Dom Adrien Gra Lglise et sa divine constitution

Chapter XXI
The extraordinary act of the episcopate

Of what it consists

The power of the episcopate in the government of the universal Church exercises itself in an
ordinary way through the councils and through the less splendorous assistance which the
dispersed bishops, always united in the dependence and under the impulse of their head, give
without ceasing for the maintenance of the faith and of the discipline.

But this power of the episcopate has also had in history extraordinary manifestations of which it
is important to be brought back to the same subordination and to be submitted to the same
essential laws of the hierarchy.

We want to speak here primarily of the authority deployed by the apostles, their disciples, and
the bishops of the first times, their successors, to announce everywhere the Gospel and establish
the Church, and secondarily of the extraordinary actions by which, subsequently, one saw
bishops not hesitate to remedy the pressing necessities of the Christian people and to lift up
again, by the use of a power quasi apostolic, Churches brought into extreme peril by the infidels
and the heretics.

These facts have been abused to pull out of proportion the authority of the bishops and to give
them a sort of primitive and independent sovereignty.

It is thus necessary to overthrow this fundament of error. We will do so in simply recalling the
doctrine exposed in our second part, principally in chapter 8, where we have treated of the
relations of essential dependence that unite the particular Churches to the universal Church, and
in bringing back these facts to the laws already known of the hierarchy, laws which, everywhere
and always, establish the complete subordination of the bishops to their head.

And first, it is good to recall that the universal Church, preceding in everything the particular
Churches, possesses before these and guards always sovereignly the mission of preaching the
Gospel everywhere and of saving souls.

It follows from there that the hierarchy of the universal Church, who is not deprived of her
immediate authority over souls even by the establishment of particular Churches, remains alone
charged with the salvation of men when these are defunct, and deploys her powers to assure
them this benefit.

This hierarchy is that of the Pope and the bishops. It is to the Pope that belongs the sovereign and
principal action. But the bishops themselves, since they are associated with him as ministers of
the universal Church, are called to take part in it. They appear thus vested with a power which is
not carried out on their particular flocks and which exercises itself in places where there are not
yet founded particular Churches and titular bishops established, and in those where the local
hierarchies, having been established, are harmed in their existence or struck with impotence.
This extraordinary power of the episcopate is always and by her essence itself absolutely
subordinate to Jesus Christ and to His Vicar, since the bishops are nothing in the universal
Church outside of this dependence which is their charge itself.

If we call extraordinary these manifestations of the universal power of the episcopate under her
head, the vicar of Jesus Christ, contrary to that which takes place in the councils where the
exercise of this power is ordinary, it is because the necessity which gives room to them is not an
ordinary and regular state of things.

The establishment and the full activity of the particular Churches is, in effect, the normal and
habitual state of the Holy Catholic Church. She lives of their existence and rejoices in their
health; she suffers from their weakness and receives a damage when they perish; because the
particular Churches are not an accidental institution and can never be replaced in a durable way
by the apostolate or the work of the missions. The apostolate has no other object than of
establishing these Churches; and when they are formed, it ceases and makes place for their
ordinary government.

But if the defection of particular Churches calls for the immediate action of the universal Church
and can give an opening to this extraordinary action of the episcopate, it is manifestly on two
occasions:

Primarily, when the particular Churches are not yet founded, and it is properly the apostolate;

Secondarily, when the particular Churches are as overthrown by persecution, heresy or some
grave obstacle which annihilates completely and suppresses the action of their pastors; and it is
the rarest case of the extraordinary intervention of the episcopate coming to their aid.

We modestly propose here our sentiment; and, wholly respecting those authors who seek to
explain these facts of history through other means, we think that the power of the episcopate,
power flowing upon it from its head and acting in this dependence, suffices to fully give the
reason.

We think that below the sovereign authority of Jesus Christ conferred fully on His vicar, there
has never been in the Catholic Church other hierarchical power than that of the episcopate, which
was that of the apostles; and we do not believe it useful to acknowledge, even to these, a
particular sovereignty placed outside of the holy hierarchy, as we are going to expose.

Foundation of Churches

Primarily, for that which regards the establishment itself of Churches, the apostles in the
beginning, and, after them, their first disciples, have acted by virtue of this general mission: Go,
make disciples from all the nations (Mt 28,19); this is manifest, since the Gospel does not give
them any other. Thus, this mission constantly regards the episcopate. It is, in effect, properly to
the episcopal college that it has been given, since the efficacy of it had to endure until the end of
the world, conform to that which follows in the sacred text: And I will be with you always until
the end of the world (Mt 28, 20). It is the doctrine of Saint Augustine, and it has never been
contradicted.

But this mission was given before all delimitation of territory and before that any bishop had a
particular power over a determinate people. It has preceded the foundation of Churches which, it
follows, had to be attributed to each of the members of the college; and so the bishops have
received in the person of the apostles a mission veritably and primitively general of announcing
the Gospel to the infidel nations.

Thus, these words enclosed the precept at the same time that they conferred the power; and, like
it is by virtue of this first mission that the apostles went sowing the Gospel in the world and
founding the first Churches, it appears well that in this they acted veritably as bishops, and by
virtue of the powers conferred on the episcopate and that one cannot by consequence restrain to
their sole persons, the powers enclosed in this mission itself and expressed by it.

But, if they did not emanate from the rank and the limits of the episcopate through the apostolic
mission, far from exercising in this a sort of sovereign power, of not relying on any superiour
here below and of not having to render an account but to God Himself of their works, they were,
by that itself and as bishops, constituted fully and perfectly in all dependence to Saint Peter, vicar
of Jesus Christ, dependence which is the essence itself of the episcopate.

They remained thus always completely in submission to Saint Peter, their head, who held the
place of Jesus Christ in the midst of the Church at birth: they had to render an account to him of
their works; they owed obedience to him, and received his directions and his approbation, from
fear of running for naught, says Saint Paul (Ga 2,2). And, if they made use on the outside of a
greater liberty, it is because Saint Peter, their brother at the same time as their head, let them act
thus for the good of the world.

And let it not be objected here that they had all been like him chosen and instituted by our Lord
Himself, as if their dependence had in this to be diminished; for this changes nothing to the
bottom of things. The source of their authority, which is Jesus Christ, having been nevertheless
and for all time indivisibly placed here below in the vicar to whom it is given, this authority,
which flew down originally from Jesus Christ, did not by this cease flowing down habitually and
continually alike upon them, like upon the other bishops whom they consecrated, from the vicar
of Jesus Christ; and it is because of this that this vicar, in his unity with Whom he represents, is
called the origin of the apostolate.

This is so true that Saint Peter has been able, from the beginning, to institute a new apostle in the
place of the traitor Judas (Ac 1,15-26); he has been able to institute him alone and by his full
power, says Saint John Chrysostom, even though, through pure condescendence, he had called
the assembly to take part in the designation of his person; and this apostle, established by Saint
Peter, would be in nothing inferiour in authority to those whom Jesus Christ has established
Himself.

For just as well, to return to a comparison which we have already proposed, into the ranks of the
inferiour hierarchies there is no difference between the cleric instituted by the bishop or the one
whom the vicar of the bishop institutes: the institution of the one and the other is equal and
submits them equally to the bishop and to the vicar of the bishop, as to a sole and indivisible
power.

And notwithstanding, if we propose for the second time this comparison, we feel well that the
terms of it are not fully equivalent and that all advantage rests here on the vicar of Jesus Christ.
The institution of episcopal vicar is in effect always precarious; it is purely accidental, so to
speak; the particular Church is not founded upon it; it has nothing of necessity; institution purely
human, it depends always on the will of men.

Solely, the vicar of Jesus Christ possesses his title by divine institution, which is eternal and
without repentance; and this institution is still the principal institution in the Church, the
fundament upon which reposes all edifice and upon which it elevates itself without ceasing to
mount unto the heavens; it is permanent, like the Church herself whom it must sustain, and it is
because of this that it is by excellence the ordinary institution; it is because of this that the
Sovereign Pontiff, even though he be truly and purely a vicar and the vicar of Jesus Christ, is, in
all the plenitude and in every manner of understanding, the Ordinary of the universal Church.

For the rest, the apostles in submission to Saint Peter, who held before their eyes the place of
Jesus Christ, were not exposed to the peril of subtracting from themselves in this dependence.
For, like they were confirmed in grace and holiness by a personal privilege, they were also
singularly confirmed in his communion, which is inseparable from sanctity and which essentially
brings with it this dependence.

And, if one wants to research why they acted with more influence, which the bishops their
successors did not do, even though it suffices to know, as we have said above, that they had for
this the consent of their head, one can give for it several manifest and considerable reasons.

In the first place, it was fitting that the power of the apostles exercised itself with all that
broadness in the first days of the Church, by reason of the necessities of the Gospel.

In the second place, no restriction was brought upon it to that time; the earth was to be
conquered. The apostles had then all the rights of the first occupants, at the same time that they
had a need of every liberty to found religion there. In the lands which they traversed and which
traversed their first disciples, there was not yet any Church founded, any particular jurisdiction,
and the jurisdiction of the universal Church exercised itself solely through their ministry. They
acted, not as particular pastors, but uniquely as ministers of the universal Church.

In the third place, this liberty was without peril, and they made use of it with every security,
because it was guaranteed against aberrations and abuses by the divine assistance and the
personal gifts of holiness and of inspiration which had been made to them.

Finally, one can still say that this great latitude and this full exercise of power had yet this
advantage of honouring within the Church before the peoples and before the eyes of the ages to
come their singular vocation and the special graces which Jesus Christ had attached to it.

They were nevertheless the powers of the episcopate itself which, relieved by these singular
gifts, declared themselves with such splendour and plenitude. And it is because of this that the
apostles, who could not transmit the personal gifts, have been able to communicate these powers
to the first bishops their disciples, to the apostolic men named in Scripture, Saint Marc, Saint
Titus, Saint Timotheus, and many others accordingly, and to send them preaching to the infidel
nations.

The first successors of the apostles inherited this mission. Many others still, and more than
these, says Eusebius, were famous in this epoch, possessing the first rank of the succession of
the apostles. Magnificent disciples of such men, they edified upon the fundaments of the
Churches what the apostles had begun to establish in all places; they increased more and more
the predication and sowed the salutary seeds of the kingdom of heaven in all the broadness of the
inhabited earth.

In effect, a very great number of disciples from then, struck in their souls by the divine Word of a
very animated love of philosophy, accomplished first the counsel of the Saviour in distributing
their goods to the destitute; then, leaving their country, they accomplished the work of
evangelists, with the ambition of preaching, to those who had not yet heard of it, the word of
faith and of transmitting the books of the divine Gospels. They placed solely the fundaments of
the faith in some foreign places, then they established there other pastors and entrusted them with
the care of cultivating those whom they came to introduce (into the Church). After which, they
departed again to other countries and other nations with the grace and the help of God, for the
numerous and marvelous powers of the divine Spirit acted through them still in those times It
is impossible for us to enumerate (and to cite) by their names all those who thus, from the times
of the first succession of the apostles, became pastors or evangelists in the Churches of the
world.

[Note by translator: the above citation of Eusebius is a translation of a translation;

therefore due care should be taken when reading it, and it is advisable to seek out the
original or an official translation. The source of the French translation used by Dom Gra
is the following: EUSBE DE CSARE, Histoire ecclsiastique, 1. 3, c. 37; PG 20, 291-
294; trad. BARDY (SC, 31), pp. 151-152.]

Thus with the episcopate the mission of spreading the Gospel and of founding the Churches
transmitted itself. It was a common fact at the cradle of religion: and, being that the
establishment of Churches in the whole world was rendered bit by bit to more rare occasions, the
episcopate did not cease to make use long after, subsequently, of this liberty. It is thus that one
saw exiled bishops profiting from their exile for preaching the Gospel to the barbarians.

It is nevertheless true that, since the first times, at the side of these enterprises of apostolic men
founded upon the common power of the episcopate, power emanated in its depth from Saint
Peter and completely in submission to his sovereignty, appeared in the foundation of Churches
express delegations conferred by the Sovereign Pontiff.

Saint Peter and the first Popes have sent veritable legates amidst the infidel nations. Saint Peter
delegated the first bishops of Spain; Saint Clement or Saint Peter himself gave an express
mission to the first bishops of the Gauls.

But these explicit delegations, however frequent one would suppose them, do not suffice to
explain naturally and without forcing anything all the facts of history. Many apostolic men could
not have recourse to them, and one must return for them to the simple episcopal power.

Subsequently, the examples of it became always rarer. To the measure that the foundation of the
particular Churches, succeeding to the evangelical conquest, applied this power to those
particular flocks, it restrained by that itself the field of that more general activity which regards
the peoples to be conquered and which must cease with the establishment of local hierarchies.

There is nothing elsewhere in this explanation of the primitive facts which could disturb order;
for in this like in all the rest the episcopal power is, by essence, entirely subordinate, in its
exercise as in its source, to the head of the Church, sole center and principle, sole sovereign and
independent regulator of all legitimate power in the Church. In the plenitude of his sovereignty,
he has been able in the first times to leave to this power all that latitude, like he has been able to
restrain it subsequently and to bind it at his will.

The first bishops, in succeeding to the apostolic power for spreading religion and preaching the
Gospel, remained thus entirely in submission to him in this ministry; and, so that no incertitude
would come to obscure this dependence, it has been placed in all of its splendour by the
restrictions which with the times the Sovereign Pontiffs have made to the exercise of the
episcopal predication in the work of the missions, redrawing and reserving to themselves
universally the charge of announcing the Gospel to the infidels.

Little by little, in effect, the examples of bishops preaching to the infidels by the simple authority
of the episcopate and as ministers of the universal Church became rarer, to the measure that it
became easier to receive expressly from the head of the Church powers and directions. Little by
little, the preachers of the Gospel were commonly, under the titles of nuncios, legates, vicars or
apostolic missionaries, vested with the quality of envoys of the Sovereign Pontiff, quality which
had already appeared since the time of Saint Peter, until at last the Holy See reserved to itself in
ordinary times all the work of missions, for the good itself of the apostolate, and for the sake of
rendering the action of missionaries more efficacious and better ordered.

By this reservation, which is since long the constant and general law of the apostolate among the
infidels, the vicar of Jesus Christ has henceforth generally bound in its exercise the power of
bishops for the propagation of the Gospel, even though this power remains, in its core, the
habitual property of the episcopal college; and the effect of this reservation could not be
suspended but by the express will of the Sovereign Pontiff, or, in the impossibility of consulting
him, by circumstances and extraordinary necessities which bring with them the certain
presumption of his consent.

And what regards the right which belongs to him of binding at his will the exercise of all the
powers of the members of the hierarchy without harming it in its essence and without touching
upon the core itself of its powers, we limit ourselves to recalling the doctrine that we have
exposed in our second part.

Case of necessity

But it is not only in the establishment of the Church that the properly apostolic and universal
power of bishops, power always subordinate in its core and its exercise to the vicar of Jesus
Christ, has declared itself. There is a second order of these manifestations, rarer and more
extraordinary still.

In the bosom itself of the Christian peoples, one has seen at some times, in pressing necessities,
bishops, always dependent in this as in all things to the Sovereign Pontiff and acting by virtue of
his communion, it is to say, receiving from him all their power, using this power for the salvation
of the peoples.

Following from the calamities superiour to all the provisions of the laws and the violences which
one could not remedy through the common ways, the action of the local pastors having been
made entirely defunct; one found oneself thus reduced to the conditions where the apostolate had
exercised itself for the establishment of Churches and in which thus the local ministers were not
yet constituted. For, as we have already said, one conceives, that in the absence of particular
pastors, that which is universal in the powers of the hierarchy remains alone, and that the
universal Church, by the general powers of her hierarchy and of the episcopate, holds, so to
speak, the place of the particular Churches, and comes immediately to the aid of souls.

One saw thus, in the IVth century, Saint Eusebius of Samosata traversing the Churches of the
East, devastated by the arians, and ordaining orthodox pastors for them, without having special
jurisdiction over them.

Those are truly extraordinary actions, like the circumstances which have given occasion for
them.

These manifestations of the universal power of the episcopate also, exercising itself in places
where the local hierarchies have been established and have not entirely perished, have always
been very rare.

The most often, in these extreme cases, the Sovereign Pontiffs have been able to provide for the
necessities of the peoples themselves by the sending of legates or apostolic administrators; and
like, in the plenitude of their principal and sovereign power, they have reserved to themselves
with the times the work of missions, so have they applied themselves to secure through this same
authority, always immediate, the languishing Churches.

If, then, history shows us bishops themselves filling this office of healer of failing Churches,
she tells us at the same time the imperious conjectures which have dictated this conduct to them.
To render it legitimate, necessities of a kind where the existence of religion itself was engaged
were required, where the ministry of particular pastors was entirely annihilated or rendered
powerless, and where one could not hope for any possible recourse to the Holy See.

In cases equally extreme, the apostolic power which has appeared in the beginning for
establishing the Gospel reappeared as if to establish it again: for it is giving equivalently a new
birth to the Churches and preserving them of a total ruin and being their saviour.

But, outside of these conditions, and as long as the legitimate hierarchy of the particular
Churches is standing, there would manifestly be abuse and usurpation in the act of a bishop
carrying the sickle into the harvest of his brother, and overthrowing the borders of local
jurisdictions placed by the Fathers.

Thus, in the first place, this universal power of the episcopate, habitual in its core, is
extraordinary in its exercise upon the particular Churches, and does not take place as long as the
order of these Churches is not destroyed. In the second place, it is furthermore necessary, for the
exercise upon them to be legitimate, that recourse to the Sovereign Pontiff be impossible, and
that there can be no doubt on the value of the presumption by which the episcopate, fortified with
the tacit consent of its head rendered certain by the necessity, supports itself upon its authority
always present and acting on it.

But, it must be acknowledged, these conditions do not always verify themselves with their
necessary rigour in the diverse facts reported by the history of the first centuries; and one is not
obligated to justify them all on this basis. There have been in this abuses and usurpations.
If the conduct of Saint Eusebius which we have cited above has been lauded without restriction,
who could excuse the mixing of the bishops of Alexandria into the affairs of Constantinople and
of the East, or the action of Saint Epiphanius celebrating an ordination at Constantinople?

The Holy See, which, in these circumstances, has oftentimes made use of condescendence in the
judgement of persons, has always maintained the principles and reproved these enterprises.
Also, bit by bit these excesses have become more and more rare, and they have been more
severely punished to the measure that the circumstances rendered them less excusable. One could
no longer accord them indulgence today.

The Church, in effect, by the grace of God, is henceforth sufficiently well established in the
world, and the relations which unite the members to the head are assured so that there is no more
occasion for this extraordinary action of the episcopate. The voice of the vicar of Jesus Christ
makes itself heard to the extremities of the earth (Ps 18,5). All are able to interrogate him, all the
Churches are able to turn to him in their needs.

Also, like he has reserved for himself the work of missions, he has incontestably and very justly,
since long, entirely reserved for himself the charge of providing for the extraordinary needs of
particular Churches and for the defection of pastors and local hierarchies. He carries, with a
vigilant charity, the weight of the languishing and weaknesses of all the suffering members of the
body of which he is the head. Who are the sick of whom he does not feel the infirmity with a
tender compassion? Which are the scandals that do not kindle his zeal? (cf. 2 Co 11, 29). It
suffices him alone to strengthen all his brethren; and if the future reserves for the Church trials
which reduce her to the difficulties of the first ages, if the perils of the last times must go to this
excess, this same voice of Saint Peter will still make itself heard in that extremity, and, when she
will call the bishops to the last combats, she will unbind, if she must, from among the powers of
the episcopate those which will have to be unbound for the salvation of the people.

Constitutive gifts of the apostolate

It results from this whole exposition that the episcopate has inherited in all its plenitude from the
ordinary and transmissible jurisdiction given to the apostles in the universal Church, jurisdiction
essentially and fully dependent on the vicar of Jesus Christ, and that, in the rigour and all the
broadness of the terms, the bishops are the successors of the apostles.

We do not pretend to deny, however, that the apostles had received of Jesus Christ special gifts
which are not comprised in the treasure of the episcopate. The modern theologians distinguish in
them the apostolate, properly said, from the episcopate which they had to transmit.

We voluntarily admit this distinction; but, in our opinion, the privilege of the apostles and the
incommunicable gift which was made to them did not comprise the ordinary mission of
preaching the Gospel and of establishing the Churches, since they communicated this mission to
the first bishops, their disciples, but the admirable prerogatives with which they were honoured
by the divine operation and which were necessary in them at the foundation of the Church.

And firstly, the apostles were confirmed in grace; they had the gift of miracles, inspiration and
personal infallibility through a special assistance of the Holy Ghost.

These illustrious gifts were a great help to them for the establishment of religion; but they do not
have the character of a hierarchical institution.
The authority conferred on the Church by her divine Spouse does not bring with it, in effect,
personal sanctity, the gift of miracles, nor inspiration in her ministers, but it extends itself even
over these gifts themselves.

It is to the Church that it appertains to declare with authority the inspiration of the sacred authors
and to fix the canon of the Scriptures; it is to her that it appertains to assign the miraculous
character to the extraordinary facts and to discern the works of the divine power from the
prestiges and the illusions; it is to her alone that it appertains to recognise and to affirm the
sanctity of the servants of God and to canonise the saints.

That is the ordinary and truly hierarchical power of which she is the depositary, and this power
extends itself, we dare say, even over the writings and the miracles of the apostles themselves.

For the rest, to these extraordinary marks of holiness and of the divine assistance, the apostles
joined still the charge of promulgating from the part of God the truths revealed by Jesus Christ
and the Holy Ghost, and those same of which Jesus Christ had said: I have still many things to
say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When He will come, He, the Spirit of truth, He will
conduct you toward the truth entirely for it is of My goods that He shall receive and will show
it to you to take part in. (Jn 16, 12-14).

It is assuredly a singular and magnificent privilege, which they possessed solely, because they
were alone the first witnesses of the word of God and as the source whence the flood of the
tradition had to go forth to flow in all the ages.

Thence the immense moral authority with which they were vested in the supernatural order and
in relation to the Church at its birth. This moral authority extended itself over their disciples
whom they had elevated to the episcopate and rendered in this their equals in the hierarchical
order. They remained their directors by a sort of august paternity and by the assistance of the
Holy Ghost which the whole Church revered in them, and the disciples could not refuse to obey
the oracles from their mouth divinely inspired.

Such is, in our opinion, the apostolate insofar that it is distinct from the episcopate in the person
of the apostles, that is to say the whole of the incommunicable privileges and gifts which they
had received and which they must not to transmit to their successors, the bishops.

But, we repeat it, we do not understand in these gifts the mission itself of announcing the Gospel
and of founding Churches; for they had to transmit this mission. They have communicated it
during their lifetime to their disciples who had to be their successors, and it reposes, in our
opinion, from that time in this treasure of the episcopate which conserves itself in its integrity
until the end of times.

It is by virtue of this mission, it is in quality of first bishops, in all the plenitude of this title and in
all the submission which it brings with it in relation to the vicar of Jesus Christ, that the apostles
have exercised their ministry without other limits of territory than those which they had imposed
upon themselves since Saint Peter distributed the world to them, and of which speaks the apostle
Saint Paul when he declares that there is no longer any place for his apostolate in the places
where the Christ had been announced (Rm 15, 23).
Thus the gifts received by the apostles in their mission decompose themselves into two elements:
on the one hand, the power which they had to transmit to their disciples, become their brethren in
the episcopate; on the other hand, the personal privileges which had to finish with their lives.

Certain modern theologians have perhaps given too much extension to these last privileges. They
have made of the apostolate a souvereign power exercising itself with a sort of independence
over the universal Church, just as extended, in certain respects, as that of the vicar of Jesus
Christ, and, like him, divinely instituted with its characteristics of plenitude and souvereignty.
The apostles, according to this sentiment, sent by the Son of God, like Saint Peter, were not
submitted to the latter by the origin and the essence itself of their mission, but solely by a
positive disposition of the Saviour and for the good of unity. Suarez also asks himself whether
those from among them who lived longer than Saint Peter owed obedience to his successors,
from that time simple heads of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and stripped of the halo of the
personal privileges which remained to them in themselves. He resolves the question in the
affirmative; but in his eyes, it is lifted up by the nature of the apostolate itself such as it conceives
it.

It was, in this system, one easily sees it, of the least importance to distinguish a power so
extended of the episcopate itself. It was necessary to resist the abuse which, on this fundament,
the adversaries of the Holy See and the disturbers of the hierarchy went to make of the title of
successors of the apostles, constantly given to the bishops by tradition.

Marco Antonio de Dominis, starting, like from a conceded point, from the universal
souvereignty of the apostles, gave to the episcopate the principal authority in the Church, and to
each bishop a universal and souvereign power, monstrous error which was condemned by the
Sorbonne.

The great discussions which took place, in the epoch of the Council of Trent, on the origin of the
Episcopal power, engaged still to separate further the cause of the apostles from that of the
bishops. For establishing the dependence of origin which binds all power of the same to the vicar
of Jesus Christ, they distinguished their mission from that of the apostles, and they accorded, too
easily in our opinion, that the same, emanated directly from Jesus Christ, did not proceed in any
way from Saint Peter. We think, on the contrary, that all the power of the apostles depended
actually on Saint Peter, whom it flew down from habitually and in its exercise, through there
itself from where it had its source in Jesus Christ, the vicar, in our eyes, not having to
distinguish himself from Him whom he represents fully and all that concerns the economy and
the distribution of power. For the rest, the distinction established between the origin of these two
missions did not find a solid fundament in the example of the apostles; for it was quite necessary,
aside from this particular power of the apostolate, to accord to them also the episcopate, and to
convene that they had not received it from Our Lord less immediately than the apostolate itself.

But if this apostolic power was declared souvereign by its extension, and of divine origin like
the hierarchy itself, nevertheless distinct from the same, instituted collaterally and destined not to
be confounded with it, its nature remained more obscure, and the same theologians have varied
in the notion which they have given it.

The great Bellarmine makes a simple delegation of it, independent of all power of order,
conferred upon the apostles before their episcopate, and similar by its essence to the delegated
powers of legates of the Holy See and of apostolic vicars.
Others, on the contrary, make of it a power truly ordinary, which must not extend itself
absolutely in the Church, and which has perpetuated itself in a real way in concentrating itself in
the Souvereign Pontiff, sole successor of an apostle distinctly, and, in this quality, sole hereditary
of the apostolic college in its entirety.

These systems offer, in our opinion, several grave inconveniences. According to the first, the
entire hierarchy, the episcopate with its most sublime gifts, would have been, in the Church at
its birth, submitted to the souvereignty of lay messengers placed outside of all pontifical or
sacerdotal consecration: for it would be as simple disciples and before all institution of their
priesthood that the apostles, though subsequently vested elsewhere with the episcopal character,
would have received, to then exercise it with such great empire, the magisterium of the doctrine
and the authority of the spiritual government, and that they would have founded the Churches.

As for the second system, it multiplies without usefulness the entities within the hierarchy,
contrary to the axiom of philosophy, in supposing in the Souvereign Pontiffs a power which has
no useful application. In effect, all their acts in the government of the Church draw their force
from their title of vicars of Jesus Christ; they have no need of another quality, and it is not
convenient to add some foreign element to the souvereignty even of Jesus Christ which they
exercise, as if it missed something in its power; for this souvereignty suffices to explain the
extension of their power without limits.

Elsewhere, for establishing in fact the existence of this other distinct authority which they wish to
attribute to the Popes, it would be necessary to find, which they will never do, in history one
circumstance, be it unique, where the Popes, exercising the souvereign jurisdiction over the
universal Church, were acting distinctly, not simply as heads of this Church and vicar of Jesus
Christ, but as inheritors of the apostolic college.

To the inconveniences of these systems, if one wishes to go to the core of the matters, are added
other difficulties which are not few.

And first, it would be necessary to find in the Gospel this power of the apostles distinct from the
episcopate, instituted by Our Lord in their persons. All the texts which regard their mission apply
themselves to the episcopate and regard in them the bishops, their successors. It is to the bishops,
in their persons, that Jesus Christ has said: Go, from all the nations, make disciples and I will
be with you forever even to the end of the world (Mt 28, 19-20).

It is to the bishops in them that He has said, after that He had first given the power to bind and
loose to Saint Peter: All that you will bind upon the earth will be bound in heaven, and all that
you will loose upon the earth will be loosened in heaven (Mt 18, 18). And thus the bishops are
in them subordinated to Saint Peter in this ministry; for that which follows does not overthrow
the beginning, says Bossuet, and the word first spoken to Saint Peter has ranked them under his
conduct. Finally, it is of the bishops in their persons that it is said to Saint Peter: Confirm thy
brethren (Lc 22, 32), and they are all placed in them under the principal authority of his
magisterium and confirmed by him in the faith.

Tradition regards the things in the same manner. The Fathers, though they celebrated to envy the
admirable privileges of the apostles, did not distinguish, in the matter of jurisdiction properly
said, an apostolic power and an episcopal power; and Cardinal Gerdil agrees with it, all while
pretending to find this itself back in the monuments of history.
For us, we think that the veritable distinction between the apostolic privilege strictly understood
and the episcopal power of the apostles must repose upon an other fundament.

In our opinion, the apostolic privilege comprises the personal gifts, which we have mentioned
above, with all their consequences and the immense authority which these gifts carried with them
in the eyes of the Church at birth, and we bring to the episcopate all that which is properly of
jurisdiction.

For the rest, we do not understand, by this doctrine, to render the bishops souvereign in the
universal Church because they are the successors of the apostles, but quite on the contrary, to
bring all the authority of the apostles to its just subordination in relation to their head Saint
Peter, because they are the ancestors of the bishops.

They are also not only that, says Saint Gregory the Great: Paul, Andrew, John, what are they, if
not that which the bishops, heads of each of the particular Churches are? By consequence they
do not have any power but in the full and entire dependence of the vicar of Jesus Christ.

And firstly, they are submitted to him in their mission itself and by the origin of their power.

The mission itself is not an act posed once and which does not perpetuate itself but in its effects,
but it is a permanent relation, a communication without repentance of the power which flows
from a divine and inexhaustible source.

The creation of inferiour beings itself perpetuates itself by the conservatory act of God, and the
creature depends at each moment on the divine power which does not cease, in conserving it,
communicating to it all the being which it has first received from it.

It is the same with these communications of a superiour order by which Jesus Christ gives to His
apostles and His bishops the power which He has received from His Father. Remaining Himself
inviolably united to this Father from whom He receives eternally all His substance and His
divinity, He perpetuates by a permanent act that which He has communicated in the beginning,
and His hierarchs do not cease to receive from Him in all that follows that which He had given
them a first time.

This same Jesus Christ, having thus in the beginning sent and instituted the apostles, does not
cease communicating to them all the substance of their mission. But like henceforth, since His
glorious Ascension, He will be rendered present here below in the person of His vicar, it is in this
vicar that is henceforth placed and rendered visible the source whence habitually and indivisibly
flows down upon the apostles the mission and all the authority which they have received
originally from the mouth of the Son of God.

They are not debased by that, neither will the bishops their successors be after them; for it is all
one reception of that which they have from Jesus Christ speaking on earth and in His own
humanity, or speaking through the organ of the vicar whom He has instituted to represent Him.

So verifies itself in the hierarchy this magnificent law of the divine society where all order is
established upon the procession of persons and upon the relations of origin. Seemingly, in the
work of Jesus Christ here below, all dependence reposes and is founded upon the mission which
is like a following from and an imitation of the divine processions. The bishops depend on Jesus
Christ and on the vicar of Jesus Christ, because they proceed indivisibly and as from one sole
source from Jesus Christ and from His vicar: and the apostles themselves do not rely on Saint
Peter by the fact of a simple economy of convenience or of utility, but by the necessities
themselves of the origin of their power, which comes continually to them from this head and in
the communion of this head, because she comes from Jesus Christ rendered visible in this head,
presiding in him alone in the government of the new people, and spreading from this unique
summit all the diverse powers which are necessary for its life and for its increase.

Also, in all which follows from their ministry, the apostles appeared submitted to Saint Peter and
Saint Peter acted as their head.

Saint Paul, at the beginning of his apostolate, is consecrated bishop by the disciples of the
apostles in the communion of Saint Peter (Act 13, 2-3); he begins on this fundament to
evangelise the peoples. But it is necessary that he comes to Jerusalem to render an account to
Saint Peter himself of that which he has undertaken; he has need of his approbation for the past
and for the future, in order not to travail in vain and build outside of the fundament (Ga 1, 18;
2, 2).

Saint Peter confirms him in his mission and gives him the special charge of evangelising the
Gentiles (Ga 2, 7-10).

We cannot doubt that, in their apostolic assemblies, the other apostles had maintained the same
conduct as Saint Paul, like also the dividing of the world among them has not taken place
without the authority of the prince of their college.

Saint Peter exercises his supreme jurisdiction without hesitation upon the whole Church and
upon his brethren themselves. His judiciary power appears in the condemnation of the memory
of the only prevaricating apostle, Judas (Act 1, 15-22).

In their turn, his successors did not doubt for an instant their souvereign power, since they broke
the rules established in Asia by the authority of the apostle Saint John on the subject of the
paschal feast. It is in vain that they invoked this authority to them, she did not stop them, and
they regarded themselves always as depositaries of a power to which that of the apostles, like
that of all the bishops, is equally submitted.

For the rest, we have already said it, the extraordinary gifts made to the apostles, far from
subtracting them from this supreme authority of the hierarchy, fell themselves under the
competence of the power conferred to the Church and principally to her head.

It is the ordinary and permanent authority of this head who decides and who judges these
extraordinary gifts, who judges the inspiration of the sacred authors and fixes the canon of the
Scriptures, who canonises the Saints, regulates and authorises the cult of the apostles; and, thus,
added to this, the apostolate, in place of appearing to us as independent of the hierarchy, relies in
its most excellent gifts on the authority of which it is the depositary.

After this, we will not dispute certain more splendorous manifestations of the power of the
apostles. They have founded the Churches; they have even sometimes governed them, be it by
the divine ascendancy which the Holy Ghost gave to them with the bishops their disciples
established by them in the more illustrious cities, be it, if one wishes to see in it a veritable
jurisdiction, by virtue of a delegation from their head Saint Peter. We cannot, in effect, refuse to
this the right of extending as much as he wants it, by his mandates and his simple consent, the
circle of powers which depend on him; and we will not contradict in this the opinion of
Bellarmine, who made of the superiour power of the apostles a delegated power, on the condition
nevertheless of attaching indivisibly this delegation to Saint Peter as to Jesus Christ Himself, in
order not to derogate in anything from their just subordination towards their head, in place of
attaching it solely to Jesus Christ, with a sort of exclusion from His vicar, by an institution
special and independent from that of the souvereign pontificate of Saint Peter.

We expose here our sentiment with the reserve which convenes us, and we guard to the great
theologians with whom we differ in anything all the respect which is due to them.

It seems to us that our sentiment brings out better the grandeur and the beauty of the work of the
Church, that divine masterwork. She appears to us proceeding from the mouth and the Heart of
the Son of God with her pure constitution, and this constitution suffices her from the first days.
She has no need of foreign helps to the powers themselves of her hierarchy, and no other
authority than this hierarchy itself ever exercises upon her its empire.

For the rest, whatever be the doctrines of these great theologians on the nature of the apostolic
power, they do not go to the bottom to the point of bringing into question the theory of the
constitution of the Church in the way that we have exposed it in this treatise, founded on the
princedom of the vicar of Jesus Christ and the episcopate; for the apostolic power, which they
suppose distinct from the episcopate, does not enter into this constitution, has nothing of
permanence, and is no more part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy than that the mission of the
prophets under the ancient law entered into the hierarchy of the synagogue. Also, the reader,
even when he would not take part in our sentiment on this particular point, should not reject
because of this the whole of the doctrine which we propose to him in these pages.