham's office was but the shadow of Peter's, a mere
planet compared with a blazing sun.

"I will remind you," says the profound as well as
gentle Doctor of the Church, St. Francis de Sales,
"that our Lord did not change St. Peter's name, but
only added a new name to his old one — perhaps in
order that he might remember in his authority what he
had been, what his stock was, and that the majesty of
the second name might be tempered by the humility
of the first — and that if the name of Peter made us
recognize him as Chief, the name of Simon might tell
us that he was not absolute Chief, but obeying and
subaltern chief and head." (St. Francis de Sales' Cath.
Controv., Eng. tr. p. 239.)

(3) Both in principle and in fact Christ, there
and- then (John 1.42), associates Peter to Himself as
the first visible Beginning of the Messianic Church.

"Thou shalt be called Cephas" (ibid), says Jesus
to His Disciple. Now, the latter could not justly and
properly be called Cephas, i. e., the Rock- foundation,
if he lacked the two characteristics of a foundation —
and these are (a) priority of place, or rank, as the
underlying support of the whole structure; and (b)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name • 61

priority of time, in the order of construction, over
the other parts of the edifice. Therefore, by the very
fact that our Lord names Simon "Cephas," i. e., the
foundation, He in principle, confers upon him priority
of time over the rest of the Church. Peter is thereby
declared to be the very first material to be used before
any other in the building of the Church.

Indeed the name of Foundation, or Rock, 'given
to Simon implies the name as well as the function of
"the Beginning" — which is the very name by which our.
Lord calls Himself in the 25th verse of the 8th chapter
of the Gospel according to St. John.

And, in point of fact, our Lord does here make
Peter "the Beginning," the earliest member of ,the
Christian Church.

"Thou shalt be called Cephas"— i. e., "not with
the interior voice of my grace only, but with the ex-
ternal voice of my sacred Humanity do I now, at this
very instant of time, distinctly and formally call thee
before any other as my earliest and first disciple.
For, the bestowal of my name upon thee is not only
a formal calling (Franzelin, Thes. de Eccl. Christi,
Romae, A. D. 1887, p. 100) — not only the most em-
phatic and glorious form of calling — it is moreover the
very first exterior calling extended by Me to any human
being. This honor is neither Andrew's, nor John's, nor
Philip's, nor any other's, but thine exclusively, O
Peter, as My Word attests unanswerably. "Not only
art thou the first of my Apostles by priority of rank
— thou art also the first of my formally called dis-
ciples by priority of time. I do make thee the initial
point and use thee as the initial factor, under and

62 ' Peter's Name;

jointly with Me, wherewith to begin the construction
of my Church. Thou art the first thus formally called
by Me as a Disciple; Philip shall be the second, —
Nathanael, the third (John i. 43) — Andrew, the
fourth (Matt. 4. 18) — James and John, the fifth and
sixth (Matt. 4. 21) — Matthew, the seventh (Matt. 9.
9) etc.

"Thy calling antedates the existence of any dis-
ciple— it precedes the creation of the Apostolic col-
lege (Luke 6. 12), the mission of the Apostles (Matt.
10. 5), and the mission of the Seventy-two (Luke
10. i).

"John and Andrew visited Me before thou didst,
and responded before thee to the invitation of John
the* Baptist to follow Me (John i. 37) — but after thee
only shall they be explicitly, exteriorly and formally
called by Me to the discipleship" (Matt. 4. 18,21).

"Thou shalt be called Cephas (John i. 42) : these
words were addressed to Peter even before Jesus had
called any of His disciples." (McErlane, The Church
of Christ the Same Forever, p. 89.)

The distinguished biblical critic, Father Th. Calmes,
in his French translation of St. John's Gospel — de-
signates the first interview of Peter with the Saviour as
"the moment of his vocation." (On John 1.42.) —

Neither Andrew nor John, — as remarked by St. Au-
gustin — were called at the time of their first interview
with Jesus. They were not therefore, as is generally
and erroneously believed, the earliest diciples of Jesus.
"It is manifest," writes St. Augustin, "that they clave
unto Him only after He had called them out of the
ship." (7th tract on John). The calling of Andrew

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 63

and John, consequently, did not take place on the oc-
casion of their first visit to Jesus, but later on, when
Jesus, says St. Augustin, "called them out of the
ship."

Rightly therefore, and for two reasons, does the
Evangelist St. Matthew call Peter "the first"— since
Peter was the first in rank and the first in time — the
first in the hierarchial and the first in the chronological
order of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Peter was cast into the official mould of the Christ
and is a perfect official cast of the divine Master.
Christ in "the form of God" (Philip 2. 6), i. e. as
God in Person, is the life-principle of the Church
established by Himself. Christ in "the form of. ...
man" (Philip 2. 7), is the First visible Beginning of
the same Church, which is the master-piece of all
creation. The sacred humanity of our Lord, viewed
in its relations to the Church, is first not only in the
sphere of rank and authority — it is also First in the
sphere of time, the very first stone, the chiefest corner-
stone laid in the construction of the divine edifice
(Eph. 2. 20) — Mary and Joseph being, respectively,
the virgin Mother and the virgin Foster Father of
Jesus and of His Church.

Christ did not begin (as He could) to organize a
visible society before He assumed a visible body —
v- g- by gathering men together under an invisible
head by means of personal revelations made to various
individuals. No, He first became Incarnate and was
then, a.s we just said, the first visible Beginning of the

64 Peter's Name;

Church— the first in time as well as in power and
authority. The more indelibly to impress upon all
men the moral necessity of a visible head to the Church,
He would not allow His Church to begin her existence
before His Incarnation.

And, likewise, the more forcibly to teach us that
Peter was his "other self" (St. Augustin) in office, his
successor in the government of the Church — He made
Peter that which He is himself, viz., the First in
authority and the First in time or in calling — called be-
fore all the other disciples and apostles. Christ began
His Church — as a society composed of human persons
— with Peter, because it is fitting to begin a building
with the foundation itself.

Thus do the Disciples rest upon Peter as upon
their Beginning and Foundation (John i. 42) ; so do
the Apostles (Matt. i. 2; 16. 18) ; — so do the Jews
(Acts 2. 14 — 41) ; — so do the Gentiles (Acts 10. 34 —
48) ; thus is Peter indeed the vicarious universal
foundation of the universal Church. (Matt. 16. 18.)

Our insistence upon this point — Peter's priority in
time and in relation to the calling of the disciples — is
both warranted and necessitated (first) by its strange
absence from the best commentaries on this text (John
1.42), and (second) by its momentous importance —
since it reveals the unsuspected depths of the assimil-
ating process by which Christ assimilates Peter to
Himself in His royal, prophetic and sacerdotal office,
nay, in His blessed and glorious death on the Cross
— as noted by Tertullian and the Fathers generally.

"Oh how happy is this Church," says Tertullian,
"where the Apostles poured forth the fulness of doc-

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 65

trine together with their blood — where Peter was made
equal to the Lord in the manner of his suffering!"
(De Praesc. 36. c. 32; Adv. Marc. 4. 5 — A. D. 160 —
240).

Heretofore the one grand feature of resemblance
between Christ and Peter ever noticed in this text
(John i. 42) was the promise of the headship to Peter.
But, the other magnificent feature of resemblance be-
tween Christ and Peter shown by the same text, was
not even alluded to — i. e. Christ assimilating Peter to
Himself by making him, under and with Himself, the
incarnate living Beginning of the Church — the first
human personality used by our Lord in the erection
of His Church.

The unfortunate suppression of this last and deep
trait of resemblance between the Christ and His Vicar
does not do justice to the Word of God, and gives us
only one half of the Scriptural portrait of Peter. It
shows only one side of the face, viz., Peter's headship
in common with Christ, and, leaves out of sight the
other side of the profile, viz., Christ imparting to and
sharing with Peter His fundamental prerogative as
the incarnate visible Beginning of the Messianic Church
— Peter being thus made by our Lord the visible
alpha and omega, jointly with and under Christ, of
the whole Church militant. The alpha : for, the
Church begins with Christ and Peter in the order of
time. The omega: for, the temporal end of the
Church here below will come with the last breath of
the last Pope — when the Church militant will merge
forever into the Church triumphant, and time shall be
no more. (Apoc. 10. 6.)

PETER'S NAME ^

66 Peter's Name;

NOTE VIII

(b) Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the entity of the Church

"Thou art Rock and upon this Rock I will build
My Church:" i. e., thou art the Rock or perennial
source of the visible entity of the Church, since my
entire Church is built upon thee ; not merely a part
or fraction thereof, but my whole Church in her uni-
versal entity. Therefore, out of thee, the Rock, there
is no Church of Christ, no fragment of it, no particle
of it whatsoever.

Jesus Christ pledges His omnipotent word as God
Incarnate that He will build His Church upon the
Rock, Cephas, or Peter — that, consequently, out of
the Rock Cephas, or Peter, Christ's Church is not, does
not exist, and that she has no entity whatever except
"upon Cephas" the Rock. He adds that, because thus
resting irrevocably on Cephas the Rock, His Church
shall triumph for ever: (Matt. 16. 18.)

Ponder the words of Christ. He virtually says:
"Without Peter not only can there be no victorious
Church, but there can be no Church at all. Without
Peter, my Church not only cannot conquer, but she
cannot even be. Out of Peter no Church of mine shall
ever be: no Peter no Church."

The Church therefore owes her very being, as well
as her perpetual victory over hell, to the virtue of
her Christ-appointed Cephas or Rock — who is thus the

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 67

permanent instrumental source, not only of her
triumph, but of her very being or entity : a truth can-
didly admitted by unprejudiced Protestants. For in-
stance, Judge Robinson, Professor at Yale College,
frankly says : "Uniting with the See of Peter, is to be
the Church of Christ. Not to acknowledge the
See of Peter, is to form and constitute a human
organism." In other words, there can be no Church
of Christ out of Peter. (An Hour with a Sincere Pro-
testant, by Rev. J. P. M. Scheuter, p. 15, note) —
Italics ours.

68 Peter's Name;

NOTE IX

I C) Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or perennial
source of Church authority

"Thou art Rock and upon this Rock I will build
my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the king-
dom of Heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon
earth it shall be bound also in Heaven: and whatso-
ever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also
in heaven." (Matt. 16. 18, 19.

That is to say : To thee alone singly and separately
and independently, O Cephas, do I promise the keys
of my Church, which is the Kingdom of heaven on
earth, to show that thy name, so expressive of Christ-
like authority, is no' empty sound — but that all author-
ity shall indeed be instrumentally derived from thee,
the Rock : so that whatsoever thou shalt bind or loose
by thy own personal and independent authority shall
instantly be bound or loosed in heaven. Not so, how-
ever, with my other Apostles; under thee alone, and
never independently of thee, can they exercise such
powers in my Church. Therefore do I not say to any of
them as I do to thee "I shall give thee, James — or to
thee, John — or to thee, Paul, the keys of the kingdom of
heaven.» But, after giving thee alone, O Kepha, full
and independent authority such as I myself exercise, I
will transmit a due portion of the same from thee
to the other Apostles, not apart from thee but sub-
ordinately to thee, the visible Head. (Matt. 18. 18.)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 69

After vesting the plenitude of authority in thee,
I will transfuse thereof from thee, the Head, to the
Apostolic members united and subordinated to the
Apostolic head. As I took out of the first Adam the
bodily form of the first Eve (Gen. 2. 21), so, in a
manner, will I take out of thee Peter the derivative
form of authority to be exercised by thy fellow-
Apostles.

This truth is so plainly written on the face of the
sacred Record and was so indelibly impressed upon
the mind of the Apostolic Church that Tertullian has
enshrined it in the following oft-quoted sentence: "If
you think the heavenfc shut, remember that the Lord,
here (in Matt. 16. 19), left its keys to Peter, and
through Peter, to the Church." (De Scorpiace, c. 10.)

The order established by our Lord does not vary
with the wind of Error, and the Church ever receives
the benefit of the keys through Peter continued in his
successors.

The better to impress upon the Church the fact
that Peter is the visible source whence flows all author-
ity, Christ begins by investing Peter alone with the
plenitude of power in the Church. (Matt. 16. 18;
John 21. 15.) In due time the Apostles receive juris-
diction from Christ and Peter acting jointly as a moral
unit (Matt. 18. 18; Mark 16. 15; John 20. 21) —
but they receive it collectively, i. e., corporately; — con-
sequently, they receive it as divinely constituted under
their visible head, Peter : for, the head rules the body.
In the two orders of nature and of super-nature,
guidance (authority) proceeds from the head to the
members, not from the members to the head. "Beatus

70 Peter's Name;

Petrus et praeferri omnibus Apostolis meruit et claves
regni coelorum communicandas caeteris solus accepit."
(S. Optatus; de Schism. Donat. contra. Parmen., 1. 7,
c. 3 et 1. 2, c. 2.)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 71

NOTE X

Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or perennial
source of the infallibility of the Church

Alluding to the invincible strength of the Rock
created and established by Himself, our Lord says to
Peter: "Simon, Simon, behold satan hath desired to
have you that he may sift you" — i. e., all of you, My
Apostles — "as wheat, but I have prayed for THE)£ that
thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted,
confirm thy brethren." (Luke 22. 31.)

"I have prayed for TH££ that thy faith fail not,"
that is to say : I have made thee the Rock of Faith,
the Rock of infallibilty. For thy fellow-Apostles also
have I prayed, asking my Father to bless them as
members of the Apostolic college — but for thee alone
have I asked my Father a special blessing, i. e., that He
may bless thee as the visible head of the Apostolic body
and of my whole Church. As the authority of the
Apostolic members is conditioned upon strict union
with and subordination to Peter — for nowhere have I
given them the power to bind and to loose separately
from their head, Simon Peter (Matt. 18. 18) — so is
their immunity from error derived from the same
source and upon the same conditions. Through Peter
alone do I transmit my Keys or authority to the
Church, and through Peter alone do I transmit my
infallible teaching to her. I might have imparted in-
fallibility to every bishop separately and independently.

72 Peter's Name;

Why do I not choose to do it? Because I am the in-
finite Wisdom of God, and human wisdom itself,
shortsighted as it is, sees at a glance that a system of
independent infallible teachers would open the door to
schism and divisions without end. Therefore am I
pleased to appoint one Apostle alone as the supreme,
infallible Rule of Faith, endowing him alone with full
independent infallibility — an infallibility which the
other Apostles can only share proportionately through
the channel of communion with Peter : for, Peter is the
Confirmer of all the brethren, the Apostles not ex-
cepted.

"Satan hath desired to have you" all, my beloved
Apostles, "but I have prayed for thee," Peter, "that thy
faith fail not."

Here, Christ inferentially says to the other Apos-
tles : Take warning that, if you do not wish your
faith to fail, you must cling to the center of unity,
Peter, for nowhere else but in union with him shall
you find inerrancy as well as eternal cohesion. Out
of Peter there is no Church of mine, no Church of
Christ, no salvation.

Peter is the centripetal force that keeps the super-
natural universe of the Church infinitely more solidly
compacted together than any orb in space : for the
starry orbs shall one day dissolve and perish, whilst
the living Orb of the universal Church shall outlast
and outlive all ages and shall endure forever.

Had Christ built his Church upon a fallible Apostle
or Pope, she would rest on a sand-drift, not on a rock.
The Rock guaranteed by our Lord as strong enough
to keep the Church secure against the gates of hell

«

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 73

(Matt. 16. 18), i. e., error, is therefore necessarily in-
fallible by virtue of Christ's solemn and explicit guar-
antee (ibid.) —

Christ makes three distinct assertions, viz., first,
that He prayed for the infallibility of Peter's Faith
(Luke 22. 32) — second, that His own Prayer as God
Incarnate is always heard (John 11.42) — and third,
that Peter shall accordingly be the infallible Confirmer
of the Faith of his brethren (Luke 22. 32).

Therefore the infallibility of the Church flows from
Peter down to the brethren, not from these to Peter:
therefore Peter is the perennial visible source of In-
fallibility.

In Gal. i. 1 8, the Holy Ghost uses, in honor of
Peter exclusively, a word employed in no other place
in the Holy Scriptures : Speaking of St. Paul's visit
to Peter, Holy Writ implicitly calls Peter the Divine
oracle of the Church. For, the Greek term it employs
(istoresai) does not simply mean that Paul called on
Peter: it implies that he consulted Peter as a divine
oracle. Such is the classical significance of the word
in Greek authors — v. g. in Euripides, Ion 1547 — etc. —
the term being used especially of visits to the oracles
of the Deity.

Holy Writ significantly employs quite a different
term with reference to St. Paul's visit to St. James.
The term used in this instance is "eidon," the common
word for "saw." (Gal. i. 19.)

Scripturally speaking, then, St. Paul saw St. James
in Jerusalem, but he consulted Peter, there, as the
Oracle of the Church of the New Covenent. For, the
High Priest of the New Law is not inferior to the

74 Peter's Name;

High Priest of the Synagogue — of whom Cruden's
Protestant Concordance says: "The High Priest,
clothed with the ephod and pectoral, gave a True
Answer, whatever was the manner of his life. — God
had appropriated to his person the Oracle of His
Truth." (s. v. Oracle and Priest.)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 75

NOTE XI

(e) Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the indefectibility of the Church

"Thou art Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my
Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it." Matt. 16. 1 8— i. e., "Thanks to thee, O Peter, who
art the Rock of my own creation, the gates of hell
shall not prevail against my Church. Neither now,
nor in a thousand years, nor in 1600 years, nor in two
thousand years, shall they prevail against my Church :
because, from thee (under me) shall my Church derive
a never-failing supply of strength and invincibility.
Sect after sect shall pass away, whilst thou alone shalt
stand with the Church built upon thee, for thou alone
art the Rock built on the rock of my omnipotent
Word : heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word
shall not pass away." Matt. 24. 35.

Christ proclaims the indefectibility of His Church
— i. e., the absolute uninterruptibility of her existence
through all ages — (Matt. 16. 18) ; and the reason He
assigns for her indefectibility and indestructibility is
that she is irrevocably built and resting on Cephas, the
Rock, Peter. Therefore Peter is the perennial visible
source of the indefectibility of the Church.

76 Peter's Name;

NOTE XII

(f) Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the Church's compactness and solidity

"Confirm thy brethren" (Luke 22. 32) — i. e., all thy
brethren, all my disciples without exception — Apostles,
bishops, priests, clergy, and laity — are to be confirmed,
strengthened, consolidated by thee in the Faith and in
hope and charity, in closer and closer communion with
one another. In thee shall they find immunity not
only from the darkness and blindness of heresy but
from the sterilising influence of schism.

Thou art the Rock, not for thy sake alone but for
the sake of thy brethren. Do not, then, O blessed Rock,
keep thy strength unto thyself, but transfuse the
strength of the Rock into the universal Brotherhood.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 77

NOTE XIII

(g) Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the one -ness and unicity of the Church

"Thou art Rock and upon this Rock I will build
my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it." "Therefore, by logical implication, the
gates of hell shall prevail against all churches not built
upon the Rock, Peter. Therefore, moreover, whoever
departs from the Rock, Peter, cuts himself off from
the very Foundation of my Church. For, my Church,
in contradistinction to all other churches, is built upon
thee, O Rock, O Peter; and there does she abide, not
shifting her Foundation from Peter to Photius, or from
Peter to Luther or Calvin, or from Peter to any one
else, — but remaining forever fixed on the Rock of my
choice and creation, Cephas, or Peter.

Therefore, finally, as there is no Church of mine
out of the Rock, men must of necessity gather around
and cling to the Rock under pain of being left out of
my Church. Thus are tribes and tongues and peoples
and nations unified in thee and by thee, under Me.
And thus art thou, O Rock, O Peter, the wonderful
Rock and perennial source of the visible unification of
all mankind into one vast brotherhood.

And as thou alone, O Peter, art the Rock of unity,
so shall all the churches built outside of thee, be the
ever-shifting sands of endless division and confusion.
Theirs shall be the burning and blinding divisions and

78 Peter's Name;

confusions of the stormy sands of the desert when
blown about by the simoom.

Thou art by grace, as I am by nature, the Rock
against which all the sects or hostile churches shall ei-
ther grind themselves or be ground to powder: Matt.
21.44.

The one-ness, or unity, of the Church is the divine
prerogative in virtue of which "the Church in all its
members and parts forms one entire connected whole"
(Klee on the Church — ap. "Catholic" by Monsignor
Capel, i st. ed. p. 26.)

Peter is the Rock of unification : he unifies the mem-
bers of the Church by the fact that he is the one foun-
dation, the one platform on which Christ requires them
all to stand and to cling together.

Christ extols the unifying power of Peter when He
appoints him the Confirmer or consolidator of the
whole Christian brotherhood (Luke 22. 32.)

For, "Confirmer" means consolidator, strengthener :
now strength preverbially lies in unity. Therefore Pet-
er the strengthener means Peter the unifier. Therefore
Peter is the permanent instrumental source of the com-
pact one-ness of the Church. He is the living Rock
and, as such, communicates to the whole Church the
compactness, solidity and unbreakable one-ness of the
Rock which he is.

Peter is also the perennial visible source of the
unicity, or absolute anti-plurality and absolute indis-
ibility of the Church.

The unicity of the Church is the divine prerog-

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 79

plurality of Christian or co-ordinate churches," or one
Christian Church or Kingdom of God divided against
itself — as to creed, communion, or authority.

Observe that the one-ness of the Church connotes
the fact of her unity ; the fact that she is one in reality
— whilst the unicity of the Church connotes the abso-
lute impossibility of there being more than one self-
same indivisible Church of Christ, indivisible as to
creed, communion, and authority.

Besides, whilst the one-ness or unity of the Church
is one of her visible marks, her unicity is one of her
invisible properties — a property evident to the mind in
view of the Word of God, but not visible or percept-
ible to the bodily senses.

The sense of sight attests the unity of the Church —
but reason alone can, under the guidance of Revela-
tion, attest the impossibility, by reason of the express
will of Christ, of there being more than one Church
of His, and the impossiblity of the Church built on
Peter being only a part of, and not the whole Church
of Jesus Christ.

(First)— Christ said to Peter: "Thou art Rock,
and upon this Rock I will build my Church" (Matt.
1 6. 18) — not my Churches but My one and only
Church. Therefore Christ built one Church only upon
Peter, and it is impossible that there would be more
than one Church of Christ built on Peter.

(Second)— Christ said to Peter: "On this Rock
I will build My Church." The Church of Christ being
built on the living Rock called in Hebrew Kepha (John
1. 42) and in Greek Petros (ibid., Greek text) — it
follows that, outside of "this Rock" there can be no

8o Peter's Name;

Church of Christ — or that it is impossible to make a
Church of Christ out of a Church which stands not
and is not willing to stand upon "this Rock", Peter.

Now, the two impossibilities just described — i. e.,
the impossibility of the Church or Kingdom of God
being divided against itself as to creed, communion,
or authority; and the further impossibility of there
being more than one Church or Kingdom of God, i. e.,
a plurality of co-ordinate Christian Churches — these
two impossibilities constitute the unicity of the Church ;
and Peter is, by divine ordinance, the instrumental
source thereof.

As the Christ-appointed Rock of divine strength and
might, he is the instrumental source of the Force
whence flows the twofold impossibility (i) that the
Church built on Peter, and viewed in herself exclusive-
ly, should ever be divisible and more than one Church,
one vast organism; and (2) that outside the Rock
Peter, there could ever spring into being another
Church of Christ — because Peter absorbs all the
Church-producing energy available in the Economy of
Christ, and thus strikes with radical impotency any
attempt at producing another Church of God.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 81

NOTE XIV

(h) Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
ministerial source of the holiness of the Church

Peter is the Rock of the Priesthood, the ministerial
source of sanctification, the Church's Stairway to
heaven (St. Augustin) ; for out of the Church of
God there is no lawful and acceptable sacrifice; and
without the lawful acceptable oblation of the Sacrifice
of the New Covenant, there can be no sanctification,
but only profanation and sacrilege.

Such is the scriptural meaning of the very name of
Peter. Antiquity merely paraphrases Christ's expla-
nation of the name when it says, through St. Jerome,
who addresses Pope St. Damasus as the Rock, or
Peter:. "On that Rock I know the Church is built;
whoso eats the Lamb outside this House is profane,"
i. e., guilty of sacrilege (Ep. to Pope Damasus, A. D.

376).

Mark how forcibly St. Jerome affirms that whoever
is outside "that Rock," viz., Peter, and his successors,
is by that same, outside the House of God, outside the
Church altogether.

Centuries before St. Jerome, the holy prophet
David had intimated that the pure honey of sanctifi-
cation can only be got "out of the Rock." — "And He
fed them," says David prophetically, "with the fat of
wheat" (His adorable flesh and blood), "and filled

PETER'S NAME 6

82 Peter's Name;

them with honey" (His own Divine Life) "out of the
Rock." That is to say, the God-appointed channel of
the Deific life productive of holiness is none other than
the Rock (Ps. 80. 17).

The prince of the Doctors of the Church, St. Augus-
tin, is even more emphatic than St. Jerome. According
to him, Peter is so essentially and perpetually the foun-
dation of the Church and the ministerial source of her
sanctification as to be her stairway to heaven :

"It was the Lord Himself," writes the saint, "who
called Peter the Foundation of the Church : and there-
fore it is right that the Church should reverence this
Foundation wherever her mighty structure riseth. —
Blessed be God who hath commanded that the Apostle
Peter should be exalted in the congregation ! Worthy
to be honored by the Church is that Foundation
through which lieth the ascent into heaven." (i5th
Serm. on the Saints : Rom. Brev., Feast of St. Peter's
Chair at Antioch, 22cl of Febr.)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 83

NOTE XV

(i) Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the catholicity or uni-
versality of the Church

"The Rock" is the scriptural name of God Him-
self, and when God Incarnate conferred it upon Simon,
He thereby declared that He would put in Peter the
strength of God signified by the name : and He kept his
promise. Behold the strength of God concealed under
the frail form of a frail old man! Behold one single
man, a supernatural Samson, not only stronger than
all mankind together, but stronger than the myriad-
legioned hosts of Satan: Matt. 16. 18.

Peter is the mightiest moral force on earth, the
colossal force of a Ifeffiurln world-builder. For, the
Christ who made him the mighty centripetal or unitive
force that compacts the Church into everlasting unity —
did also make him the centrifugal or expansive force
that expands the unity of the Church into Catholicity,
i. e., into a world-wide organism — the living expansive
force that enlarges the tiny seed into a world of the
first magnitude. (Matt. 14.31,32.)

Note that the unity of the Church could exist with-
out her Catholicity. The Church, like the Synagogue,
might be one without being universal. But her Cath-
olicity cannot exist without her unity. For, prescinding
from the fact that Christ did not promise universality
to any other Church but exclusively to the Church

84 Peter's Name;

compacted into one visible body under one visible head
called Peter — it is evident that a universal divided body
is a contradiction in terms : for, if divided up into frag-
ments, it is no longer a body at all, much less a uni-
versal body. The Catholicity of the Church is not a
universal agreement to disagree, a universal absence
of unity, a universal disruption, a universal Babel, a
world-wide series of divisions and fractions. It is a
universal unit, constitutionally and territorially uni-
versal— i. e., a unit constitutionally embracing, at all
times and all over the world, the absolute entirety of
the Church of Jesus Christ — and a unity territorially
extending to the uttermost limits of the earth.

In a word, the Catholicity of the Church is her own
unity enlarged and universalized: therefore the producer
and constant enlarger of the unity of the Church is ipso
facto the producer of her Catholicity or universality —
and such is Peter, as we proved when treating of the
unity of the Church.

Contemplating in advance the world-encircling vast-
ness of the Church He was to built on Peter, the
eternal Son of God and future Son of David according
to the flesh, exclaims, prophetically, through the lips
of the royal Prophet : "With Thee is my praise in a
great Church" (Ps. 21. 26) — "I will give thanks to thee
in a great Church." (Ps. 34. 18.) — "I have declared
thy justice in a great Church" (Ps. 39. 10).

So divinely universal is the "great Church" — the
Ecclesia magna — prophesied by David, that her very
enemies cannot help wondering again^at lifer wonderful
Catholicity: "The Catholic idea in religion," says the
Rev. J. L. Jones, a prominent Unitarian preacher of

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 85

Chicago, "is today triumphant. The Roman Church
has succeeded because it grasped the ideal of Catholi-
city, of uniformity, of harmony, of oneness. I am not
defending that Church as such. . . Nevertheless, the
Roman Church is the greatest social protection ever
thrown out of the human heart. It is the only organi-
sation in history that has brought together in any such
manner diverse races, hostile nations, and alien peoples.
It represents beautifully our democratic ideals." (Ita-
lics ours. See the N. Y. Freeman's Journal, May 4th,
1901.)

"The Catholic Church is the grandest organization
in the world," exclaimed a Protestant minister, the
Rev. J. G. Thompson, at the morning service held on
Sunday, April 5, 1903, at the Independent Church of
Christ, Los Angeles, California.

86 Peter's Name;

NOTE XVI

(j) Peter's name means, scripturally, the visible Rock or
perennial source of the Apostolicity of the Church

I. Apostolieity Defined

The term Apostolicity may be predicated of the
original Twelve, of their succession, i. e., the Catholic
episcopate, and of the Church herself.

Membership with the Apostolic hierarchy itself
constitutes active apostolicity.. Simple membership
with the apostolic Church constitutes passive aposto-
licity.

1. The Apostolicity of the original Twelve con-
sists in their being the original members of the ruling,
magisterial and sacerdotal body constitutively headed
by Peter, as essentially organized by our Lord in-
person.

2. The Apostolicity of the Catholic episcopate is
the continuity, by means of succession, of the Apostolic
Body as organically constituted by our Lord under the
one visible head, the one organic centre or bond of
unity, of the whole Church: said visible head being at
first the visible Humanity of Christ himself ; and, after
the Passion and resurrection of Christ, Peter — and
after Peter, his successors from century to century,
down to our own day.

3. Broadly defined, the Apostolicity of the Church
is the continuity of the Apostolic Church up to this
day — or the continuance up to this day of the Primitive

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 87

Church as founded by our Lord and planted by the
Apostles.

Specifically denned, the Apostolicity of the Church
is the identity of the Catholic Church with the Church
of the Apostles.

88 Peter's Name;

II. Apostolieity: Its Petrine Source; General View

The striking designations under which Holy Writ
mentions Peter and his Apostlic brethren clearly in-
timate that the Apostles formed a college or body
whose head was Simon Peter : For the New Testament
frequently designates the Apostles under a collective or
corporate appellation as "the Twelve," or, after Judas'
suicide, "the eleven" — while it expressly gives to Peter
the title of "the First" (Matt. 10.2).

For mention of the Twelve, see :

Matt. 10.1,2; 10.5; ii. i ; 20.17; 26.14,20,47.

Mark 3. 14; 4. 10; 6. 7; 9. 34; 10. 32; n.
ii ; 14. 20.

Luke 6. 13 ; 8. i ; 9. I, 12 ; 18. 31 ; 22. 3, 14, 47.

John 6. 68, 71, 72 ; 20. 24.

Acts 6. 2.

For mention of the Eleven, see:

Matt. 28. 16; Mark 16. 14; Luke 24.9,33; Acts I.
26; 2. 14; i Cor. 15. 5.

There be indeed twelve foundations (Apoc. 21. 14)
but one single Apostolic bed-rock underlying the eleven
other foundations (Matt. 16. 18).

Twelve foundations in the fundamental structure
of the Church, but one, and one only, underlies the
others; for to one of these only and exclusively has
Christ said: "Thou art Rock and upon this Rock" —
upon this one bed-Rock — "will I build my Church,"
my whole Church. Peter, to whom alone these words
were addressed, is therefore the one Apostolic bed-
Rock upon which the eleven other Apostolic stones
rest and abide forever.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 89

There exists, on Apoc. 21. 9 — 21, no commenrary
more illuminating and more profoundly beautiful than
that of the Anglican divine Paul James Francis, in
the 7th chapter of his fine work on The Prince of the
Apostles. He says:

"When we examine the twelve foundations in de-
tail, we find that they are of different material. 'The
first is jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a
chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald etc.' This shows
that God has differentiated the Apostles one from the
other in some sort. There is not therefore absolute
equality, a distinction of some kind is intended. . . .
Is there no principle of interpretation by which we
can discover which of these foundations represents
St. Peter ? Yes, to be sure we can. We have already
noted in a previous chapter that in the four lists
given in the New Testament of the names of the
Blessed Apostles, St. Peter's name always takes the
lead, while St. Matthew expressly calls him the First.
The First Foundation then is St. Peter, and we see
that it is jasper. But let us give a wider sweep to
our vision. We raise our telescope and lo, we make
an important discovery. We observe that 'the city
lieth four-square. And the building of the wall of it
is jasper! Here is something which gives to St. Peter
at once an immense distinction. The walls of the
Holy City are built out of the material, not of the
second foundation, nor of the third, nor of the fourth,
nor yet of any of the other foundations, save of the
first, and that foundation is jasper as are the walls.
Does not this revelation carry with it the whole Petrine
contention ? Our Lord said to Simon, 'Thou art Peter,

90 Peter's Name;

and on this rock I will build My Church,' and lo,
when we come to view the fiinished structure we find
that the walls are built up not of the material of
other eleven foundation stones which constitute the
Apostolic basis of the Church but of the material of the
first, that is to say, of Peter.

The walls of the City do not take their rise from
that apostle who is represented by sapphire, nor yet
from chalcedony, not from the emerald, the beryl or
the amethyst, but only from the jasper. Is not here a
distinction which reconciles any seeming conflict of
statement between our Lord and St. Paul ; the Former
saying to St. Peter, 'On this Rock I will build My
Church' and the latter declaring that the Church was
built 'on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone.' ':

The Church derives her Apostolic continuity from
the Apostolic Body and, by consequence, from the
constitutive head, or organic centre constitutive of the
same Body. The head is thus the primary visible source
of the Church-continuity otherwise called Apostolicity.
For, an Apostle is one who belongs to the hierarchial
body constitutively headed by Peter, as essentially or-
ganised by our Lord (Matt. 1 6. 1 8, 19; Luke 22. 32;
John 21. 15,17).

Therefore whoso is not under Peter is no member
of the Apostolic body organised by our Lord. But,
if one cannot be an Apostle without being a member
of the Apostolic body — and if one cannot be a member
of the Apostolic body without being under the Apostolic
head,under the organic centre established by our Lord

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 91

as constitutive of the same body — then it follows that
Peter is the source of the Apostolicity and continuity
of the Apostles themselves, and, consequently, the
capital source of the Church that derives her continuity
from the Apostolic body.

92 Peter's Name;

COROLLARY— Whoso is outside the foundation,
Peter, cannot possibly impart Apostolicity, i. e., Apos-
tolic continuity to the Church, for two reasons : first,
because no one can give that which he has not; now,
to be out of the Rock, Peter, means to be out of the
Christ-established Apostolicity, which is essentially cen:
tered in Peter (Matt. 16. 18; Luke 22.32; John 21.
15, 17). How then can such an outsider give to the
Church the Christ-established Apostolicity which he
himself has not?

Secondly: one who is not even a simple member
of the Church cannot possibly be at the same time
a chief member of hers, i. e., an Apostle or a suc-
cessor of the Apostles. In other words the Apostolicity
of Christ is essentially inseparable from the Church of
Christ. One cannot be simultaneously an Apostle,
i. e., a chief member, and no member of hers at all.
Therefore whoso is out of the Church is ipso facto
out of the pale of Apostolicity: whoso is outside the
radical membership of the Church is a fortiori outside
her chief membership, her Apostolic college.

On the other hand we know that — Christ having
built His Church on the one visible foundation, Peter
— whoso is outside of the Rock, Peter, is ipso facto
outside the Church of Christ, out of which there can
be no Apostolicity: therefore whoever is outside the
Rock, Peter, is outside the Christ-appointed sphere of
Apostolicity.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 93

III. Apostolieity: Its Petrine Source— a Closer View
Four elements constitute Apostolieity of rank and
office, viz., (first) membership with the Apostolic
hierarchial body essentially headed by Peter, as organ-
ized by our Lord in person; — (second) the power to
rule the Church of God;— (third) the magisterial pow-
er to teach; — (fourth) the sacerdotal power to offer
the clean Oblation and sanctify the members of the
mystic body of Christ the Catholic Church.

Now, we have shown that Peter is the visible
source of Apostolic membership and of the threefold
power just named : therefore Peter is the visible source
of the Apostolieity of the Church.

Note: the ruling, teaching, and sanctifying powers
may be regarded as the active matter of Apostolieity
—whilst the sovereign headship of Peter is the es-
sential form or condition of Apostolieity.

Schismatic and heretical bishops and priests are
utterly destitute of Apostolieity, since they lack its
four constitutive elements.

(a) They lack the first element, viz., membership
with the Apostolic body or college essentially headed
by Peter at command of the Lord himself. Peter is the
Christ constituted head of the Apostolic body (Matt.
1 6. 18; Luke 22. 32; John 21. 17). Now, members
severed from the head no longer possess corporeity,
and likewise apostles or bishops severed from the
Apostolic head, Peter, lose, by that same, Apostolic
corporeity or Apostolieity. For Apostolieity, or Apos-
tolic corporeity, is where the Christ-appointed head
thereof is, not where the amputated member lies.

94 Peter's Name;

A Peterless Apostolicity is a headless Apostolicity,
and a headless Apostolicity is not Christ's Apostolicity,
and therefore no Apostolicity at all.

With still greater cogency does this argument apply
to the heretics and schismatics' utter lack, not only of
Apostolic membership, but of Church membership al-
together. For we know that, the better to perpetuate
and strengthen the unity of his Church, Christ ordained
that outside the Rock, Peter, there can be no Church
of God whatever (Matt. 16. 18). Therefore heret-
ics and schismatics, being outside the Rock, Peter, are
ipso facto outside the Church of Christ altogether. Not
being even simple members of the Church, how (we
ask again) can they be at the same time her chief est
members,, i. e. her Apostles or rulers?

Such a contradiction would be a piece of infinite
folly infinitely beneath Infinite Wisdom Incarnate.

(b) Heretics and schismatics lack the second ele-
ment of Apostolicity, viz., infallibility in teaching Faith
and morals.

A bishop, or any one else, cut off from the Apostolic
head, Peter, is by that very fact cut off from the in-
fallible magisterial power which, by the express will
of Christ (Luke 22. 32, etc.), is to be derived from
him alone for whom alone Christ's prayer asked and
obtained infallibility (ibid.) — and whom alone Christ,
accordingly, established Confirmer of the Faith of His
brethren throughout the whole Church.

Therefore bishops who secede from Peter forfeit
the Divine promise of Confirmation in the Faith (i. e.
infallibility) made to Peter. They repudiate the di-
vinely established Confirmer of the Faith (Luke 22.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 95

32), and become thereby, scripturally speaking, — they
and their deluded followers— "the blind leading the
blind." (Matt. 15. 14.)

We Catholics have, then, the warranty of Scrip-
ture, besides the Catholic experience of nineteen cen-
turies, to back us when we affirm that those cut off
from Peter cannot preserve the true Faith; much
less can they teach it infallibly, as they themselves
explicitly acknowledge, since they never tire of re-
pudiating all claim to magisterial infallibility.

In the first place, they deny, by the very fact of
their schism or separation, the cardinal doctrine of
Jesus Christ — the unity of the Church. For, Christ
affirms that His Church cannot exist out of the Rock,
Peter, upon whom He built it — whilst they affirm
that Christ's Church can and does exist outside its
Christ-appointed foundation, Cephas or Peter. (Matt.
16. 18.)

Apart from this radical departure from the palp-
able teaching of Jesus Christ, they invariably fall into
other grievous errors: v. g. the Eastern schismatic
body errs grievously touching the procession of the
Holy Ghost. Some of them — for instance, the schis-
matic patriarch of Constantinople — err even about the
valid form of baptism, falsely teaching that the immers-
ed alone are validly baptized — a gross error, so palpably
unscriptural and unhistorical that even the schismatic
Church of Russia refuses to countenance it.

Let us suppose, however, the existence of a pheno-
menon never witnessed heretofore, viz., the actual
preservation of the true doctrine of Jesus Christ out-
side the society which He founded for the avowed

96 Peter's Name;

purpose of preserving His teaching in its purity and
integrity — a phenomenon which would disprove the
necessity of the Church established by our Lord in
order to perpetuate and propagate His doctrine. Let
us grant for a moment that such or such a person,
though outside the Church, has actually preserved the
identical faith or doctrine taught by our Lord ; it would
by no means follow that such a phenomenal mortal is
a member of the Apostolic hierarchy, or even of the
Apostolic Church itself. His pure faith could not give
him active Apostolicity, i. e., could not make him a
member of the Apostolic hierarchy — since all the true
Disciples of our Lord had the true faith and yet only
twelve of them were raisecnthe Apostolic office. Nor
would the pure faith of such a unique individual give
him even passive Apostolicity, i. e., make him a member
of the Apostolic Church — since many secret believers
in the Gospel of Jesus Christ were nevertheless too
cowardly to join His Church and lived and died out of
it — and since, moreover, many a believer — for instance,
Simon Magus — was cut off from the pale of the
Church notwithstanding their public adhesion to the
true Faith.

It stands therefore scripturally and logically estab-
lished that integrity of doctrine suffices not to confer
either active or passive Apostolicity, i. e., membership
either with the Apostolic hierarchy itself or with the
Apostolic Church.

(c) Heretics and schismatics lack the third element
of Apostolicity, viz., the power to rule the Church of
God.

To Peter alone did Christ commit the Key of sover-
eign authority (Matt. 16. 18; Luke 22. 32; John 21, 15,

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 97

17) — and consequently a bishop disowned by Peter, so
far from having power to rule the Church of God, does
not even belong to the one Fold essentially joined to
Peter as the body to the head or the house to its foun-
dation. Not only has such a bishop no power to rule,
but he has no authority nor commission to preach or
to administer the sacraments.

(d) Heretics and schismatics lack the fourth ele-
ment of Apostolicity, viz., the restoring, sanctifying,
deifying, power of the priesthood.

To Peter alone did Christ commit in sovereign trust
the lawful use of the Sacerdotal Key of sanctification
(ibid.), whose Divine source is the lawful oblation of
the unbloody Sacrifice of the New Law.

A Christian cut off from the Church still preserves
the indelible character of his baptism. Likewise, a
bishop cut off from the See of Peter still preserves the
indelible character of the ordination and the sacrificial
and sacramental power inherent in his sacerdotal char-
acter. But he loses the sanctifying power of his priest-
hood. That is to say, his offering of the sacrifice is
neither lawful nor acceptable to God. For, as un-
der the old law, the Temple's altar was the only one
on which the one lawful and acceptable sacrifice could
be offered to Jehovah — so, under the new Law, Peter is
the one Christ-chosen Rock and Altar-Stone, whereon
the true Sacrifice may be lawfully and acceptably of-
fered to God:

Whoso offers or eats the Lamb outside the Rock,
Peter, offers and eats outside the Divine foundation
of the Church — i. e. outside the Church herself; and
NAME 7

98 Peter's Name;

such an one, to quote St. Jerome once more, "is pro-
fane"— i. e. abhorrent to God. (Letter to Pope St.
Damasus.)

A dilemma :

The schismatic Oriental bodies and their off-
shoots have never been able to face the following de-
lemma :

Either the old, primitive Peter-headed Church un-
der whose headship they were from the very first and
remained for several centuries — i? Apostolic, or it is
not. If it is not Apostolic,then the seceding branches
could derive no apostolicity from the parent-trunk and
cannot be apostolic. But if the Church whence they
seceded is Apostolic, as they acknowledge it is — then
the seceders therefrom have seceded and been excom-
municated and amputated from the Apostolic mother-
Church, the Church of the Rock, against which, says
Christ, the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matt. 16.
18).

In either case, they lack Apostolicity or Apostolic
corporeity.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 99

NOTE XVII

(k) Peter's name means, scripturally, the Apostle more deeply
beloved of the Lord than any other Apostle

A very important distinction should' be insisted upon
here — a distinction overlooked by the moderns but
sharply drawn by the Fathers — between the love of
tenderness (as, for instance, that of a mother for her
new-born babe) and the love called "of intensity or
preference," as, for instance, the love of the same
mother for her first-born and full-grown son. The
first was vouchsafed by our Lord to St. John alone,
and the second to Peter exclusively among the Apos-
tles.

The fact that Peter was the Apostle most deeply
beloved of Jesus is clearly established not only by the
testimony of the Fathers but by the clear witness of
the Lord himself. Christ in person answers affirma-
tively the question to which Peter, in his profoundly
touching humility, would not return an affirmative re-
ply, viz., "Simon, son of John, dost thou love me
more than these?" For, straightway after questioning
Peter thrice, Jesus says, "Feed my sheep." As if to
say: "Because I know that thou lovest me more than
these other Apostles of mine, therefore do I in re-
turn love thee more than I do these ; and I accordingly
intrust thee, in preference to them, with my treasure,
my Spouse, my Church."

As noted by the Fathers, especially the deepest
of them all, St. Augustin — St. John loved Jesus more

ioo Peter's Name;

tenderly, but Peter loved Him more intensely, more
ardently. And, in return, Jesus loved John with a
more tender, but Peter with a stronger and intenser
love. "Thus parents love their little children with a
tender love, but those who are youths or grown up
with a stronger and more solid love: whence also
they give greater gifts to them than to the little ones."
(Cornelius a Lapide on John 2. 17: Mossman's trans-
lation.)

St. Chrysostom shares the convictions of St. Augus-
tine and exclaims : "Rejoice, O Peter, thou who didst
love the Lord with a burning soul, thou the most
faithful of all the Apostles." (Rom Brev., Oct. SS.
Peter and Paul) — It were blasphemy to contend that
"the most faithful," i. e. the most God-loving "of all
the Apostles" was not, by a just recompense, the best
beloved of God — since our love of God can only be the
immediate effect of God's love for ourselves and, con-
sequently, the most authentic evidence thereof.

Tertullian, born a little over half a century after
the death of the Apostle St. John, gives voice to the
tradition of the Apostolic Church — then so fresh and
vivid among Christians and even among heretics — that
Peter was, without exception, "the best beloved of the
disciples: carissimo discipulorum." (Adv. Marcion. 4.

13-)

St. Optatus tells us that Peter "deserved to be pre-
ferred to all the other Apostles : beatus Petrus et prae-
ferri omnibus Apostolis meruit" (De schism. Donat.
contra Parmen. 1. 7. c. 3. et 1. 2. c. 2). That is to say:
Peter's greater love for Christ justly entitled him to
the greater love shown him by our Lord.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 101

It is objected that our Lord intrusted His blessed
virgin Mother to St. John and not to St. Peter. The
reply is obvious. Our Lord did intrust His ever bles-
sed Virgin Mother to St. John ; but He intrusted both
the Blessed Virgin and St. John himself and all the
other Apostles and all the disciples and the whole
Church universal to Peter, and not to John.

Another objection is, that St. John recognized the
Saviour from afar on the shore (John 21. 4 to 7) be-
cause of his virginal character.

Answer: The fundamental revelation of Christi-
anity, viz., the Godhead of Christ, was revealed by the
Father in person to the married Peter, not to the vir-
gin John. $t. John re-echoes St. Peter in the sublime
first chapter of his Gospel. John is the eaglet whilst
Peter is the parent-eagle whose wings lift up John to
the heights of the Godhead, teaching him to face the
Son of the living God and the Sun of righteousness.

Even the Jacobites of the far East recognize the
significance of the unique trust reposed in Peter. Bar-
Cephas, metropolitan of the Jacobites of Mossul (A. D.
890), in the 7th chapter of the second treatise of his
book on the Priesthood, pointedly observes:

"Christ Himself did not confer" the High-Priest-
hood "upon the virgin John, full of zeal though he
was besides, but on the married Simon, who had also
experienced weakness by denying Him." These words
are quoted approvingly, and as part of the tradition of
the Syriac Church of Antioch, by the Catholic Syriac
archbishop of Mossul, Cyril Behman Benni, in his
book on the tradition of the Syriac Church of Antioch
P- 45-

IO2 Peter's Name;

Christ therefore loved "the married Simon," more
deeply than "the virgin John," and gave Simon a
"greater gift," viz., the care of His universal Church.
(See Corn, a Lap. on John 21. 15 — 17.)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 103
NOTE XVIII

(1) Peter's name means, scripturally, the Rock or perennial
Source of anti-pharisaism, i. e. of the restoration of the
fallen— the uplifter of the down-trodden and of the fallen

Caution :

We charitably remind the ubiquitous Pharisee who
denounces, and affects to regard, the restoration of the
sinner as a "license to sin," that he calumniates God In-
carnate and His Church — that God is the Father of the
repentant prodigal, not the father of the impenitent
sinner — and that the Divine plea of Christ, of Peter
and of the Church, is exclusively in favor of the re-
pentant.

Neither God nor His Church can take favor-
able cognisance of the wilfully incurable. Nor
does God, or His Church, restore those guilty of such
crimes against human society as necessitate, for the
preservation of the same, the absolute excision, or at
least the temporary "binding," of its dangerous mem-
beirs, v. g., murderers and moral degenerates.

Pharisaism, so pitiless to the returned prodigal and
so slavishly subservient to Dives and to the shams
who serve Mammon in the name of Religion — Pharisa-
ism alone, (not the Church) extends the right hand of
fellowship to certain classes of underhand criminals,
unhung and unjailed, whose state of impunity and
freedom constitutes not only a danger and a menace
to society, but a cancer eating up its vitals and its
very core.

104 Peter's Name;

I. A glance at the Scriptural and Patristic view of Peter as the
restorer of tde fallen

"And thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy
brethren.... Feed my sheep." (Luke 22. 32; John
21. 15— 17.),

The words of our Lord contain a promise, a lesson
and a command: the promise of a prerogative, a less-
on of humility and humanity, and a stringent com-
mand to practice the two last-named virtues — and, con-
sequently, to treat Peter's full restoration as a pre-
cedent to be imitated by the ministers of Jesus Christ
in dealing with repentant sinners.

The prerogative includes the unsequenchable light
of infallibility which crowns the Rock-beacon of the
Church, and the inexhaustible force of consolidation
and restoration ever flowing out of the same Rock.

The lesson of humility and humanity is conveyed
with the infinite delicacy of the adorable Heart, in
His loving allusion to fallen Peter: "And thou, when
thou art converted," which carries with itself the
pledge of a full pardon. Yes, "when thou art convert-
ed"— for thou thyself shall need conversion, O Peter;
and because thou hast boastfully exalted thyself above
all thy brethren (Mark 14. 29), thou shalt fall be-
neath all of them. Thou alone wilt deny me thrice
(Luke 22. 34) ; thou alone wilt deny me with an
oath (Mark 14. 71); thou alone among Apostles wilt
be a perjurer (ibid.) and a thrice confessed renegade:
(Luke 22. 34.) Nevertheless, I will raise thee up and
fully restore thee.

The command which follows is positive and sternly
unconditional : "confirm thy brethren." That is to

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 105

say: Treat them all as I have treated thee. Confirm
the strong, strengthen the weak, restore the erring
and the fallen. Extend to the fallen the treatment
which thou, the fallen bishop and apostle, didst re-
ceive from Me. Crush not the bruised reed and quench
not the smoking flax (Matt. 18. 20), but receive and
restore them both.

Restore thy repentant brethren, be they simple com-
mtmicants, or priests, or bishops.

'Do not merely lift them up and forthwith leave
them unrest or ed in the way — poor, helpless and life-
long cripples to be trampled upon as the living daily
footpaths of the pious pharisee and as the living public
highways of pharisaism at large. Restore them in
full, even as I did restore thee in full, requiring of
thee no other test than the public profession of thy
repentant love and amendment: (John 21. 15 17.)

"And thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy
brethren."

And lest it be pharisaically believed that the priest
or bishop who denies my Church — even as thou, O
Peter, didst deny, not my Church alone, but my own
Self personally — is forever beyond the hope of restora-
tion, behold, I restore thee as a standing Divine refuta-
tion of such a pharisaic doctrine. For, the lesser the dig-
nity the lesser the guilt, and therefore the fallen priest
or bishop is certainly not the peer in guilt of the fallen
Apostle and Pope-elect. Thus the higher the office the
deeper the downfall, and therefore the lapse of a
simple member of the priesthood cannot be accounted

106 Peter's Name;

equal in depth and heinousness to the lapse of his
superior.

Nor can thy prompt repentance — just a few hours
after denying thy God and Saviour — change the nature
of thy crime and alter its original enormity which loses
none of its intrinsic awfulness. The magnitude of a
particular sin is not measured by the length of time
spent in its consummation, but by the depths of the
ingratitude and treachery which it reveals. Satan's
very first sinful thought of rebellion, after one single
instant of duration, sufficed to insure his eternal
doom. And Judas' infamous sale of God-Incarnate
to His murderers, though effected in a few brief
moments, shall ever remain the blackest stain on the
face of time.

What a fall was thine, O Peter, when thou didst
intimate to my murderers that, so far from believing
in my doctrine, or in my Church, or even in My-
self, thou didst not even know Me ! Thy denial of
Me was a public repudiation, not of my Church alone,
not of my teachings alone, but of my very Person.
It was virtually an act of radical and supreme apos-
tasy; though, in thy secret heart, thou couldst not
help clinging to the Faith.

"And thou, when thou art converted, confirm thy
brethren."

The greater the grace received the less excusable
the recreant recipient thereof. Now, not one of the
erring sheep of the priestly Order shall ever be bless-
ed as superlatively as thou hast been, O Peter. For

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 107

thou hast been blessed (a) with the bestowal of my
own Divine headship over the Church, even before my
ascension to heaven; (b) with the boon of my visible
Presence and companionship for three years; (c) with
the revelation of my divinity, directly vouchsafed thee
by my heavenly Father and at my prayer; (d) with
the sight of my miracles, many of which were wrought
for thine own especial benefit. Thou hast seen me
heal the sick and raise the dead. Thou hast been the
eye-witness of the instantaneous raising of Lazarus
from the putrefaction of the grave to perfect health.
In a word, thou hast known Me and even seen Me at
work for three years as the sovereign Lord of life and
death.

But, remember, not one of my poor lapsed priests
and bishops will, in the future, enjoy such extraordi-
nary blessings and safeguards against a possible denial
of the divinity of my Church.

Be thou then, O Peter, both their uplifter and their
restorer; the more readily because, though thine own
remorseful conscience (not I) upbraids thee as a
thrice-renegade priest, a thrice-renegade bishop, a
thrice-renegade Apostle, a monster of ingratitude and
cowardice sinning with eyes wide open against the
known Incarnate Truth — yet do I restore thee fully and
unconditionally. I inflict upon thee no banishment to
the deserts of Egypt, to live there in perpetual seclu-
sion— no deposition from thy episcopal rank and of-
fice— no removal or transfer to some obscure remote
mission or diocese : no, but solely because of thy public
repentance and conversion (John 21. 15 — 17), I pro-
claim thee clean and free from the stain of the past*

io8 Peter's Name;

and heroically worthy of the highest and most con-
spicuous office in My Church.

Wherefore, O Peter, thou likewise shalt pardon
and restore thy repentant fallen brethren of the priest-
hood and of the episcopate. Heed my Father's com-
mand: Leave not the anointed prodigal waiting at
thy door in the rags of misery and ignominy. "Bring
forth quickly the first robe" and put it on him (Luke
15. 22). Hear the divine command, O Peter: "Bring
forth quickly the first robe," that is to say, that very
same robe "which he was wont to wear before he left
his Father's house" (Corn, a Lapid. ad. loc). Bring
forth quickly, aye, quickly the robe of sacerdotal dig-
nity he wore before, the robe of restoration — not the
convict's garb, not the robe of disgrace woven by
Pharisaic hands — but the robe of restoration with
which I clothed thee, O Peter. Put it on the prodigal
— and bring it forth "quickly," since deferred hope
maketh the heart sick.

Let the reparation be as public as the offence —
and let the restoration be as public as the reparation
through repentance.

Let the good and edifying example of the penitent
be as public as the scandal.

Let the lips that have publicly taught error still
more publicly proclaim and preach Catholic truth.

Let the light and life of the penitent shine far and
wide, and hide it not under the bushel: (Matt. 5. 15.)
Not thine own history alone, O Peter, but the history
of the Prodigal as well, cries out with the voice of
God that the repentant sinner must be pardoned and
restored. A pardon without restoration is a pardon

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 109

with the gallows. Study the inspired account of the
Prodigal's return: for, "all these things — the ring,
the shoes and the fatted calf — show the delight of the
Father, i. e. the joy of God and of His angels at the
conversion of a sinner, and teach that, by the great
mercy of God, a penitent is restored to the same, or
even a better position than that which he held before he
fell into sin." (Corn, a Lap. on Luke 15. 23.)

Heed not pharisaic scandal-takers, even as I heed
them not and am not deterred by their constant clamor
of 'scandal, scandal,' from pardoning and restoring
thee, O Peter. Join me, thy Saviour, in saying to them,
"Depart from me" (Matt. 25. 41) and from my Church,
O ye scandal-takers who esteem yourselves too good
to remain in a Communion whose visible head is the
repentant fallen bishop Simon Peter. And know ye
that, for all time to come and for your eternal con-
fusion, there shall be no Church of Christ and no
salvation out of the Church and communion of the
once fallen priest, bishop and Apostle, Peter. Out
of the Church and communion of the restored rene^^ _4Aa_
gade Peter, there is nothing in store for you, O Phari-
sees, but everlasting damnation."

The full restoration of Peter is not an exception,
not a transient freak of mercy worthy of admiration
only : it is a precedent, a Divine precedent, a standing
precedent set up by the Saviour in the face of all ages
to command and enjoin its faithful observance, when-
ever possible, upon the successors of Peter and of
the other Apostles.

no Peter's Name;

II. A beautiful lesson— a sublime Injunction faithfully obeyed by
the successors of Peter

(First) — Christ sets up the fully restored Peter
as God's own monumental protest against Pharisaism
in the Church and particularly in the sanctuary. To
that end, He commands Peter ever boldly to stand
up as the Christ-appointed, living antidote against
Pharisaism, whose satanic object is to antagonize and
nullify the pardon and restoration of repentant sin-
ners: for Satan has sworn eternal enmity and eternal
warfare against the fallen race of man. God In-
carnate and clothed with our nature arouses the un-
fathomable envy and hatred of the fallen Angel.

Lest it should be taught (or even thought)
that the fallen bishop or priest is forever debarred
from full restoration, Christ Himself restores Peter,
the fallen high-priest and commands him to do like-
wise to others: "confirm thy brethren," is the order
and command reminding Peter that the blessing of full
restoration is not the exclusive privilege of the prelacy"
tfLof the laity.

(Second) — To show that the spontaneous maker of
a public profession of repentance and amendment is
— before God and Angels and men worthy of
the Christian name — no longer a fallen priest and
bishop, but a true hero deserving of the highest honor
and to be regarded and treated as such in<His Church —
Christ personally crowns a repentant fallen priest,
Peter, with the crown of sovereignty over His divine
kingdom.

(Third) — Yet more, in order to give the finishing
blow to Pharisaism, our Lord decrees that all His

or, a Divine Credential in a Name in

official representatives, even to the consummation of
ages, shall receive their powers exclusively — aye, that
the entire Church herself shall receive the benefit of
applied redemption exclusively — through the hands of
the thrice-renegade-priest-bishop-apostle Simon Peter,
the one divinely appointed connecting link between the
hierarchy and the Church, and between the Church
and her Founder.

The vicars of Jesus Christ, from Peter down to
Pius X, in their Christlike practice of the restoration
of the lapsed, both of the clergy and of the laity — have
strictly obeyed the Master's injunction, some of them
even at the cost of terrible persecutions, nay, of a cruel
death brought upon them by the fratricidal machina-
tions of clerical pharisees.

And the one essential test required by the Holy
See for priestly or episcopal restoration, was the one
test required by our Lord of Peter, viz., a public pro-
fession of repentant love and amendment, duly re-
cognized by the visible head of the Church. (John 21.

15—170

Note carefully that the canonical penance inaugur-
ated in the third century only, and eventually abolished
altogether, was nothing (as judiciously remarked by
the Jesuit Father Castelein in his treatise on "Rigor-
ism") but a temporary "system of moral police adapted
to these rude ages", and consequently could form no
essential part of either sacramental or ecclesiastical
restoration, since it was not required either by our
Lord in the case of Peter or subsequently by His vicars
in many other historical cases — for instance, in the
notorious case of the Donatist priests and bishops
who had apostatised from Catholic unity.

112 Peter's Name;

St. Augustin rightly says that the discipline of the
Church was set aside in their favor. Not. that the
Church ever ceased to regard Peter's public profession
of repentance as adequate to secure absolution from
apostasy itself and a fortiori from schism; but be-
cause, in this instance, the Church mercifully refrained
from requiring even such a public profession from
Donatist bishops and priests— and because, moreover,
these were guilty not only of schism but of heinous
anti-social crimes, v. g. mutilation, murder, and other
revolting outrages against Catholics. Now all the
Church asked^them, as schismatics and criminals be-
sides, was, in sign of repentance, to embrace the
true Faith and submit to Peter. The moment they did
submit, they were allowed to retain their rank and of-
fice$; a course eloquently applauded by the great St.
Augustin as being in every way worthy of the suc-
cessor$ of Peter, the vicar of Jesus Christ. — The Pe-
trine test alone was required by Leo XIII of several
priests who had lapsed into the old Catholic Schism,
notably/rthe renegade bishop Kupelian (A. D.) 1879),
who, after deserting the Catholic Church, had sacri-
ligiously received episcopal consecration at the hands
of schismatic bishops and placed himself, as Patriarch,
at the head of a schismatic faction among Catholic
Armenians.

He was restored in full by the Holy Father after
a spiritual retreat of a few days in a convent near
Rome.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 113

III. St. Augustin 's restoration and promotion.

But far more significant than Bishop Kupelian's
is the restoration, coupled with the most exalted pro-
motion, of Augustin, the son of Monica, or rather
the son of her tears.

We shall condense into a few lines the history of
Augustin as told by himself in his immortal Con-
fessions. We give the reference to book and chapter
to enable the reader to verify the correctness of our
statements.

Augustin, according to his own account, was :

(1) An apostate: when 19 years of age, he apos-
tatized from the Catholic Faith of his earliest infancy :
Conf. 1. 4, c. 1; l.^c. n, etc.

(2) Nine years a Manichee, i. e. a notorious rene-
gade far worse than a Christian turned Mohammedan,
for Manicheism was far more degrading than Mo-
hamedanism: Conf. v. 4. c. 1 — .

(3) A rabid propagator of Manicheism for several
years: Conf. 1. 4.^.1,4: $j 1. 6yc. 7.

(4) For years d public calumniator of the Church
and a mocker of her sacraments : Conf. 1. 6, c. 3, 4 ;
1. 5, c. 9.

(5) Twelve years a notorious renegade or public
denier of God Incarnate, viz., from the I9th to the
3ist year of his life: Conf. 1. 7yc. 19.

(6) For sixteen years the notorious <c slave of lust,"
as he calls himself: Conf. 1. 6, c. 15. — viz., from his
i6th to his 32d year : Conf. 1. 2, c. 3 ; 1. 8, c. 5.

(7) For sixteen years an obstinate rebel to the
grace of God and to the tears and example of a great

PETER'S NAME 8

H4 Peter's Name;

heroine, his own blessed mother St. Monica, who for
so many years was a slow-martyr to maternal love
and duty.

Such was Augustin when he returned to the Cath-
olic Faith. No sooner had the Church ascertained the
sincerity of his repentance than she folded him to her
maternal bosom. She not only restored him, but
promoted him (first) to the priesthood and (second)
to the episcopacy. She crowned him with honor as
the soul of her Councils (4th Council of Carthage)
and as the wisest counselor of the Vicar of Jesus
Christ.

The Church followed the example of the heavenly
Father in his treatment of the Prodigal, and the ex-
ample of Christ in His treatment of Peter. She acted,
as the Father of the Prodigal and Christ Himself
did, on the principle, (we repeat), that the reparation
should be as public as the offense — that the good ex-
ample of the convert should be as notorious as the
scandal given — that the lips which publicly taught er-
ror should still more publicly proclaim and preach
Catholic truth — that the life and light of the penitent
should not be throttled and extinguished under the
bushel, but should shine far and wide "to all that are
in the house," of God: (Matt. 5. 15, etc.)

Indeed St. Augustin assures us that our Lord Him-
self, as well as His Church, would not suffer the con-
verted sinner to bury himself in solitude, but urged
him to devote his life to the holy ministry, as the best
way to repair the scandalous past. In other words,
Christ and the Church and natural equity and reason

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 115

unite to cry out that a public offense naturally calls
for a public reparation.

This explains why the Church made Augustin
preside over a Council in the very city of Carthage,
which he had formerly scandalized by his misdeeds.

Was the Church wrong? Did not Christ in person
promote the repentant renegade High Priest of the
New Law, Peter, to the promised office at the head
of the Apostolic college and of the very Church he
had so grievously scandalized?

Nay, more, even under the old Convenant of Fear,
did not Jehovah promote to the High Priesthood,
after the first sign of repentance, the recreant High
Priest-elect of the old Law, Aaron, and set him over
the very nation he had so basely scandalized by openly
sanctioning its apostasy and idolatrous worship of the
golden calf?

Who but an out-and-out Pharisee will hold that
the restored priest or bishop authorized to minister
before God Incarnate present on our allars — should
be deemed unworthy to minister before the people?
Is the people purer than God Incarnate? Such populo-
latry is but another base form of idolatry, and goes
hand in hand with the degrading worship of Mammon
so rampant in this country.

n6 Peter's Name;

IV. St. Augustin persecuted by taunting Pharisees.

The greatest Doctor of the Church, St. Augustin,
had for a life-time to suffer the persecutions of taunt--
ing pharisees. Ah those taunting pharisees, do they not
suggestively put one in mind of the street-dogs that
heed no public notice to commit no nuisance, and
respect not even public mttnuments. Hence it is that that
monumental pillar of the Church, Augustin, did not
escape the nameless humiliation and affront. Indeed,
the immaculate whiteness of the monument and its
heaven-reaching loftiness were but additional incent-
ives to pharisaic defilers.

In his third sermon on the 36th Psalm, the Saint
replies as follows to his pharisaic taunters.

"Thou revilest my past ills: zvhat great things dost
thou therein? I am severer against my ills than thou:
what thou revilest I have condemned. Would thou
wouldst imitate me, and thy error also become past!
Those are past ills, which they know of especially
in this city (Carthage). For here we lived ill, which
I confess.... Yet, ivhatsoever I have been, in the
name of Christ it is passed." (Footnote, page 223 of
Conf. St. Augustine, Revised from a former trans-
lation, by Dr. Pusey, London, 1887.)

Note, en passant, that the Church allowed, nay
urged Augustin to preach, as a bishop, to the very
people who had witnessed his former scandalous life.
"Those are past ills," he says in his sermon, "which
they know of especially in this city: for here we
lived ill, which I confess."

He was obliged to preach a sermon "lest his char-
acter be stained." (Ibidem, page 225, note — )

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 117

It is plain that there were those, in the days of
Augustin, who "would fain have undervalued his
defences of the Faith on account of his sins" (ibid. p.
223 ) . They ostracised or boycotted him and his books.
They stenched his name and his writings; a process
servilely copied by our modern pharisees.

The cowardly assailants of the great Doctor were
not, however, as a rule, of the household of the Faith,
and could not therefore compare in depth of moral
cowardice and perfidy with our own pharisees, who
can boast the superior and privileged dishonor of being
traitors in the very camp of the Church militant.

Little did the mighty moral and intellectual Titan
imagine that the 2Oth century would see — not heretics
indeed — but some of his own self-styled spiritual child-
ren, indirectly cast up the past to him by imitating
his pharisaic persecutors. And, among those self-
styled children, not Martin the Apostate but certain
diminutive orthodox little Martinettis, noble by birth
perhaps but ignoble by character assuredly, — for, alas,
they are not ashamed to unearth and rake up the dung
of pharisaic taunts, once thrown up into the face of
their assumed spiritual Father, — in order to fling it
anew in the eyes of priests long since restored by the
Holy See.

With what indignation would the grand imperial
soul of Augustine disown such bastard natures and
declare them in no way connected with his genuine
spiritual progeny!

n8 Peter's Name;

V. The challenge of Christ and of His Chupeh to Pharisaism

Could our Lord more forcibly impress upon man-
kind that the fundamental function of His Church is
to restore the fallen — than by making a repentant
public sinner the living foundation of His Church?

We repeat the question in a more direct form :
Could our Lord more forcibly impress upon mankind
that the fundamental function of His Church is to
restore the fallen — even fallen priests — than by making
a repentant renegade priest, Peter, the living Founda-
tion of His Church?

Aye, we must put the question in a still more point-
ed form:

Could our Lord more forcibly impress upon man-
kind that the fundamental function of His Church is
to restore the fallen — even fallen bishops — than by
making a repentant renegade bishop, Peter, the living
Foundation of His Church?

Day and night and at morn and at noon and at
-eventide, does the multitudinous voice of the Church
upon whose dominion the Sun of God never sets, shout
and clamor louder than a million thunders :

Hear ye, O Pharisees, Christ made a repentant
public sinner the living Foundation of His Church.

Hear ye, O Pharisees, Christ made a repentant
renegade priest the living Foundation of His Church.

Hear ye, O Pharisees, Christ made a repentant
renegade bishop the living Foundation of His Church
— the head- fountain whence the ministry of salvation
must forever flow to the rest of the human race.

Every Catholic bishop is episcopally descended from
the repentant renegade bishop Simon Peter

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 119

"God allowed" Peter "to fall, because He meant
to make him ruler over the whole world, that, re-
membering his own fall, he might forgive those who
should slip in the future." (S. Chrys. Horn. 73 in
Joan. 5 : ap. Chapman's The Catholic Claims, chap. 5 ) .

Thus is the restoration of Peter, Christ's eternal
challenge to the Pharisaism which depraves the heart
and satanises the soul of man.

Thus is the restoration as well as the promotion
of Augustin, of bishop Kupelian, and of so many
others, the everlasting challenge of the Church to
Pharisaism and all its foul satanic brood; yea, foul
and satanic, for God Incarnate Himself tells us that
Pharisaism is the foul offspring of Satan : John 8. 44 ;
Matt. 23. 27.

I2O Peter's Name;

The Chureh honors the penitent priest or bishop as a true hero.

She looks upon his persecutor, the taunting Pharisee,

as a human insect torturing a moral giant

The Church teaches through the Vicar of Jesus
Christ that the bishop or priest who spontaneously con-
fesses his Sin and retracts his error — not to get thereby
a morsel of bread, but on the contrary, at the cost of
great sacrifices — is verily a martyr to duty and per-
forms an act of exalted heroism in the estimation of
heaven and of all men worthy of the Christian name.

"Indeed," said Leo XIII to such a penitent, "in-
deed, to humbly acknowledge one's fault, to confess
it, to detest it publicly and to make amende honorable
for it, is assuredly the most difficult of virtues; and
this, according to the infallible judgment of divine
Wisdom, instead of humbling and degrading, ennobles
and elevates the soul of him who has been able to
achieve such a victory. In the face of such brilliant
example, all remembrance of past faults is wiped out,"
and consequently, the repentant bishop or priest "by
this act gains," not full restoration alone, but "glory
before God and man."

Such was the Allocution addressed by Leo XIII,
on the 1 8th day of April in the year of grace 1879, to
bishop Kupelian who, as we have said, had apostatised
and sacrilegiously received episcopal consecration from
schismatic bishops.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 121

Why does the Church honor the restored priest as a true hero
and lifelong martyr to duty?

Because, unless prepared to buy his way back into
social recognition by bribing his persecutors — for Mam-
mon covers a multitude of sins in pharisaic circles, and
the pharisee is quite a cheap piece of merchandise —
the restored priest must make up his mind either to
sink into despair or to practice daily acts of heroism
and suffer a lingering martyrdom as long as he lives.
For alas "oppression troubleth the wise and shall de-
stroy the strength of his heart:" Eccl. 7. 8.

His perseverance, under such daily provocations to
despair and such daily invitations to suicide, can only
be secured by a miracle of the grace of God. And
therefore the fact alone of his perseverance makes him
worthy of being revered above others, as a heroic
brother — a myriad-martyred brother.

For, apart from his public confession and heroic
recantation which, according to Leo XIII, prove in
their author the exercise of "the most difficult of vir-
tues,"— apart also, t sometimes, from the sacrifice of
brilliant positions, of a life of luxury which he could
have easily secured, or even retained, by remaining out
of the Church, — he must stand twenty^ thirty, forty
years of slow death at the hands of the pharisee-host.

He must be the daily prey of the clerical blackmail-
er, of the pious blackmailer, of the worldly blackmailer
— the worst of whom is the first, whilst the second is
a human emetic.

He must swim across life's ocean with the mill-
stone of the pharisee-world hanging around his neck.

He must wade for a life-time through a sea of

122 Peter's Name;

bitterness so deep that all existing pharisees, even if
superposed upon one another, could not tower above
it but would quickly disappear under its raging billows.

He must cleave his way to heaven through a harder
barrier than flint, through an army of pharisees who
bar the passage. He must prove stronger than that
army : he must be, morally, a ten-thousand-man power
in one single person.

And alas, and alas, and forever alas, he must be,
as long as he lives, no longer a Diocesan priest but

a Diocesan cuspidor For, the restored priest,

deemed good enough for the Bishop of bishops in
Rome, is not good enough for the Pharisee!

But "the soul of the wounded hath cried out, and
God does not suffer it to pass unrevenged" (Job
24. 12).

His daily prayer therefore is the sad Scriptural
invocation: "I beg, O Lord, that thou loose me from
the bond of this reproach, or else take me away from
the earth." Tob. 3. 15.

O Pharisee, what art thou but a poor miserable
human insect before the superhuman stature of thy
restored brother? Bow down before him and humbly
say to him in the words of Holy Writ: "thou art worth
ten thousand of us": 2 Kings 18. 3.

The pharisee is odious to our Lord because he is
not simply a renegade: he is a double renegade,
for when he denies that the Prodigal is his
brother he thereby denies that the Father of the
Prodigal is his own Father. The eternal Justice of
God has thus ruled that they who deny the Prodigal
deny the Father of the Prodigal and bear the stigma
of double-dyed traitors and renegades.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 123

"Despise not a man that turneth away from sin,
nor reproach him therewith: remember that we are
all worthy of reproach" (Ecclus. 8. 6).

O Pharisee, ever prating about "fallen priests",
remember that even a fallen dog is better than a
standing dunghill — which every pharisee is. And re-
member also that certain creatures can never fall, for
the simple reason that there exists nothing lower than
their own natural level.

O taunting pharisee, remember there is something
incomparably viler than the very dung of the past ; and
that nameless something is the born scavenger-soul
that delights in the dung, unearths it, feasts upon it,
and dwells and abides in it as its native microbe. The
very dogs loathe to unearth one another's dung: rise
up to the level of decent animal instinct.

Whenever you crown yourself with the disgrace
of your fallen brother, you crown yourself with a
crown of dung, and you confess yourself beneath the
refuse of the past since you use it as your crown and
you put your brow beneath that crown : the brow is
lower than the crown that surmounts it !

To fall is human ; but to trample upon the fallen is
monstrous — monstrous cowardice and satanic.

O taunting pharisees, impostors and fratricides
alike, who tearfully preach the parable of the prodigal
whilst stealthily and slowly murdering your own re-
stored brother. In vain has your restored brother shed
a baptism of tears and wept a baptism of blood:
Neither tears nor blood can move the soul of the
pharisee. And now, behold, the blood of your brother
slowly butchered to make a clerical holiday. . . . yes,
the blood of your brother. . . .

124 Peter's Name;

is upon your hands, and upon your head and upon your
soul. That fraternal blood cries vengeance to heaven
and will haunt the judgment seat of God. Vengeance
is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord (Rom. 12. 19).

O blessed Peter, uplifter of the downtrodden and
restorer of the fallen, protect thy poor helpless priests
from those "lording it over the clergy:" i Pet. 5. 3. —
for those lords "are shut up in their own fat and their
mouth speaketh proudly." (Ps. 16. 10.) —

"It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life. . .
It is better for me to die than to live . . . for many dogs
have encompassed me." (Tob. 3. 6; 3 Kings 19. 4; Ps.
21. 17.)

Who but a Pharisee will doom to the life-long de-
gradation of a life-long quarantine a fully restored
brother holding a clean bill of health from Peter's own
successor in person!

Newman's Rebuke to our Pharisees.

"It is our duty to love repentant sinners just as
if they had not sinned." — We must not "treat them
in any degree ( God forbid ! ) as if their approach were
a pollution" to us. — "If Christ condescends to be their
meat and drink, surely the holiest of men need not
scruple to wash their feet."

(Newman: Saintliness not forfeited by Penitents,
in Sermons on Subjects of the Day.)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 125

NOTE XIX

Comparative view of the threefold power vested in the Church
I. The power of Jurisdiction and the power of Order.

(a) Their general nature:

The power of Order gives sacramental power over
the real body of Christ for the salvation and sanctifi-
cation of souls.

The power of Jurisdiction gives authority over the
mystical body of Christ, i. e., power to rule the mem-
bers and subjects of the Church.

The power of Order is purely ministerial or in-
strumental— i. e. it can only transmit, but cannot either
produce or fashion, that which constitutes its object,
viz., the real Body and the grace of the sacraments of
Jesus Christ. God alone creates grace and He com-
municates the same through the ministry of His living
instruments — the episcopate and the priesthood. Priests
and bishops are only the channels, the dispensers — not
the creators or producers or fashioners — but the mere
Dispensers of the Mysteries of God : i. Cor. 4. i ; John

i-33-

%The power of Jurisdiction is not instrumental or
ministerial, but sovereign. It not merely transmits but
produces and makes the laws and precepts which con-
stitute its object: Acts 15. 28, 29, 41; 20. 28 etc.

In short, the power of Order is the mere trans-
mitter of its object, viz., the real Body and the grace
of Jesus Christ — whilst the power of Jurisdiction is
either the producer or the fashioner and framer of its

126 Peter's Name;

object, viz., its own orders, commands, precepts, legis-
lation and ruling control over the mystic body of Christ,
the Catholic Church.

Chief scriptural references: Matt. 18.17; 28.20;
Luke 10. 16; John 10. 2 — 5 ; Acts 14, 22 ; 15, i$, 29, 41 ;
20. 28; i Cor. 5. 3— 5; 7. 6, 10, 12; n. 2, 34; 2 Cor. 13.
10; Eph. 4. ii ; i Tim. i. 19; 3.2; 4. 14; 5. 19,22; 2
Tim. 1.6; 2. 17, 18; Tit i. 5; i Pet. 5.2,4, etc.

(b) Their respective hierarchy :

Three degrees of the power of Order are of Divine
institution, viz., the episcopacy, the priesthood and the
diaconate.

Three degrees of the power of Jurisdiction are of
Divine institution, viz., the papacy, the episcopacy and
the priesthood.

(c) Their genesis and form, or frame :

Both are of God. But whilst the power of Juris-
diction comes directly from the visible head of the
Church — the power of Order springs directly and im-
mediately from Christ in the sacrament of the same
name.

The first (jurisdiction) is mediately of God and
immediately of His Vicar; the second (order) is in-
directly or instrumentally of the Church and immedi-
ately of God who alone can create in the soul the, in-
delible character of His Divine priesthood and the
Deific gift of divine Order.

The power of jurisdiction is not, so to say, ready-
made or specifically determined in advance by the will
of God. It is broadly outlined, not mapped out, by
our blessed Lord: Matt. 18. 18, etc. Its outlines are
to be filled out by Peter or His successor, the pope, who

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 127

is the Christ-appointed disposer, and grantor of the
power (Matt. 16. 18. 19.) in such proportions as he
sees fit.

The power of Order is, so to speak, ready-made,
i. e. specifically determined in advance by the will and
ordinance of Christ — as to its matter, form, subject,
minister and scope. God Himself, not the Church, is
its framer and immediate grantor in the sacrament of
which the bishop is the ministerial instrument only.

In brief, Peter has dominion and authority over the
power of jurisdiction: he may abridge or recall it, or
divide and subdivide its field, as he deems best for the
welfare of the Church.

But he has no such dominion or discretionary auth-
ority over the power of Order, which he can only use
in its divinely set form and fixed measure: he is not
the disposer and grantor thereof, but its mere instru-
ment of transmission.

(d) Their mode of transmission:

The power of jurisdiction is transmitted by appoint-
ment or delegation.

The power of Order cannot be delegated, but can
only be transmitted sacramentally, through the sacra-
ment of ordination.

(e) Their separability:

The power of jurisdiction may exist without the
power of Order, and vice versa. The first may be del-
egated by the proper authority, to one who is not in
sacred Orders, to a simple cleric or even to a layman —
whilst the power of Order may be conferred on one
from whom jurisdiction is withheld partly or alto-
gether.

128 Peter's Name;

There is but one sacrament the validity of which
depends on the union of the two powers of Order and
Jurisdiction viz., the sacred tribunal of Penance, which
is essentially judicial in its very nature. Now, judg-
ment can only be passed on one legally subject or amen-
able to the juage, i. e. upon one over whom the judgt
holds legal jurisdiction. Impossible, therefore, to rend-
er judgment in the sacrament of Penance without ade-
quate jurisdiction over the penitent.

(f) Their respective irrevocable or revocable char-
acter :

The power of Order in the Church is as irrevocable
as the character imprinted by the sacrament: for in-
stance, a priest or a bishop can never lose the power
of consecrating validly the matter of the Sacrifice of the
New Law.

But the power of Jurisdiction is revocable at the
discretion of the Vicar of Jesus Christ: Matt. 16.
18, 19.

(g) Their respective apportionment:

The power of Order can only be conferred in equal
and immutable measure on each priest and bishop:
it is fixed, abiding, unchangeable.

The power of Jurisdiction is conferred in varying
and unequal measure upon clerics of the very same
degree of Order, according to the needs of the Church.
Nay, it may vary, be increased or diminished in the
same individual and though the latter remains in the
same rank of Orders. For instance, a priest, whilst
remaining simply a priest, may be promoted in the
jurisdictional scale and exercise quasi-episcopal juris-
diction as administrator of a diocese — or may be grant-

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 129

ed a far greater amount of jurisdiction than any bishop,
v. g. as Papal legate.

(h) Their immediate effect:

The immediate effect of the power of Order — be-
sides the sacerdotal character it imprints — is the sanc-
tification of the Church ex opere operato. It produces
the world-wide cohesive force of a world-wide unity of
divine life and love throughout the universal Church.

The immediate effect of the power of Jurisdiction
is to produce the world-wide cohesive force of a world-
wide unity of action throughout the universal Church :
its ultimate effect is our sanctification ex opere oper-
ands.

The main points of difference between Order and
Jurisdiction are thus admirably recapitulated by Mon-
signor Capel:

"It will be remarked that in appointing these pas-
tors there was (i) 'imposition of hands' and (2) 'being

sent.' (Heb. 13. 7, 17; Acts ch. 13 and 6. 6 ) The

'imposition of hands' is the sacrament of Orders, and,
in common with the other sacraments, its effect is
conferred direct by God. . . . But the 'Commission'
or 'being sent' is derived direct from the Apostles.
It specifies where, how, and when the divine
authority is to be exercised by the individual pastor . . .
These two powers are distinguished as the power of
Order and the power of Jurisdiction. Both are of
God: the one comes direct through the sacrament of
Order; the other indirectly from God through the
Church by appointment.

PETER'S NAME Q

130 Peter 's Name;

In the early Church they were often conferred
simultaneously : still they were looked upon as distinct
operations. The power of jurisdiction is not necessari-
ly attached to Orders ; though for some acts, such
as absolution from sin, both are necessary. The Apost-
les and the Seventy, who were sent out at first two
and two, had jurisdiction but not Orders. A man may
be a bishop and yet not be a bishop of a diocese. On
the other hand, a duly and canonically confirmed
bishop-elect possesses jurisdiction without the episcopal
power to confirm and to ordain. A deposed bishop
is still possessed of his episcopal power, but he is
deprived of jurisdiction or cure of souls. His ordina-
tions would be valid ; his absolutions null and void.

The power of Order gives capacity; the powei
of jurisdiction permits the use of authority. The
distinction between 'can' and 'may,' the former ex-
pressing inherent, the latter dependent power — affords
a good illustration of the subject. The dispenser of the
power of Order is but an instrument, the grantor of
the power of jurisdiction exercises authority and dom-
inion. The first, coming directly from Christ, is abid-
ing, unchangeable, and is conferred in equal measure
on each priest or bishop. The second, not coming
immediately but through the Church from Christ to
individuals, is conferred in varying proportions as
may be deemed expedient for the good of souls."
("Catholic," ist ed., p. 23.)

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 131

II. The power of Jurisdiction and the magisterial or teaching

power

(a) Their respective extent:

The jurisdiction of the Church extends to her own
members and subjects only.

Her magisterial infallible prerogative embraces all
mankind.

(b) Their respective functions:

The magisterial power is the infallible eye that
descries the truths of Revelation. Its function is to
make known, expound and define the Divine law and
doctrine.

The jurisdictional power is the right arm of the
Church. Its function is to enforce, defend, and vindi-
cate her magisterial decisions by means of laws, pre-
cepts, and penalties.

(c) The different character of the obligation they
generate :

(First) The magisterial power demands of all,
per se, the obedience of divine faith due to God the
Revealer.

The Jurisdictional power demands, of its subjects
only, the obedience of ecclesiastical faith in the pre-
cepts of the Church.

The first requires the adoring obedience due to God
alone ; the second, the reverent obedience due to God's
representative, the Catholic Church.

In the ex-cathedra pronouncements of the magis-
terial power, the motive of obedience held out by the
Church is that God himself was in the past the direct
and immediate Revealer of the truth of which she
is the simple promulgator — and that, by consequence,

132 Peter's Name;

a denial or non-acceptance of these truths is a direct
and immediate disobedience, nay a giving the lie, to
God the Revealer in person.

On the other hand, the Church tells us that God
is not the direct author or revealer of her own ec-
clesiastical laws — which consequently cannot command
the adoring abedience we owe to the word of the
Revealer. A violation of the laws of the Church
connotes direct disobedience to the enactor of those
laws, viz., the Church herself — but constitutes simply
an act of indirect disobedience to God who founded
the Church indeed, but is not, after all, the immediate
framer of her own laws, precepts, and ordinances.

(Second) When the Church, in her magisterial
capacity, promulgates a truth as part of the deposit
of Revelation, the consequent obligation of divine
faith and adoring obedience is, per se, universal and as
irrevocable, as immutable, as the truth she promul-
gates. But when the Church, in her ruling, or governing
capacity, enacts a law or issues a command — the con-
sequent obligation of absolute obedience is not uni-
versal and is, moreover, revocable and mutable at
her own wise discretion. It is not universal, since it
goes no further than the law itself which cannot
bind the unbaptized and which frequently concerns
only a portion of the Church — v. g. the clergy, or the
religious orders, or the laity. It is revocable at will,
and not immutable, since the Church is free to ab-
rogate, suspend, or modify her own laws.

(d) The immediate framers of their respective
object-matter :

God is the direct author of revelation, which forms
the object-matter of the magisterial power.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 133

The Church herself is the direct author of ec-
clesiastical law, which forms the object-matter of the
jurisdictional power.

(e) Their immediate effects :

The immediate effect of the magisterial power is
to produce the world-wide cohesive force of a world-
wide unity of faith throughout the universal Church.

The immediate effect of the jurisdictional power
(as mentioned above) is to produce the world-wide
cohesive force of a world-wide unity of action through-
out the universal Church. (Cf. Franzelin's posthum.
thesis on the Church.)

134 Peter's Name;

NOTE XX

Did all the Apostles receive their jurisdiction from Christ
exclusively?

Peter alone did. The other Apostles received
jurisdiction both from its creator, Jesus Christ, and
from its original Apostolic possessor (Peter) as from
a visible joint-source of authority. That is to say,
both Christ and Peter — the first, by His own inde-
pendent sovereign will and with the full ' knowledge
of the other apostles (Luke 24. 42, etc) ; the second,
by his own responsive and concurrent will — both Christ
and Peter caused the plenitude of authority till then
locked up in the Apostolic head (Matt. 16. 18, 19;
John 21. 15 — 17), to fill up the entire Apostolic
body: Matt. 18. 18.

Even as the Father imparted His authority to
Christ (John 20. 21, etc.), and then jointly with Christ
(John 21. 15, 17) imparted the same to Peter but in
subordination to Christ — so did the latter first im-
part ^ to the other Apostles, but in subordination to
Peter: Matt. 28. 18.

The profoundly significant fact that authority was
first infused into the Apostolic head alone, and thence
subsequently diffused into the whole body, most forcib-
ly intimates that such a diffusion of authority was
brought about by the will of Christ and the concur-
rent will of its Apostolic possessor. For, of a cer-
tainty, when our Lord made Peter, under and with

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 135

Him, the foundation and visible head of the Church
(Matt. 1 6. 18; John 21. 17), and at the same time
deposited in him alone and separately the fulness of
Apostolic authority (ibid.) — He thereby declared him
the material or passive source, at least, of said author-
ity— since the head is naturally the source whence the
body derives light, guidance, and governance.

Now, God did not leave His grand fwork
unfinished and half done : therefore does He, in Matt.
1 8. 1 8, distinctly forewarn the Apostfes that the then
material source-elect of authority (Peter) must be
prepared to become, later on, the active and formal
source thereof. How? By filling up the whole body
therewith, by a positive act of mis own will, under
the express will of Christ, as recorded in Matt. 28. 18.

Nay, more, the very promise of Christ to all His
Apostles, in Matt. 18. 18. that the authority first
deposited in Peter (Matt. 16. 18; John 21. 17) would
eventually be trans fered to the rest of the body —
was tantamount to a twofold notice served long in
advance upon Peter and upon his fellow-apostles.
To Peter it clearly signified: "Be prepared, O thou
my chosen Apostolic head, to co-operate with Me by
a positive act of thy will in the distribution of authoi-
ity from the Apostolic head and actual possessor there-
of, thyself, to the other Apostolic members."

To the Apostles it obviously meant: "Be pre-
pared, O ye my Apostles, to receive authority, now
wholly resident in Peter, from the concordant will of
Peter and Mine own/'

Our Lord does not make, in Matt. 18. 18, the absurd
promise that the Apostolic members shall share the

136 Peter's Name;

inalienable headship of Peter — for, then, their body
would only be a many-headed, a twelve-headed mons-
trosity. What Christ does promise to the Apostles
collectively taken, i. e. to the whole Apostolic body
as constituted by Himself under the headship of Peter,
(Matt. 16. 19; John 21. 17 ,etc.) is this: Full auth-
ority shall naturally descend from the head to the
rest of the body (Matt. 18. 18), but always (bear in
mind) under the supremacy of the Christ-appointed
head, Peter: Matt. 16. 18; John 21. 17.

Thus the Apostles will derive their authority from
Christ and Peter jointly, and will exercise it as faithful
members, and consequently in perfect subordination
to the Apostolic head appointed by our Lord, (ibid.)

The profound truth to be insisted upon is that
thV above-mentioned circulation of authority from the
Apostolic 'head to *the Apostolic members will be
brought about by the will of Christ and the obediently
concurrent will of the Apostolic head, wherein the
aforesaid authority was first deposited and perma-
nently resides.

The rash assertion that the other eleven Apostles,
besides Peter, received jurisdiction from Christ ex-
clusively and not from Peter simultaneously, would,
if true, create the reasonable presumption that the
successors of the Apostles, the bishops, do still re-
ceive it in the same way, i. e. as the pope does, im-
mediately from our Lord and from no one else. The
proposition, as it stands, is but a half-truth and fatally
mischievous as well as misleading. The whole truth
is that eleven of the Apostles received jurisdiction

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 137

from Christ and Peter jointly and simultaneously —
Peter alone remaining the one visible source of auth-
ority after the ascension of our Lord.

Such is the teaching of the Holy Fathers : For in-
stance, St. Optatus writes without hesitating that the
other Apostles received the Keys from Peter : "Beatus
Petrus et praeferri omnibus Apostolis meruit et claves
regni coelorum communicandas caeteris solus accepit."
(De schism. Donat. centra Parmen., 1.7, c. 3. et 1.2,
c. 2.)

Pope St. Leo the Great is as emphatic as St. Opta-
tus, and says: "If Christ willed that the other rulers
should enjoy aught together with him" (Peter) "yet
never did He gave save through him what He denied
not to others." (Serm. 4.)

It was meet^in^fiao, that^
diction from Christ in person, the better to remind us
all that Christ is the meritorious efficient cause, not
less than the original source, of authority in the Church.

It was equally meet that the subordinate eleven
Apostles should receive jurisdiction from Peter jointly
with Christ — to remind the Apostles themselves that
Christ's Vicar was then, yes, even then, the visible
source of Apostolic authority.

It was meet, in fine, that, after His ascension, Christ
should safeguard the prestige and strengthen the hands
of His Vicar by leaving the latter behind Him as the
one visible source of jurisdiction in the Church
militant.

138 Peter's Name;

NOTE XXI

Comparative powers of Peter and of the other Apostles

As to the power of Order, the other Apostles were
the peers of Peter.

As regards the power of jurisdiction and the ma-
gisterial power, they were his subordinates.

(a) Peter received his authority, as we have seen,
from Christ exclusively.

The other Apostles received theirs both from
Christ and Peter jointly and simultaneously.

(b) The authority of the other apostles was lim-
ited to the Christians outside the Apostolic college it-
self, over which they had no jurisdiction.

Peter's authority alone extended over the Apostles,
over each of them individually and all of them col-
lectively, and over the whole Church. He could give
precepts and commands to the Apostles, dispense from
their laws, repeal these and replace them by laws of
his own.

(c) The authority of the apostles was conditioned
on their adhesion and subordination to Peter.

The authority of Peter was unconditional and
supreme.

(d) The other apostles were bound, under pain
of schism, to affiliate all the Christian communities
they established, with the person of Peter: else, they
had failed to build on the visible foundation laid by
the Lord, viz., the Rock, Peter.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 139

Peter was under no such obligation toward his fel-
low-Apostles: they must build on the Rock, not the
Rock on them.

(e) The personal infallibility with which each of
the other Apostles was endowed was a temporary and
exceptional privilege intended to meet temporary and
exceptional exigencies, — and, above all, was condi-
tioned on their adhesion to the Rock-confirmer of the
Faith : Luke 22. 32.

Peter's infallibility belonged to his office as the
Confirmer of the Faith (ibid.), and must needs be as
permanent as the Petrine or Papal office itself. Note
that whilst, on the one hand, the subordinate jurisdic-
tion of the Apostles and their individual infallibility
were conditioned on their adhesion to the Vicar of
Jesus Christ, — they had, on the other hand, been con-
firmed in grace and received a Divine promise of perse-
verance in their loyalty to Peter. Such is the teaching
of Divine Tradition.

(f) Peter alone — singly, separately, independently
— received a unique and universal commission from the
Founder of the Church: Matt. 16. 18, 19; Luke 22. 31,
32; John 21. 15, 1 6. 17.

The other Apostles received collectively and cor-
porately, i. e. as already constituted by our Lord under
Peter — -a general and collective commission only : Matt.
18. 18 ; Mark 16. 15 ; John 20. 21.

Their individual jurisdiction was thus plainly de-
clared by the Lord Himself to be, firstly, subordinate
to their visible head, Peter; and, secondly, restricted
or limited — since it was not the plenitude or universa-

140 Peter's Name;

lity, but a mere component part, of their corporate
authority under Peter. For, a power divided among
several is necessarily bounded, in each participator,
by the boundaries of undue interference with, or en-
croachment upon, one another.

It is quite otherwise with powers conferred sep-
arately upon one single individual. Here, for instance,
is a fact of colossal magnitude and significance: all
the powers conferred on the Apostles corporately
(Matt. 18. 18; 28. 18) ; had been previously conferred
on Peter singly and individually (Matt. 16. 18, 19; John
21. 17). But the converse does not hold, since the
four great prerogatives granted to Peter were never
extended to the other Apostles: Peter alone was the
Rock (Matt. 16. 18; John 1.42), the Keyward (Matt.
16. 19), the Confirmer of the Faithful (Luke 22. 32),
the universal Shepherd. (John 21. 17.)

The words of Christ, "Go ye into the world" (Mark
1 6. 15) were addressed to all the Apostles collectively,
and corporately under their God-appointed head, Peter ;
they did not and could not apply to each of them in-
dividually. Excepting the universal Shepherd's, every
Apostle's sphere of action was necessarily restricted
by that of every other brother Apostle. In point of
fact, tradition, history, and ancient liturgies of the
East and of the West attest that — before their final
dispersion — the Apostles districted out and apportioned
the world among themselves under the headship of him
whom Christ had set over them as the universal Pastor
(John 21. 17). Each therefore of the other Apostles
had a Portion of the earth allotted to his share —
but Peter had previously received from Christ in

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 141

person the whole world as his diocese or field of opera-
tion: John 21. 17.

Neither Holy Writ nor tradition breathes one word
in favor of the untenable opinion that every Apostle
enjoyed universal jurisdiction : an opinion which cannot
stand the test of deep thought and thorough research.
To elucidate:

The jurisdiction of Peter was universal, ordinary,
i. e. inherent in his office.

The jurisdiction of the other Apostles was limited
and twofold. It was ordinary and extraordinary, or
delegated. Their ordinary jurisdiction did not extend
beyond the special field allotted to each when, before
parting and taking leave of one another, they (as we
have said) divided the world into districts under and
by the authority of the visible head, Peter — as attested
by St. Leo the Great, in his first sermon on SS. Peter
and Paul. (Rom. Brev., i8th of January.)

Their extraordinary jurisdiction extended beyond
their allotted sphere, but only so far and as often as
required by the good of Religion. Now, the interest
of religion did certainly not require that the jurisdiction
of every one of the twelve Apostles should comprise
all the clergy and all the faithful diffused over the face
of the globe. In other words, the interest of religion
did not require the existence of twelve Peters, but of
one and one only, to wit: the one Peter named after
Himself, by our divine Saviour: the one universal Shep-
herd, the one visible center and the one visible bond of
the ^>ne yicib^ r^nt^ a^d thf nt^ yir.iKIp bnn^ nf
unity. It was enough that each of the other Apostles
should have, not universal dominion, but a limited

142 Peter's Name;

though extraordinary jurisdiction extending as far as
circumstances demanded, and no farther.

We repeat, one Rock was enough, and God did not
create twelve Peters: infinite Wisdom indulges not in
superfluous creations. To illustrate: St. Paul's or-
dinary jurisdiction covered the immense regions evan-
gelised by himself. Beyond that line, he possessed
delegated jurisdiction only, in places evangelised by the
other Apostles and subsequently visited by himself —
v. g. in the Church of Rome, founded by Peter. But
his jurisdiction, either ordinary or delegated, was not
universal. It did not reach, for instance, the province
of the Apostle Thomas in India, nor that of the
Apostle Simon the Cananean in Persia etc.

As already stated, the good of souls called not for
a Church-wide extension of authority in every Apostle,
but for an occasional extension, limited by the require-
ments of arising emergencies.

Now, who could delegate and grant such extraor-
dinary jurisdiction to each of the Apostles before their
voluntary dispersion to the four parts of the earth?
Who, but he to whom singly and separately Christ had
given the plenitude of authority by making him the
foundation of the Apostolic college, the Confirmer of
the Apostolic body, the supreme Shepherd of all the
Apostles as well as of the rest of the universal Church :
Matt. 16. 18, 19; Luke 22. 32; John 21. 17.

(g) The extraordinary jurisdiction of each Apostle,
being not only limited and temporary but simply dele-
gated, was therefore untransmissible of its nature, or
per se. It died a natural death and ceased altogether
with the temporary necessities that gave rise to it, i. e.
with the last of the Apostles.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 143

Peter's jurisdiction, being ordinary or inherent in
his office, is and must needs be as transmissible as the
office to which it essentially belongs.

The theory that every Apostle had universal juris-
diction is indefensible. Even the partisans of the
theory acknowledge with all Catholic theologians that,
excepting Peter alone, none of the Apostles had, either
collectively or individually, any authority whatever
over one another, and much less over the entire Apos-
tolic body. Such an acknowledgment is a plain con-
fession that the jurisdiction of the other Apostles was
not universal, since it did' not include the noblest part
of the Church — her Apostolic princes and rulers — who,
by Divine appointment, recognised Peter alone as their
visible superior and sovereign ruler.

Why does the successor of Pater receive the plenitude of juris-
diction immediately from Jesus Christ Himself?

Because neither the bishops nor the priests — col-
lectively or individually — nor the whole Church, ever
received the pontifical power granted to Peter and his
successors exclusively (ibid.). — They cannot therefore
communicate that which they have not, i. e. the pon-
tifical sovereignty; nor can any one else on earth.
There remains but one alternative: either Peter never
had any successor, the pledge of Christ to the contrary
notwithstanding (Matt. 16. 18 etc.) — or the successor
of Peter, like Peter himself, receives his sovereign in-
vestiture immediately from Jesus Christ, who promised
to perpetuate the Petrine office despite all the hostile
powers or "gates of hell." (Ibid.)

144 Peter's Name;

Why do the bishops receive jurisdiction immediate-
ly from the Vicar of Jesus Christ?

Because our Lord made Peter the principle and
bond of Apostolic unity, and therefore ordained that
his bishops should receive jurisdiction not by consecra-
tion but by appointment — which of course can only
come from a superior, and consequently from the Vicar
of Christ on earth.

How do we know that the bishops do not receive
jurisdiction by means of consecration or ordination,
together with the fulness of the sacrament of Order,
but by appointment from the Holy See?

From the words and actions of our Lord : for, by ap-
pointment exclusively did he confer jurisdiction on the
Apostles both before and after their ordination and
quite independently of it — thereby teaching (a) that
jurisdiction is not conferred by the sacrament of Order
but by appointment — and (b) that it may be conferred
on men not vested with the clerical dignity, i. e. on the
laity — even as it may be withheld from those vested
with the episcopal character, as it was from the Apos-
tles from the day of their ordination (Matt. 21. 26)
to the eve of the Ascension (Matt. 28. 18) : it being
thoroughly distinct and separable from the priestly
power of Order.

Comparative powers of the Pope and of the bishops

(a) As regards the power of Order, the bishops
are the equals of the pope : sacerdotally, he is a bishop
and so are they; they, as well as he, have received the
plenitude of the priesthood.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 145

But they are his inferiors and his subjects in the
domain of jurisdiction and of the magisterial power.
One man on earth may, but intermittently and for
a few minutes only, justly exercise authority over the
Vicar of Jesus Christ — namely, the pope's confessor
when hearing the august penitent's confession.

(b) The Holy Father receives his jurisdiction
directly from Jesus Christ at the instant he accepts the
papal office, after his canonical election.

The bishops receive their jurisdiction immediately
from the Vicar of Christ, the visible head of the
Church.

(c) The jurisdiction of the Holy Father is uni-
versal and Church-wide ; the jurisdiction of the bishops
is local and restricted to their diocese or to the sphere
allotted to them by the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

(d) The jurisdiction of the Holy Father is sup-
reme and independent; the jurisdiction of the bishops
subordinate and dependent on the authority of the pope.

(e) The pope is above purely human laws, civil
and ecclesiastical — above the whole body of the Church
universal; bishops are subject to the Holy Father and
to all the laws and councils of the Church. In their
relations with the sovereign Pontiff, they belong to the
Church Governed, not to the Church Governing.

(f) The pope alone is the infallible teacher of the
Church ex-cathedra, i. e. from the magisterial Chair
of Peter.

Every other bishop is individually fallible, and in
his relations with the successor of Peter, every bishop

PETER'S NAME 10

146 Peter's Name;

belongs to the Church Taught, not to the Church
Teaching.

The whole episcopal body acting jointly with the
visible head of the Church partakes of the infallibility
of the Christ-appointed head, and is infallible by virtue
of Christ's solemn promise to Peter : Luke 22. 32.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 147
NOTE XXII

How can it be known that the extraordinary jurisdiction and

the personal infallibility of each of the Apostles do not endure

in their successors?

Answer: — From the testimony of Holy Scripture
and the irrefragable witness of history.

We gather from Holy Writ that Titus, bishop of
Crete (Tit. i. 5) and Timothy, bishop of Ephesus
(Tim. 1.3), and the other bishops appointed by the
Apostles (i Pet. 5. 2; Apoc. 2. i, 8, 12, 18), — v. g. the
bishops of Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira — possessed
nothing more than the local and ordinary jurisdiction
enjoyed by bishops nowadays in their respective dio-
ceses.

History knows of no bishops, except the successors
of St. Peter, that ever claimed universal jurisdiction
over the Church. Not even Photius, or Cerularius, or
any of their schismatic successors, ever dared to claim
authority over the holy Roman Church. Even now,
Eastern schismatics recognise the Pope as the first
Patriarch of the Church.

That the Apostles themselves did not regard the
bishops consecrated by them as endowed, individually,
with magisterial infallibility, seeing evident from St.
Paul's address to the Church officials whom he dis-
tinctly calls "bishops" (Acts 20.28), and whom he
summoned from Ephesus to Miletus. For, he predicts
that some of them will fall into schism and heresy.

148 Peter's Name;

"Of your own selves," says he, "shall arise men speak-
ing perverse things to draw away disciples after them"
(Acts 20. 30). He puts the bishop of Ephesus, Tim-
othy, on his guard against possible errors of doctrine
as follows : "Avoid foolish and old wives' fables ....
till I come attend to reading, to exhortation and to
doctrine^i. Tim. 4. 7, 13),— "Avoid foolish and un-
learned questions" (2. Tim. 2. 23).

He gives the same warning to the bishop of Crete,
Titus, to whom he writes : "In all things show thyself
an example of good work, in doctrine, in integrity, in
gravity" (Tit. 2. 7)— "Avoid foolish questions" (Tit.

3- 9).

History attests that, from the death of the last A-
postle to this 2oth century, never have the bishops of
the Church of God arrogated to themselves the special
Apostolic prerogative of individual infallibility. The
only infallible personality they ever recognised is that
of the Christ-appointed Confirmer of the Faith (Luke-
22.32), Peter the Rock, ever living in his successors
(Matt. 1 6. 18., etc.), viz., the bishop of Rome (i Pet.
5. 13) — the "Babylon" from which Peter dates his
first Epistle. "Babylon, that is to say, heathen perse-
cuting Rome, as the Sibylline books of Jewish origin
had long ago named it', observes Dr. Barry, (Papal
Monarchy, p. 18).

The most overwhelming proof that the individual
infallibility of every bishop is not essential to the pre-
servation of the deposit of the Faith, is the fact that
the Church has been doing without such a supererog-
atory gift for 1900 years without deviating by one
single line from the path of revealed truth. Therefore,

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 149

the experience of nineteen centuries proves that the
three divine weapons of (a) continuous Tradition and
(b) of close communion with the infallible Confirmer
of the Faith together with (c) the corporate infall-
ibility of the episcopate under its visible head — have
abundantly sufficed to keep the Church from error.

Contrariwise, the extraordinary privilege of invid-
ual infallibility was a morally imperative necessity as
regards the twelve very first introducers of Christian-
ity to the world. For, had the very first seed sown
into the virgin soil of the Church been the cockle of
false doctrine, error would have claimed the right of
the first occupant, and the resultant evil had been ir-
remediable by reason of the boundless faith reposed in
the Apostles. No subsequent missionary efforts could
have repaired the harm done. Nay, such efforts would
have been repulsed with scorn by the disciples of the
Apostles, who would have plausibly replied : "We would
rather believe the Apostles, sent directly by the Saviour
in person, than strangers and innovators."

Thus it would have come to pass that, the vaster
the prestige of the Apostles, the more invincible the
tenacity of their followers to cling to the Apostolic
errors preached to them from the very start.

150 Peter's Name;

NOTE XXIII

Comparative Church-powers of Christ and of Peter

(First) — The threefold power of Christ as King,
Prophet, and Priest, belongs to Him by right of nature
and of absolute domain over all creation; whilst it be-
longs to Peter by grace of participation only, and
through the infinite mercy of the Saviour.

(Second) — The universality of Christ's threefold
power is absolute and infinite; whilst the universality,
or rather the plenitude, of Peter's power is merely re-
lative, i. e. it covers the entire sphere allotted to the
whole Church — but that sphere itself is limited, as we
shall proceed to show.

(1) Christ's Kingship is infinite. Peter's authority
is circumscribed by the law of God and by the consti-
tution of the Church as determined by her Lord and
Master. Consequently, (a) Peter, or the Pope, cannot
change the form of Church government — v. g. substi-
tute autocracy for the Divine monarchy established by
our Lord; (b) he cannot alter the order of the hier-
archy— v. g. substitute priests or laymen for bishops
in the ordinary and permanent administration of the
Church; (c) he cannot create a new Church; (d) he
cannot abrogate the existent Church, as Christ did the
Synagogue.

(2) Christ's infallibility as Prophet or Teacher is
absolute and infinite, not limited to questidns of Faith
and morals ; it is inseparable from his Person and from
his every act and utterance.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 151

Peter's infallibility is limited to the public exercise
of his office and is circumscribed by the deposit of Re-
velation, i. e. by both the written and the unwritten
Word of God, by Holy Writ and by Divine tradition.

Consequently, (a) the pope cannot reveal new
truths, (b) he cannot affix a new meaning to the Word
of God; (c) he cannot set aside the New Testament
or Divine tradition, or replace the law of Christ by a
new law of his own device.

Besides, he may err as a private individual, and is
infallible only as a public person teaching officially the
whole Church in matters of Faith (Matt. 28. 19. etc.),
and of morals (Matt. 16. 15 etc.) i. e. as to what
God requires us to believe and to do to be acceptable to
his divine Majesty.

(3) Christ's power as the High Priest of the Most
High is causative and infinite.

Peter's sacerdotal power is not causative but in-
strumental, and is circumscribed by the seven Sacra-
ments, or channels of grace, instituted by our Lord.

Consequently, (a) Peter, or the pope, cannot add
to the number of the sacraments; (b) he cannot sub-
tract therefrom; (c) he cannot alter their form; (d)
he cannot change the matter thereof; (e) he cannot
change their nature, v. g. turn the sacraments of the
living into sacraments of the dead, and vice versa;
(f) he cannot modify their character, whether delible
or indelible; (g) still less can he abolish them, or any
of them, altogether.

But Christ could at will effect the above and count-
less other additions, subtractions, or changes — or sup-
press all the sacraments without exception, by enabling

152 Peter's Name;

human nature to do away with its inborn need of, and
craving for, a sacramental system.

Falsely therefore is the Church accused of putting
Peter above our Lord Himself. On the contrary, she
declares Peter infinitely beneath the Master, not only
as priest and prophet and king, but particularly as the
foundation of the Church. When non-Catholics charge
the Church with substituting Peter for Christ as the
Rock whereon she is built, they know not whereof
they speak and ignore her most notorious doctrine,
which the sweet genius of St. Francis de Sales sum-
marises with forceful lucidity.

We transpose and arrange the various paragraphs
and sentences of our quotation from the Saint, so as
to present a parallel tableau of the prerogatives of
Christ and Peter -grwU their office as Foundation of
the Church.

First difference : our Lord is Foundation and Foun-
der; St. Peter is foundation, not founder.

Second difference: Christ is the Foundation with-
out other foundation ; Peter is foundation, but founded
on another Foundation, which is our blessed Lord
Himself.

Third difference: Christ is the Foundation of the
Natural, Mosaic, and Evangelic Church; Peter is the
foundation of the Evangelic Church alone.

Fourth difference: Christ is Foundation perpetual
and immortal; Peter is foundation subject to suc-
cession.

Fifth difference: Christ is Foundation of the Mili-
tant and Triumphant Church; Peter is foundation of
the Militant not of the Triumphant Church.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 153

Sixth difference : Christ is Foundation by His own
nature; Peter is foundation by participation — minis-
terial, not absolute foundation — in short, administrator,
not Lord.

Seventh difference : Christ is the Foundation of our
faith, hope and charity — and of the efficacy of the
sacraments. Peter is in no way the foundation of our
faith, hope, and charity — nor of the efficacy of the
Sacraments. (St. Francis de Sales: Cath. Contro-
versy, Eng. tr., p. 246.)

154 Peter's Name;

NOTE XXIV

The alternative: either Peter or atheism

The ablest thinkers in the allied camps of Ration-
alism and Protestantism frankly acknowledge that
whoever can delve deep down to the very bedrock of
the Religious question — must face, at the bottom of
it all, the following alternative : either there is no Di-
vine revelation, or the Catholic Church, the Church
of Peter, is in possession of it.

In four brief words : either Peter or atheism.

The argument is without a flaw.

They say : a revelation intrusted to/depository liable
to falsify or misapprehend, or mistranslate, its meaning
— would be of no practical use, and therefore un-
worthy the infinite wisdom of a Divine revelator.

Consequently, either there is no Revelation at all,
or it has been intrusted to a medium of infallible reli-
ability— i. e. to an infallible interpreter.

But the Catholic Church alone claims to be such
an infallible interpreter of Revelation. Therefore, if
the Catholic Church is false, there is no divine Revela-
tion; and if there is no divine Revelation there is no
Providence caring for and watching over the welfare
of man; and if there is no Providence there is no
God.

For, if the unsilenceable clamor of the soul for a
Divine positive reply to the Whence and the Whether
and the Wherefore — must remain without a Divine
positive assurance, which assurance alone can make

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 155

life worth living — then there is no Providence; and
if there is no Providence there is no God, i. e. no
Supremely Good Being overruling the destinies of
mankind. So that, in the last analysis, as acknowledged
nowadays by thinking Rationalists and Protestants, if
Catholicity is not a Divine religion or revelation, then
there is no Revelation whatsoever. If there is no
Revelation there is no Providence; if there is no
Providence there is no God.

We recapitulate the substance of the argument
used by Protestant and rationalist thinkers: No Cath-
olicity, logically means no Revelation. No Revelation,
logically means no Providence. No Providence, logic-
ally means no God.

Therefore, no Catholicity, logically means Atheism.

Therefore, human reason, in its ultimate findings,
is confronted with this alternative: either Catholicism
or atheism. Either Peter, the Rock — or intellectual,
moral and social anarchy, ending in Despair.

The subtlest genius England ever produced, John
Henry Newman, had already, even before joining the
Catholic Church, reached this inexorable conclusion —
which is gradually burning its inexorable logic into the
acutest minds of the age, and is visibly beginning to
divide the civilized world, on the subject of Religion,
into two distinct camps, and two only viz., Catholics
and Atheists.

The famous author of "Is Life Worth Living,"
W. H. Mallock, writes :

"The reality of supernatural religion being granted,
the Roman Church alone of all the churches gives to

156 Peter's Name;

such a Religion a logical and ^gmafl^coherent form."
(Mallock's reply to Father Fallon's note of inquiry,
dated January 23, 1899.)

Put in syllogistic form, Mr. Mallock's argument
is as follows:

If there exists a "supernatural religion," it must
necessarily be embodied in a rational or "logical form"
worthy of such a supernatural boon; but its only
"logical form" is "the Roman Church alone of all the
churches" — therefore, outside "the Roman Church,"
there is no supernatural religion, no Divine revelation.

The admission of a very influential Protestant
journal, the Christian Register, is still more emphatic:
It begins by asking, "Is any religion given by divine
revelation and supernatural authority? If so, which
Religion has been so given, what are its credentials
and what is its authority?"

The crucial query is answered in the following
pithy sentence: "When it comes to the final test
there is no escape from the most extreme position of
the Catholic Church or a total rejection of it."

That is to say : either there is no revealed Religion,
or that Religion, says the Register, must be "the
Catholic Church" — since, says the same witness, it
must be both infallible and sovereign, and the Catholic
Church alone of all the churches claims to be in-
fallible in her teaching and sovereign in her authority.

"Revealed Religion," says the Register, "is infallible
if God knows the truth and knows how to tell
it." Therefore, even according to the Register, to
deny the infallibility of revealed Religion is to blas-
pheme against the Omniscience and Wisdom of God
the Revealer.

or, a Divine Credential in a Name 157

Of the sovereign authority inherent in such a Re-
vealed Religion, the Register writes: "A Religion
given by supernatural authority is not to be neglected
or resisted. It has the right to command the al-
ligiance of every human being. Outside of this Re-
ligion there is no truth that can be set over against
it, and beyond its jurisdiction no human being has
the right to live, or, living, to choose his own course
of action." (Quoted by the N. Y. Freeman's Journal,
March 29, 1902 — Italics ours.)

The logical conclusion of the Protestant organ is
that, either there is no revealed Religion at all, or
"there is no escape from the most extreme position
of the Catholic Church."

Now, what Protestants and all non-Catholics regard
as "the most extreme position of the Catholic Church"
is her magisterial infallibility and her sovereign auth-
ority— both summed up in Peter.

Therefore, according to non-Catholic thinkers,
"there is no escape" from Papal infallibility and sove-
eignty : either Peter or atheism.

The indefectibility of the Rock is the crowing
glory of its Creator, Jesus the Christ.

But does not papal infallibility, as well as papal
sovereignity, detract -from the honor due to God?

Not a tittle more than the divine foresight of the
Prophets or the inspiration of the sacred writers of
the Word of God.

The reverse is the truth.

All those miraculous gifts — prophecy, inspiration,
infallibility etc. — add immeasurably to the external

158 Peter's Name;

glory of God. For, the more intensively and extensively
does the Creator reflect His attributes in His creature,
the more beautifully is He Himself honored, exalted,
and glorified in His own works.

They do not understand the a, b, c of the redemp-
tive Plan of God who have yet to learn that the Re-
deemer's aim is to restore and honor the erstwhile
degraded prey of Satan and his hosts, viz., poor fallen
man and the entire lower creation, affected by the
original fall. Hence God's particular delight in loading
man with honors divine, and in partly raising His
lower creation itself to the supernatural order by
using it in the sacraments and in the sacramentals
of His Church — v. g. water, wine, olive oil, balsam,
incense, wheaten bread, salt, beeswax, the snow-white
fleece of spotless lambs, altar-stones, cedar or other
wood used in the construction of her tabernacles and
of her temples, etc. etc.

This is but an earnest of the full and glorious
restoration that awaits man and all the lower kingdoms
of nature at the expiration of the Christian Cycle of
Time — a restoration for which St. Paul assures us
"the whole creation groaneth" : Ro. 8. 22.

Nor must it be forgotten that all those divine gifts,
offices, prerogatives — prophecy, inspiration, infallibility,
divine authority, etc. are not vouchsafed for the mere
glorification of their recipients but for the benefit of
all mankind. They are the means to an end. Now,
the end is greater than the means and is within the
reach of all men, to wit: that they become, here be-
low, really "partakers of the Divine nature" (2 Pet.
1.4) — men-gods as Christ is God-man — that they be
raised to a higher order of creatures, a strictly divine

or^ a Divine Credential in a Name 159

order of being as far above human nature as the
human is above the brute creation.

Such a deified state, open as it is to all "men of
good will" (Luke 2. 14), is intrinsically above
all the offices and the sacraments used as means
thereunto — not excepting the sacramental power of
consecration; for this may be exercised by one in a
state of sin, whilst, on the other hand, the Godhead so
dwells in man deified by sanctifying grace that God
and the human soul really draw the same Breath of
Divine life — breathing simultaneously out of the same
Breath — namely, the Adorable Breath of God known
and adored as the thrice Holy Spirit.

It is, then, in perfect keeping with the Divine
Plan that the selfsame God who willed that we all,
without exception, "should be called and should be
verily the sons of God" (i John 3. i) for the greater
glory of God and of man — it is, we repeat, in perfect-
keeping with the Plan of God Incarnate that He should
also will to exercise His own Priesthood through the
ministry of man, and should likewise will to exercise
His Headship over His Body through the same human
agency.

Thus God Incarnate who, for our sake, delegated
to His. Apostles His own power to forgive sin (John
20. 23), has likewise, out of love for us all, delegated
to Peter — in so far as He made him the Rock by
grace and participation — His own indefectibility as the
eternal and divine Rock by nature.

Thus it is that papal infallibility, as well as papal
sovereignty, redounds to the eternal glory of God and
to the greatest honor and welfare of mankind.

i6o

Conclusion

In this and in a previous work, we have seen that
Peter's divine name is his Divine credential, by reason
of its divine bestowal, import, and treatment in Holy
Writ.

Now, this Divine credential and title of office oc-
curs one hundred and sixty six times in the New Testa-
ment. And oh how eloquently do these 166 iterations
of the Petrine name speak to the eye and to the ear !

To the eye of the faithful reader, they show forth
one hundred and sixty-six Christ-signed proclamations
of the Petrine office — signed and written by the hand
of God on as many plates of gold, and adorning
the length and height and breadth of the inner and
outer walls of the scriptural Temple.

To the ear of the faithful hearer, these 166 itera-
tions of the Petrine name sound like one hundred
and sixty-six silver trumpets encircling the dome of
the grand Temple, and blown by the mouth of the
Angel of the Covenant, and thrilling all the stones of
the Temple, with the "Tu es Petrus" intoned by the
Saviour, nineteen centuries ago.

J H V H

Impri-m i po test :
A. Heuchemer, V. G.

January 18 A. D. 1909

San Antonio, Texas

00164