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"Upon this rock I will build my Church" (Mt. xvi, 18).
Our Lord's Gospel of the Kingdom pressed on to the foundation of a visible Church. The more definitely He opposed the ruling religious authority, and the clearer it became that He was dethroning the Law and setting His own word in its place, that the new Kingdom was bound up with His Person and with faith in Him, that it was His Kingdom (cf. Lk. xxii, 29, 30; xxiii, 42; Mt. xiii, 41), and that it was the New Covenant in His Blood, so much the more inevitable was the gradual detachment of His disciples from their previous religious fellowship. "No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment." And naturally the fellowship which held His disciples together was bound to become all the more intimate and conscious. How often had He not told them: "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." They shall call one another brethren, they shall be His family (cf. Mt. x, 25), His marriage guests, who cannot be sorrowful so long as the Bridegroom is with them (Mt. ix, 15), who drink together out of the same cup of the New Covenant. And one day they are to be His elect, and at His table and in His Kingdom to eat of the glad messianic feast (Lk. xxii, 29 f.; Mt. xiii, 41)
The messianic consciousness of Jesus necessarily led to the formation of a community. In His Person the Judgment was already begun, the contrast of faith and unbelief, the separation of spirits. He told them quite plainly: "Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth; I came not to send peace, but the sword" (Mt. x, 34; cf. Luke xii, 51). In Him the City of God invaded the earthly city, and at once there began the process of discrimination, the formation of the new out of the old.
The first step was taken when Jesus began gradually to gather "disciples" about Him, and the Twelve are mentioned in twenty-nine passages of the Gospels. In St. Paul "the twelve" are already a recognized body. However much it may be disputed whether the twelve were named apostles by our Lord Himself, or whether this name became current first in Hellenistic surroundings, yet the fact that Jesus Himself selected the twelve is indisputable. They were to be twelve in number, no more and no less. By being twelve they were—so He plainly intended—to signify the new twelve-fold Israel, and to be the germ of that holy people which He, as the Son of man, foretold by the prophet Daniel, was come to establish[1] As the new Israel they were the kernel of the new Kingdom, its spiritual support, the authorized bearers of its message, the "salt of the earth," the "light of the world." They knew themselves as those who would one day judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt. xix, 28; Lk. xxii, 30). So deeply were the twelve permeated with the fundamental importance of their corporate union, that after the Ascension of Jesus they considered it their first business to fill the gap which the suicide of Judas had left in the apostolic college by electing Matthias (Acts i, 15 ff.). Therefore the twelve were the original form and foundation of the new Kingdom. That new Kingdom entered history as an apostolic Church, built, as the Epistle to the Ephesians says (ii, 20), "upon the foundation of the apostles." The character of apostolicity, this real historical connection with the twelve, is essential to it and cannot be taken from it.
But already, at the election of Matthias, one of the twelve is distinguished from the others by his self-assurance. This is Simon Bar Jona, surnamed Peter. He proposed the election and conducted it. On the day of Pentecost it was Peter again who by his stirring words brought the first Christian community into being (Acts ii, 41). Both in the temple (iii, 12) and before the Sanhedrin (iv, 8; v, 29) this same Peter was the spokesman of the twelve. His miracles surpassed even those of our Lord. "The singular greatness of the marvels reported of him.... shows that Christian tradition raised him above the rest of the twelve."[2] It was he, who by his reception of the Gentile Cornelius, anticipated the decision of that question which was so vital for the young Church, that is, whether the Gentiles might be admitted directly into the Christian community. And he secured the general recognition of his policy in spite of all opposition (Acts xi, 18). When the question was raised later whether Gentile Christians were under the law of circumcision, again his word was decisive (xv, 7). And when the controversy threatened to break out anew in Antioch, it was expected that his presence in person would produce peace. But the prestige of St. Peter was supreme, not only in the original community, but also in those Hellenistic missionary churches where St. Paul exercised his apostolate to the uncircumcised (cf. Gal. ii, 7). St. Paul tells us that St. Peter was accounted one of the "pillars" of the Church, with James and John (Gal. ii, 9). He is one of the "authorities" (ii, 6). According to St. Paul, St. Peter is entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, as he himself is the apostle of the uncircumcised, which means that St. Paul regarded him as the true founder and head of the Jewish Christian community (Gal. ii, 7). And so, on his first visit to Jerusalem, he sought out St. Peter especially. His visit, after his three years' sojourn in Arabia, was for the express purpose of "getting to know Peter personally" (historesai). And he abode fifteen days with him (Gal. i, 18). Manifestly he considered it necessary to arrange matters with St. Peter and to be in agreement with him. And even when he can say that he did not agree with Peter, but had to "withstand him to his face" because he had wrongly withdrawn himself from social intercourse with Gentile Christians and thereby practically belied his own principles (Gal. ii, 11-12), even then we discern his conviction that St. Peter's example is of especial authority even for Antioch, so that a public settlement with him is necessary.
And so St. Paul's attitude towards the apostles in general and towards St. Peter in particular confirms that picture of the Church which we derived from the original community in Jerusalem. It is clear that the governance of the Church appertained to the apostles, and that St. Peter was the most influential and esteemed of the apostles. The twelve governed the Church under the leadership of St. Peter. Jerusalem, as the seat of the apostolic college with St. Peter at its head, was the metropolis of the Christian churches. As Karl Holl has lately demonstrated against Sohm, Jerusalem had a special competence to decide questions that arose and a formal right to supervise the whole Christian mission and to accredit the missionaries.[3] St. Paul himself tells us with obvious satisfaction that the authorities in Jerusalem recognized his mission to the Gentiles and gave him "the right-hand of fellowship" (Gal. ii, 9), without laying more upon him (ii, 6). So the Pauline communities also were subject to the supreme control of Jerusalem. St. Paul adds: "Only that we should be mindful of the poor, which same thing also I was careful to do" (Gal. ii, 10). Not a few modern investigators see in these regular alms sent to Jerusalem a species of tax—Heiler even speaks of Peter's-pence— which the Christian communities of the diaspora had to pay in acknowledgment of their intimate dependence on Jerusalem, just as the synagogues of the Jewish diaspora were bound to contribute to the temple.
So if we consider the fundamental character of the original Christian Church we can understand how Heiler can call those early years the "formative period of Catholicism,"[4] and in what respect he can say of the primitive community in Jerusalem that it displayed the "unmistakable germs and fundamental elements of the coming Catholicism."[5] The most outstanding of these is St. Peter's preeminence in the apostolic college.
How are we to explain this pre-eminence of St. Peter? According to Wellhausen and his followers it is simply due to the fact that St. Peter was the first to see the risen Christ. His faith awakened the faith of the rest, and so St. Peter's Easter faith was the creative cause and the root of all that Christianity which grew out of this Easter faith. Quite recently Holl has endeavored to improve this theory by modifying it as follows: St. Peter is not precisely the creator and enkindler of the Christian faith, but its re-creator. The events of the Passion intimidated the disciples and extinguished their faith; that faith was re-enkindled by St. Peter's faith, and in that way the new faith is causally derived from St. Peter. Neither of these theories is admissible because neither of them rests upon any secure historical basis. It is true that St. Peter was regarded by the primitive Christians as an important witness to the Resurrection of our Lord. And it is indubitable that his testimony was valued more highly than the testimony of the other apostles. When St. Paul, in his argument against those who denied the Resurrection, enumerates the most weighty witnesses to it, he mentions St. Peter first, and the twelve as a whole only after him (1 Cor. xv, 5). It is significant also that the angel at the tomb (Mk. xvi, 7) bade the women tell "the disciples and Peter" that Jesus would go before them into Galilee. So St. Mark also singles out St. Peter and distinguishes his testimony expressly from that of the other disciples. But nowhere, as Kattenbusch truly insists, is there any record of St. Peter's being the first to whom the Lord appeared. Nor is there any evidence whatever to show that the first disciples and the first communities expressly based their faith in the risen Christ on the testimony of St. Peter, that his faith begat theirs, and that their faith stood or fell with his alone. On the contrary the narratives of the Resurrection and especially St. Paul's, are concerned to name a whole series of witnesses, and among them five hundred brethren "of whom many remain until this present" (1 Cor. xv, 6). Not St. Peter singly, but all the living disciples as a body, are the witness and guarantee of the Resurrection. The experience of Pentecost rests upon the basis of their common testimony.
Nevertheless St. Peter's testimony has a special value and is expressly invoked before and along with the testimony of the twelve. The reason is, not that St. Peter was the authentic and special, or the first witness, of the Resurrection, but rather that his word and his testimony in general were more highly treasured and that he enjoyed a higher prestige than the other disciples. In other words, St. Peter's pre-eminence as a witness is not to be explained by his being the first to believe in the Resurrection, but contrariwise it is by his already recognized pre-eminence that we must explain the special value which his testimony enjoyed. The high esteem and special consideration given to his testimony—as evidenced by St. Mark and St. Paul, and by St. Luke also (xii, 42)—compel the historian to conjecture the existence of some fact, existing before the Resurrection of our Lord, which gave St. Peter a special standing in the primitive community, and which caused that community to give his testimony, though not an exclusive, yet an exceptional value. Is there such a fact?
The evangelist, St. Matthew, records an event, which of itself is quite sufficient to explain St. Peter's pre-eminence in the primitive community and the high value set upon his testimony to the Resurrection. The scene is the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi, by the southern slopes of Mt. Hermon, in sight of the mighty range in which the Jordan has its source. Our Lord put this question to His disciples: Whom do you say that I am?" Simon Peter made answer: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Jesus answered him: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jona; because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter (the 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 Kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven" (Mt. xvi, 15 ff.). If we examine the linguistic idiom of these verses, it immediately becomes evident that they are Aramaic in origin. The play on the word Kephas is perfect only in Aramaic, for in the Greek "petra" (rock) has to be changed into "Petros." The expressions Simon Bar Jona, gates of hell, keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, binding and loosing, and the antithesis of heaven and earth, are all Aramaic in character. Semitic scholars are therefore emphatic in their denial that the passage is a western, i.e., Roman forgery. On purely linguistic grounds that is an impossibility, and the hypothesis is now quite obsolete. The passage is native only to the soil of Palestine and to primitive Jewish Christianity. Is it genuine? That is to say, it is obviously an original part of the Gospel of St. Matthew, or does it betray the character of a later interpolation? In itself the whole passage is plainly very closely strung together and there is no sign of any artificial patchwork. St. Peter's confession: "Thou art the Christ" is balanced by our Lord's attestation: "Thou art the rock." Our Lord's searching inquiry: "Whom do men say that the Son of Man is?" and the exhaustive enumeration of the false opinions of the people lead up with psychological skill to St. Peter's correct answer and our Lord's commendation. "Other men judge falsely and in earthly fashion about me. But thou hast discerned my mystery: Blessed art thou," etc. The Protestant theologian Bolliger remarks of the verses that they "fit together as aptly as the members of a body. They have the quite inimitable flavor of a great historical moment. Moreover, they are expressed in words such as come only to the great ones of this world, and even to these only in the greatest moments of their life. No interpolator can write in this fashion."[6]
And if we consider the passage more broadly, in the light of the special tendency of St. Matthew's Gospel, its authenticity becomes manifest. It is the plain purpose of his Gospel to set forth Jesus as the Messiah foretold by the Old Testament, and in particular as the divine Law-giver and Teacher who reveals the deepest meaning of the Old Testament and brings it to fulfillment. His new and perfect doctrine corrects and amends the false doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel (Mt. xxiii, 24). Therefore the special tendency of St. Matthew, though not anti-Jewish, is certainly antipharisaic. The true Teacher of the Kingdom of Heaven is Jesus alone. And in so far as His chosen disciples have to propagate His teaching of a justice superior to the justice of the Pharisees, they become a new teaching body and supplant the blind Scribes and Pharisees. And so we see that the wider purpose of St. Matthew's Gospel is the institution of a new religious authority, a new teaching body, and consequently the establishment of a new Church which should replace the Synagogue. And that disciple who grasped the mystery of the Kingdom of God beyond all the rest, and confessed it at Caesarea Philippi, is appointed to be the foundation stone of the new Church, to be its steward and instructor in the Kingdom, and is given the power of binding and loosing, that is of forbidding and permitting, not according to the manner of the Pharisees, but according to the mind of Jesus. Thus the anti- pharisaic tendency of the Gospel of St. Matthew culminates precisely at this point, in the foundation of a new Church and in the new authority granted to St. Peter. Our Lord's promise to St. Peter is undiluted anti-pharisaism. And for that reason the passage may not be expunged from the Gospel; it belongs to the evangelist's original plan.
But is it not conceivable that St. Matthew himself—let us say in the Jewish and anti- Pauline interest—invented the words about the rock and the keys in order to secure St. Peter's teaching authority as against St. Paul, or the teaching authority of Jerusalem as against the pretensions of the Hellenistic communities? The passage would then be a product of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, who wished to play off St. Peter against St. Paul; at the best a "pious fraud" of the author of our Gospel. It would take me too far were I to repeat the exhaustive proof adduced by Protestant as well as Catholic theologians to show that there is no evidence in the history of the primitive Church of any antagonism between St. Peter and St. Paul, or between Jerusalem and the Hellenistic communities. And the further demonstration that the Gospel of St. Matthew is inspired by no antagonism towards St. Paul is likewise quite unnecessary. It is decisive for our purpose to register the admitted fact that the fundamental word of our Lord's promise, His denomination of Peter as the "rock," was already current in primitive Christianity long before St. Matthew wrote his Gospel—ie., shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and that it was admitted and recognized not only among Jewish Christians, but also among the Gentiles, and not least of all in the churches founded by St. Paul. Not St. Matthew only, but St. Mark also (iii, 16) and St. John (i, 42) record that St. Peter was originally called Simon, and that our Lord Himself first gave him the name of Peter (Kepha=Petros=Rock). Mark (iii, 16) tells us further that Jesus substituted also for the names of James and John the designation Boanerges. Now it is surely very significant—Holl has recently pointed this out—that the name Boanerges did not become current among the primitive Christians, whereas Simon's designation as Kepha, or the Rock, did. Simon's surname became for all Christendom his proper name. St. Paul scarcely mentions him except as Kephas, the Greek form of the Aramaic Kepha. In his Epistle to the Galatians (i, 18; ii, 7, 8) he introduces the Greek translation, Petros. And that form Petros prevailed in the Hellenistic communities to the exclusion of any other. His own proper name, Simon, fell completely out of use. The fact is all the more striking because neither the Greek Petros, nor the Aramaic Kepha, had been employed as proper names before the time of Christ. Therefore the early Christian communities, several decades before St. Matthew wrote, and in any case already about the year A.D. 35, when St. Paul was converted, were interested in Simon's being called, not Simon, but Rock. "All the faithful were meant to know that he was the rock" (Kattenbusch). And why? For no other reason that can be discerned save that the whole Christian body recognized that surname (Kepha=Petros=Rock) as the expression of St. Peter's special function and importance for the Church, and was aware that this special position rested upon the original intention, and deliberate, unequivocal decision of our Lord Himself. In other words the central substance of this passage of St. Matthew, Simon's designation as the foundation stone of the Church and the Church's establishment on him, belongs in the closest possible way to the texture of the common Christian tradition, and, indeed, to that tradition even in pre- Pauline times. And so it cannot have been the invention of narrowly Jewish and anti- Pauline circles towards the end of the first century. And thus we understand how not only the alleged "anti-Pauline" St. Matthew, writing for Jewish Christians, speaks of Simon the Rock, but also the Hellenistic Luke, writing for Gentile Christians and closely associated with St. Paul, records a saying of our Lord which reads like a precise explanation of St. Matthew's passage: "And the Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren" (Lk. xxii, 31). So Christ prayed specially for Simon in particular that he should not fail in the faith and should "confirm" his brethren. The word "confirm" (sterizein=support) reminds us of the rock of St. Matthew. It is the special function of Simon to be the support and prop of the young Christian faith. Therefore St. Luke also implies Simon's vocation to be the rock. Nor is the case different with St. John. In the supplement to the fourth Gospel, which derives from the circle of St. John's disciples, the risen Christ asks: "Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these?" (xxi, 15). Evidently our Lord expected a more faithful love from Simon than from the rest of His disciples. And on the basis of this more faithful love He deputed him, and him alone, to take His position as shepherd of His flock: "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep." We may turn these passages as we like, but we cannot escape the impression that the whole body of the early Christians knew that Simon bore a special relation to the stability of the Church, and derived this unique position of his from an express declaration of our Lord's. Consequently the words of our Lord reported by St. Matthew are not isolated and baseless, but they are in their substantial content rooted in and authenticated by the common tradition of primitive Christianity, a tradition which is earlier than St. Matthew's Gospel and earlier than St. Paul. It is therefore evident, and we need not labor the point, that we are not dealing here with a pre-eminence of St. Peter which was confined to his peculiar gifts, as for instance to a special capacity for the interpretation of Scripture or to special eloquence in the exposition of the faith. In fact, St. Peter counts not merely as one stone in the newly-founded Church, nor merely as the first stone, but as the rock, the foundation stone which supports the whole Church. He is therefore intimately connected with the whole being of the Church, not only with its teaching activity and its faith, but also with the fullness of that life which springs from this faith, with its discipline, its worship and its ordinances. The whole Church rests on Peter, and not merely its scriptural knowledge and its doctrine. Our Lord expresses this fact with even greater emphasis by the biblical image which he employs in the same context, promising Peter the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Peter is to be the steward of the house—the same figure is used by our Lord elsewhere (Mt. xxiv, 45; Lk. xii, 42)—he alone has charge of the keys, and he has to supervise every department of the Church. The metaphor of binding and loosing points in the same direction. According to the rabbinical mode of speech from which it is taken, this signifies a power to forbid and to permit, to judge and to regulate, which is authoritative and valid in heaven, i.e., before God. Therefore these three images really describe that plenitude of power (plenitudo potestatis) of which the Vatican Council speaks, and which comprises full doctrinal and disciplinary authority, the complete governance of the Church in the most comprehensive sense. And, as we have seen, St. Peter's influence was not in fact confined to the doctrinal sphere alone.
But—and here we come to the last question—have we not to deal here with a purely personal relation of St. Peter to the Church? The passage of St. Matthew and the conviction of the early Church testify to the precedence of St. Peter. Can we claim their testimony for his successors also? Do they support the exclusive precedence of the Bishop of Rome?
A negative answer to this question can be given only by those who consider the scriptural texts in isolation and do not view them in relation to the divine Person of Jesus and His intentions. But those who really believe in Jesus, in His divine Personality and in the necessarily imperishable character of His ideas and His works, in Jesus the Master and Lord of the future, cannot regard any of His works as transitory, or any of His words as spoken only for yesterday and today. All His words are instinct with eternal might, they are words of life, of creative power, they are promises which do not die until they are fulfilled.
And this is true of Matthew xvi, 18-19. What Jesus said and did on that occasion for His generation and His disciples, He said and did for all times, until He shall come again. When Jesus spoke the words: Tu es Petrus, He spoke them out of His triumphant messianic consciousness that His Person and His work were imperishable. True, He Himself is now at the threshold of death, the "gates of hell"; but before His divine gaze all the dark shadows of death melt away. Down the long vista of time He sees the radiant picture of His eternal Church. Peter's confession gives Him the occasion to designate Simon and none other as the rock of His Church and to found His imperishable Church upon this imperishable rock. This Church will never perish, since it will always be a Church founded on a rock. There will always be a living Peter, whose faith will confirm his brethren. It lies at the basis of His words that His Church will never be without that strong foundation which He gave it at Caesarea Philippi, because its continuance depends upon this foundation. And so the continuance of St. Peter's office is derived immediately from the triumphant quality of the messianic consciousness of Jesus. Because Jesus is sure that His Church, the most special creation of His messianic consciousness, will never be overcome by the gates of hell, therefore the original Petrine form, with which He connected this imperishableness expressly and emphatically, Peter's office as "rock," must last on until He comes. So every successive generation of the disciples will have, like the first generation, its living Peter, its rock, which will enable it to triumph over all the assaults of the gates of hell.
So much we know from faith in Jesus. And from history we know that St. Peter, according to the wise designs of God's Providence, died a martyr in Rome, and that the bishops of Rome have always regarded themselves, so far as historical record reaches, as possessors of his episcopal see. Nowhere throughout Christendom has another see been established which has claimed in the same sense as Rome to be the see of Peter. Though the theological basis of the Roman primacy and the exact definition of its meaning have been subject to some development, yet two facts belong to the solid substance of the ancient Christian tradition: first, that there has never been a Peter- less, non-Roman Catholic Church, and that communion with Peter and with the Roman church has been regarded from the earliest times as a fundamental necessity of the Catholic conscience; secondly, that Rome has been conscious from the most ancient times, from the days of Clement and Ignatius of its pre-eminence, and has exercised as "president in love" (Ignatius), and "principal Church" (Cyprian), an authoritative and decisive influence on the development of doctrine, morals and worship. Whence we hold it as an historical certainty, a certainty which is ultimately founded on faith in the rational nature of our Lord's work and on the conviction that He guards His Church, that Peter lives on in the bishops of Rome. We know no other Peter in our community, and no man knows of any other. It is our belief that we have in the bishop of Rome the Peter upon whom Christ at Caesarea Philippi established His Church.
In the light of this faith our Lord's words to Peter: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church," become at once promise and fulfillment. Has not history taught us, and are we not seeing every day, that it was, and is, and will be this one rock which supports the Church of Christ, and with that Church a living faith in the Incarnation of the Son of God? There is a sacred and profound significance in the fact that Simon's appointment to be the rock of the Church was preceded by his confession: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." For faith in Christ, the Church and Peter: these three things belong together. Where there is no Peter, where men have broken faith with him, there the fellowship of the faith perishes and along with it belief in Jesus Christ. Where there is no rock, there there is no Church, there there is no Christ.
And where Peter is, there of a truth the gates of hell rage against the fellowship of the faith. There Marcion comes, and Arius, and the renaissance and rationalism, and the gospel of worldly culture. But still we abide in the Upper Room, gathered round our Lord and Master. Where Peter is, there is Christ.
For us Catholics, faith in the Son of God, loyalty to the Church, communion with Peter: these things stand in an intimate and necessary connection. And therefore since we desire not to abandon Christ, we do not abandon Peter. And therefore is it our quiet but confident hope, a hope set in our souls by our Lord at Caesarea Philippi, that it cannot be otherwise, that it must be so again, that all who seek Christ shall likewise again find Peter. Heiler writes in moving language of the longing for the "angelic pastor" (pastor angelicus), to him a beautiful dream.[7] But for us it is no mere beautiful dream, but a certain expectation. The divine life, the life full of grace and truth, has been revealed and given to us once for all in Christ. Nor can there be any permanent and fruitful life of nations and of men, which is not nourished on that original divine life. There can be no unity of the West, no communion of souls, which does not draw all its motives, yearnings and hopes from this divine source. Christ is and remains the heart of humanity, its true and only native land, wherein it shall find rest for its soul. That is our faith, though western civilization should collapse—and the prophets of its downfall are already with us—or though it should be born again in Him who is our life. And the organ and instrument of this Christian life will be that Church which He built upon Peter. For to her alone was made the promise that the gates of hell should not prevail against her. She alone possesses the guarantee of permanence, to her alone belongs the future. Just as the Church by the compact unity and strength of her Christian faith gave the Middle Ages their inward unity and their strength of soul, and just as in her severe and inexorable struggle with primitive pagan instincts and with the forces of extravagant imperialism, she defended the sublimity, purity and freedom of the Christian faith and of Christian morality, so she alone is able in our modern day to introduce again amid the conflicting currents, the solvent forces and growing exhaustion of the West, a single lofty purpose, a constructive and effective religious power, a positive moral energy and a vitalizing enthusiasm. And she alone can reunite the severed threads which joined our western civilization to that great and rich past whence it sprang. Whether we look forwards or backwards, we realize that without the Church of Peter there will be no inward dynamic unity, no further "history" for the West, but only a succession of experiences without goal or purpose, the convulsive movements of a body that has lost its soul. We need the Church that we may live.
I grant that there are many who do not see the matter so. Nor is that their fault alone. When dark clouds of prejudice and misunderstanding obscure the fair image of our Church, we Catholics often must admit our guilt: "mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." It is due in no small measure to our imperfections and frailties and sins that those dark clouds arise and conceal the countenance of the Bride of Christ. When God allowed great sections of the Church, containing an abundance of most noble and valuable elements, to separate from us, He punished not them only, but also us Catholics ourselves. And this punishment, this penal permission of God, should, like all His permissions, cause us to look into ourselves and impel us to repentance. It should be an imperative "Do penance." The Spirit of Jesus is incarnate in the Church; we should all impress that Spirit on ourselves, and especially the spirit of love and brotherliness,[8] of loyalty and truth. And then it cannot be but that God, though after long wanderings and difficult inward crises of the western soul, will graciously grant that we may all unite again, that our inward union with Jesus may become an outward fellowship also, that we may be one flock under one shepherd. Then will be fulfilled the sacred prayer which Jesus offered to His Father on the eve of His death: "And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me. That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me" (Jn. xvii, 20, 21).
Endnotes
1. cf. F. Kattenbusch, "Die Vorzugsstellung des Petrus und der Charakter der Urgemeinde," Festgabe fur Karl Muller 1922, p. 341.
2. ibid, p. 335.
3. "Sitz.-Ber.der Preuss. Akad. der Wiss.," 1921, p. 1 xxx.
4. Op. cit., p. 61.
5. ibid., p. 49.
6. Bolliger, "Markus, Der Bearbeiter des Mt.-Evangeliums," 1902, p. 86.
7. Op. cit., p. 334, ff.
8. Such is St. Augustine's admonition: Habete igitur pacem, fratres. Si vultis ad illam trahere ceteros, primi illam habete, primi illam tenete (Sermo CCCLVII, 3).
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