POPE. 



637 



national church, which is very visible in the nego- 

 tiations that preceded the conclusion of the last 

 eoncordate. Respecting the temporal dominions of 

 the pope, see Church, States of the. 



Pope (by a Catholic). [Having given in the 

 preceding article the Protestant views of the papal 

 history, we shall now give the views of a German 

 Catholic on the origin and character of the papal 

 power.] The pope is the head of the Catholic 

 hierarchy. It was necessary that the power of the 

 church should be concentrated in some one, whose 

 especial care it should be to provide for the main- 

 tenance of the Christian faith, and whatever is con- 

 nected with it. Christ ordained this unity of power 

 on that occasion when one of the apostles, first of 

 all, acknowledged the divinity of his Master. 

 When walking with his apostles, he turned and 

 said: " But whom say ye that I am ? And Simon 

 Peter answered and said, Thou art Christ, the Son 

 of the living God. And Jesus answered and said 

 to him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh 

 and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my 

 Father, which is in heaven. And I say also unto 

 thee, that thou art Peter (which means a rock] ; and 

 upon this rock will I build my church; and the gates 

 of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give 

 unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and 

 whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound 

 in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on 

 earth, shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew xvi. 

 13 19.) However clear this passage may be, it 

 has not been without mistaken interpreters, who 

 have perverted the sense, saying that at the words 

 "on this rock," Christ pointed with his finger to 

 himself. The learned Michaelis rejects this expla- 

 nation of some of his Protestant brethren, saying 

 that the finger is not the finger of Christ, but that 

 of the contentious interpreter. The power to bind 

 and to loose, and the office of preaching Christian- 

 ity, were afterwards, indeed, given to all the other 

 apostles ; but no other one is declared to be the 

 rock upon which the church should be built. This 

 rock was one only, Simon, son of Jonas, called 

 Peter. After his resurrection, Christ appeared for 

 the third time to his disciples assembled at the sea 

 of Tiberias. " So when they had dined, Jesus saith 

 to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou 

 me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, 

 Lord ; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith 

 unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith unto him again 

 the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou 

 me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest 

 that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 

 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of 

 Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved, because 

 he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? 

 And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all 

 things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith 

 unto him, Feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say 

 unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thy- 

 self, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when 

 thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, 

 and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither 

 thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by 

 what death he should glorify God. And when he 

 had spoken this, he said unto him. Follow me." 

 (John xxi. 119.) That these repeated assurances 

 of love, and these repeated commands to feed the 

 sheep, had some peculiar signification, and that, 

 together with the passage in Matthew xvi. 13 19, 

 they were intended to show the supremacy of Peter, 

 was always taught by the fathers of the church. In 

 other passages of holy writ, this preference of Peter 

 is also shown. Passages like this, "Simon, and 

 those with him" (Mark i. 36); "Peter, standing 



with the eleven" (Acts ii. 14); < Peter, arising in 

 the midst of the brethren" (Acts i. 15), obviously 

 refer to the precedence granted to him in other 

 places. In the first synod of the apostles at Jeru- 

 salem, the superior rank of Peter cannot be mis- 

 taken. (Acts xv. 17.) This precedence was not 

 merely an honour, but had for its object the unity 

 of the church ; it was a true official power. The 

 power which Christ gave to his apostles did not 

 cease with their death, but was transmitted to their 

 successors. This is what all Christian antiquity 

 has taught, and this was needed by the church, 

 which was a permanent institution, requiring con- 

 tinual direction. 



This power of the first of the apostles was also 

 exercised by his successor. This successor was, as 

 all antiquity tells us, the bishop of Rome. This 

 supremacy of the Roman bishop has, with the lapse 

 of time unfolded itself more and more, and some- 

 times taken a wrong direction; but it was first exer- 

 cised by Peter; it is as old as Christianity, and did 

 not originate in subsequent times. As far back as 

 the first century, we find traces of the power exer- 

 cised by Clement, bishop of Rome, as successor of 

 Peter. He appeased the contentions of the restless 

 Corinthians, part of whom requested his assistance. 

 Recourse was had to him, although other churches 

 were situated nearer, as those of Smyrna, Ephesus, 

 &c., which were likewise superintended by disciples 

 of the apostles, and, in all probability, while the 

 apostle John was yet living. Clement not only 

 sharply reproved the Corinthians, but declared to 

 them that if they did not submit to his commands, 

 they should be regarded as disobedient. This 

 epistle was read in many churches until the time of 

 Eusebius. (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesia;, 1. iii. c. 

 12.) At the end of the first century, a certain 

 Dionysius was sent by Clement on a mission to 

 Gaul, and in fact undertook the mission at his order. 

 In the second century, Marcion travelled from dis- 

 tant Pontus to Rome, that he might there be again 

 admitted into the society of the church, from which 

 he had been excluded by his bishop. Cerdo was 

 restored to his place, in Rome. St Irenaeus said, 

 " It is necessary that the whole church, that is, be- 

 lievers every where, should hold to this church 

 (the Roman) , on account of its great superiority, 

 for the apostolic tradition has been preserved in 

 this church." In another place he says that he 

 should regard as heretics, schismatics, and obstinate 

 persons, all those, wherever they might be, who 

 shouM deny the supremacy of the successors of 

 Peter over the church. In the third century, Ori- 

 gen, Cyprian, and many others, appealed to Rome. 

 Thus many things in the time of primitive Chris- 

 tianity concur to prove the supremacy of Rome. 



The church, in its constitution, is like an asso- 

 ciation of states, at whose head stands the pope; 

 his government cannot be called, however, a mon- 

 archy, but resembles more the imperial form. As 

 is commonly the case in such united governments, 

 so in the spiritual constitution, the power of him 

 who should control all, is sometimes too great, and 

 sometimes too feeble. The power of the pope, at 

 first lawful, afterwards increased with the lapse of 

 time; and the principle was generally adopted, that 

 the bishops of the church were merely his assistants 

 a principle from which proceeded the forged de- 

 crees of Isidore, belonging to the ninth century, 

 where it is not first advanced, but taken for granted 

 as a well established fact. The splendour and power 

 of the papal see was greatly increased also by its 

 union with the emperors, in the middle ages. This 

 union was both favourable to the civilization and 

 the peace of Europe, and beneficial to the spiriluaJ 



