Chapter IV. That the Degrees of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy should not be confounded without adequate cause, and that the practise of seeking privileges and exemptions ought to be proscribed as an abuse

Let us come now to another question, if yet it is indeed another ; for, in some respects at any rate, it may be viewed not unreasonably as identical with the last. I will leave this, however, for thy consideration to decide. He would not seem to me to have wandered far from the truth, whosoever maintained that the vice whereof I am now going to speak ought to be regarded as one of the species of avarice. My own opinion is that if it is not a species of avarice, it at least looks remarkably like one. Now it is manifestly a part of that perfection which thou art bound to strive after, not only to avoid whatever is evil in itself, but also whatever has any appearance of evil. By the latter precaution thou wilt consult for thy good name, as by the former thou consultest for the purity of thy conscience. Consider as unlawful for-thee (although otherwise and in itself lawful) everything that is evil in outward seeming. Inquire of thy predecessors, the holy apostles, and they will tell thee, " From all appearance of evil refrain yourselves " (1 Thess. v. 22). Surely the minister of the Lord ought to imitate the Lord, as He Himself has said, " If any man minister to Me, let him follow Me" (John xii. 26). And it is written of Him, " The Lord hath reigned, He is clothed with beauty ; the Lord is clothed with strength " (Ps. xcii. 1). Therefore be thou likewise strong in thy faith and beautiful in thy glory, and so shalt thou prove thyself an imitator of God. Thy strength is the trustfulness of a faithful conscience, and thy beauty is the glory of a good reputation. Thus, I entreat thee, clothe thyself with strength, " for the joy of the Lord is our strength " (2 Esd. viii. 10). And He is also delighted " with thy comeliness and thy beauty " (Ps. xliv. 5), as with His own created image. " Put on the garments of thy glory" (Is. lii. 1), clothe thyself with the double garments wherewith the valiant woman of Scripture was wont to cover her domestics (Prov. xxx. 21). Let thy conscience be free from the wavering instability char- <4 acteristic of an imperfect faith, let there be no spot of evil semblance on the face of thy reputation : and thereby shalt thou beclothed with these double garments, and then " the Bridegroom shall rejoice over the bride, namely, over thy soul, and thy God shall rejoice over thee" (Is. lxii. 5). But perhaps thou art wondering what is the drift of these observations, not yet divining the particular subject which I purpose to treat of in the present chapter. Well I will no longer hold thee in suspense. I want to speak about the cause of the murmurings and complaints of the churches. They protest that they are being mutilated and dismembered. There are now no churches at all, or very few, which do not dread or actually suffer from this affliction. To what do I allude ? Listen : abbots are exempted from the jurisdiction of bishops, bishops from the jurisdiction of archbishops, archbishops from the jurisdiction of patriarchs or primates. Has not this at least the semblance of evil ? I shall be very much surprised if the thing itself can be shown to be other than evil. By acting in this arbitrary way thou provest clearly enough that thou hast the plenitude of power, but not so clearly that thou hast also the plenitude of justice. Thou dost these things because thou hast the power : but whether thou hast the right as well is a matter open to question. For thou hast been appointed Head of the Church to preserve to the various orders in the hierarchy their respective degrees of honour and dignity, not surely to confound them out of envy. Hence one of thy predecessors tells thee to " render honour to whom honour is due " (Rom. xiii. 7).

The spiritual man who " judgeth all things and is himself judged of no man " (1 Cor. ii. 15) anticipates » each of his actions with the three following considerations : he inquires, in the first place, whether it is lawful, secondly whether it is becoming, thirdly whether 4 it is useful. True Christian philosophy certifies to us that there can be nothing really becoming save that which is lawful, nor anything really useful except what is both lawful and becoming. Granted this, it does not necessarily follow that whatever is lawful is alsov thereby both becoming and useful. Let us now see how this threefold criterion applies to the subject at present under discussion. And, first of all : is it not manifestly unbecoming in thee to follow thine own will as a law, and because thy^ decisions are unappealable to exercise thy authority arbitrarily, without any regard to reason ? Art thou greater than thy Lord ? But it is He Who has said, ' 1 came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him That sent Me " (John yi. 38). And yet it is the characteristic of a soul not less base than haughty to act not from reason but from impulse, as if devoid of reason, and to beled by its appetites rather than by judgment. Canst thou conceive of anything more brutish than this ? But if it is a shame for any one possessing the light of reason to live thus like a brute beast, who can behold with indifference so great an outrage against rational nature, so heinous a crime against human dignity, perpetrated by him who is placed over all ? Wert thou to degrade thyself to a level so low — which God forbid ! — thou wouldst deserve to have applied particularly to thee what the Psalmist intended as a general reproach : " Man when he was in honour did not understand ; he is compared to senseless

\ beasts and is become like to them" (Ps. xlviii. 13). Again, what can be more unworthy of thee than to be y dissatisfied with the supreme and universal authority which thou holdest, unless thou canst discover some means of making, I know not how, every minutest jot and tittle of the whole committed to thee more exclusively thine own ? I would also have thee to remember here the parable spoken by the Prophet Nathan concerning the man who, whereas he owned many sheep himself, yet coveted the one that belonged to his poor neighbour (2 Kings xii. 1). Recollect like- .wise the deed, or rather the misdeed, of King Achab, for whom the possession of a kingdom was too little so long as he lacked the vineyard of Naboth (3 Kings xxi. 2). God grant that thou mayest never hear addressed to thee the words spoken to him by the Lord, " Thou hast slain, moreover also thou hast taken possession " (ibid. 19).

Do not try to excuse these exemptions by telling me of their fruit. I deny that there is any fruit — except indeed that they have made bishops more arrogant and religious more lax, to say nothing of increasing their poverty. Examine carefully the resources and the conduct of the communities thus exempted from episcopal authority — they are everywhere to be found — and tell me if thou dost not find in the former extreme scantiness, in the latter serious disorder. Both these evils are the offspring of the same evil mother, a ruinous y liberty. For why should not such communities, abandoned to their own guidance and to this fatal freedom, commence to sin more boldly now, for that there is no one to rebuke them ? Why also should not defenceless monasteries be more daringly despoiled and plundered, seeing that they have none to protect them ? Whither * shall their inmates look for help ? Is it to the bishop whom they have aggrieved by applying for exemption ? Vain the hope ! For he will contemplate with unpitying eyes as well the evils which they suffer as those which they commit. —I

Now let me ask thee in the words of the Psalmist, what profit is there in the blood of these souls ? (Ps. xxix. 10). I am afraid it is only that which the Lord has spoken of by His Prophet, " The wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand" (Ezech. iii. 18). For if he who obtains the exemption is inflated with pride, and if he from whose authority it is obtained is provoked to indignation, shall he be accounted innocent who grants the exemption ? But this is understating the case : it is smothering the fire with the ashes. Let me put the matter more plainly. If he who murmurs because of the exemption is spiritually dead, how can he be said to live who has given occasion for the murmuring by soliciting the exemption ? And how is he not guilty of the death of both — and of his own death in addition — who has offered the sword by which both are slain ? Such is the sense in which I have employed the words quoted from the Prophet, " Thou hast slain, moreover also thou hast taken possession." Nor is this all. For they who hear of these abuses are scandalised, and excited to anger, they give vent to their feelings in detraction and blasphemy : that is to say, they are wounded in their souls, and wounded unto death. Surely, then, that is no good tree which brings forth such evil fruits of arrogance, relaxation, impoverishment, dissension, scandal, and hatred ; and, what is ioo ON CONSIDERATION most lamentable of all, deep-rooted enmity and perpetual discord between the churches. From this thou mayest understand how true are the words of the Apostle, " All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient " (i Cor. x. 22). And what if that whereof I speak is not even lawful ? Pardon me for saying it, but I find it hard to persuade myself that that can be lawful which is the cause of so many evils. Dost thou imagine that it is permitted thee to mutilate and dismember the churches, to disturb the established order of things, and to confuse the lines of 'demarcation drawn by thy predecessors? If it is the part of justice to render every man his own, how can he becalled just who deprives another of that which belongs to him ? Thou errest if thou regardest thine own apostolic authority not only as the supreme but as the only authority that is of divine institution. He that holds such an opinion is not in agreement with St. Paul, who tells us that " there is no power but from God " (Rom. xiii. 1). Consequently, the words which follow, "He that resisteth the power, resisteth s the ordinance of God" (ibid. 2), although they safeguard thy authority in an especial manner, yet safeguard not thine alone. For in the same place we find these other words, " Let every soul be subject to higher powers " (ibid. 1). Notice how the Apostle does not say, " be subject to the higher power," as if there were only one, but, " to higher powers," in order to show that he acknowledged several. Therefore not thy authority alone has come from the Lord : there are _ also other divinely established powers descending from thine in orderly gradation. And just as " what God hath joined together " it is right for " no man to put asunder" (Matt. xix. 6), in the same way, it is lawful

for no man to co-ordinate what has been sub-ordinated by Him. Thou wouldst make a monster wert thou to detach one of the fingers from the hand and attach it to the head, placing it higher than the hand, and as high as the neck. But something similar will be the result if thou attemptest to arrange the members of Christ's mystical body otherwise than He has disposed them. < For surely thou wilt not question that it is Christ Who in the Church " gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors : for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ " (Ephes. iv. n, 12). This is the body which St. Paul describes for thee with truly apostolic eloquence, and represents as in perfect conformity with its Head, where he says that " from Him the whole body, being compacted and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in charity" (Ephes. iv. 16). Be careful not to despise this disposition of parts on the pretext that it belongs to the earth, because it is modelled upon the order of things existing in heaven. For " the Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing" (John v. 19). Especially as it has been said to Him in the person of Moses, " Look and make it (the ark) according to the pattern that was shewn Thee in the mount " (Exod. xxv. 40). J

This is indeed the vision which was granted to him who said, " And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, prepared by

God " (Apoc. xxi. 2). For it appears to me that his purpose in speaking of the Church as the new Jerusalem was to signify its resemblance in form to the holy city above. For just as in heaven the seraphim and the cherubim and all the other various choirs, down to the angels and archangels, are disposed in due order under God as their one Head ; so here, in the Church on earth, under the one Sovereign Pontiff, are arranged one below the other primates or patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, abbots, simple priests, and the rest in like manner. Not to be despised, therefore, is a disposition which has God for its Author and which has its pattern in heaven. But if a bishop should say, " I refuse to be subject to an archbishop," or if an abbot should say, '■ I will not obey a bishop " : this certainly is not in accordance with the celestial model. Has any of the angels been ever heard to say, " I will not be subject to the archangels "- ? Or did ever any spirit belonging to one of the lower choirs refuse to acknowledge any other superior but God ? " What is this ? " thou wilt perhaps say to me, " am I not allowed to dispense ? " Most certainly thou art : but thou art not allowed to dissipate. I am not so ignorant as not to know that the apostles were appointed dispensers (1 Cor. iv. 1), but " unto edification and not for destruction " (2 Cor. x. 8). And "it is required among dispensers that a man be found faithful" (1 Cor. iv. 2). Dispensations are excusable when necessity demands them ; they are even praiseworthy when utility suggests them — I speak of public, not of private utility. But where there is neither necessity nor utility to justify them, they are no longer faithful exercises of administrative power, but rather acts of criminal dissipation. Nevertheless, who does not know that there are many monasteries, situated in different dioceses, which, in accordance with the will of their founders, have been always immediately subject to the Apostolic See ? But there is a great difference between his case who out of devotion desires to be directly dependent on the Vicar of Christ, and the case of him who wants this relation with Rome from a motive of ambition and as a means of escape from episcopal authority. Let so much suffice on this subject.