The Anglican claim of apostolical succession


The Anglican Claim

of Apostolical Succession

BY

CARDINAL WISEMAN

WITH PREFACE BY THE

REV. LUKE RIVINGTON, D.D,

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THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION

BY

CARDINAL WISEMAN

WITH A PREFACE BY THE

REV. LUKE RIVINGTON, D.D.

LONDON

CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY
69 SOUTHWARK BRIDGE ROAD, S.E.

I905



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A CITY SET ON A HILL
By Robert Hugh Benson, M.A.

DeacrdJ&ecf



PREFACE

The following essay, published by Cardinal Wise-
man in the Dublin Review for August, 1839, must
always possess a peculiar interest for English

Catholics : for it was this which dealt a blow to
John Henry Newman’s confidence in Anglicanism,
from which, by the grace of God, he never re-
covered. The late Dean Church, in his account
of the Oxford movement, gives the following
graphic description of the effect of Cardinal Wise-

man’s argument on the mind of the great leader of
Anglicanism : “In the summer of 1839, he [New-
man] had set himself to study the history of the
Monophysite controversy. ‘ I have no reason,’ he
writes, ‘ to suppose that the thought of Rome came
across my mind at all. ... It was during this
course of reading that for the first time a doubt

came across me of the tenableness of Anglicanism.
I had seen the shadow of a hand on the wall. He
who has seen a ghost cannot be as if he had never
seen it. The heavens had opened and closed
again.’ . . . But another blow came, and then
another. An article by Dr. Wiseman on the
Donatists greatly disturbed him. The words of
St. Augustine about the Donatists, securus judicat

orbis terrarum
,
rang continually in his ears, like

3



4 PREFACE

words out of the sky. ... It was ‘ a most uncom-
fortable article/ he writes in his letters

;
‘ the first

real hit from Romanism which has happened to
me *

;
it gave him, as he says, ‘ a stomach-ache.’

... It told on him as nothing had yet told on him.
What it did, was to ‘ open a vista which was closed
before, and of which he could not see the end ’

;

‘ we are not at the bottom of things/ was the sting
it left behind. From this time, the hope and ex-
ultation with which, in spite of checks and mis-
givings, he had watched the movement, gave way
to uneasiness and distress.” ( The Oxford Move-
ment

,
by R. W. Church, pp. 225-7, 1892.)

Besides the historical interest which thus attaches

to this essay, its power is such that it may yet have
a work to do in bringing others to the same happy
conclusion to which Newman was brought

;
and

in this hope the Catholic Truth Society has thought

well to republish it.

The point in the following essay which seems
to have especially troubled Newman Was the
necessity of communion with the aggregate of
Churches throughout the world. England found
herself in the sixteenth century separated from the

orbis terrarum, and has been so ever since : such

separation, according to St. Augustine and others,,

is fatal. It is an argument which has lost none of

its force during the last fifty years.

Luke Rivington.

Scptember 8 1894.



The Anglican Claim

of Apostolical Succession

In an article in the Dublin Review for
October, 1838, we examined, by the
light of antiquity, the claims advanced
by the Oxford Divines in favour of Apo-
stolical Succession in their Church. In
order to simplify the controversy, we
made concessions till we almost feared
we might have scandalized our brethren.
We wished to take up the controversy
upon the lowest imaginable grounds, and
for this purpose we made the following
liberal allowances :

—

First, we put aside all questions respect-
ing the validity or invalidity of ordination

and consecration in the Anglican Church.
Secondly, we entirely considered the

case of this Church as one to be investi-
gated by canonical enactments, overlook-
ing the great point of ecclesiastical and
doctrinal union with the Universal Church

,

which is essential, jure divino
,

for the



6 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

legitimate existence and exercise of hier-
archical authority.

Thirdly, we limited the rights of the
Holy See to be a party to the lawful ap-
pointment of bishops in England, to those
of the patriarchate, instead of considering

those of its supremacy.
Fourthly, we even imagined the hy-

pothesis that the rights exercised by the
Pope, as patriarch of England, had no
better foundation than usurpation at the
outset.

After making all these abatements in
our just assumptions, we proved that the
advocates of the Anglican Church could
not sustain any claim on her part to a
share in Apostolical Succession. But it
was not by any means our intention to
leave the investigation there. On the
contrary, we* promised to raise the ques-
tion to a higher level, and discuss our
adversaries’ pretensions, or rather repel

them, upon considerations involving more
serious consequences. The following
extract from our former article will at
once explain our actual position, and
define the point from which the present
starts :

—

“After our clear exposition of our
motives, we shall not, of course, be sus-
pected of having yielded too much, or of



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 7

having placed the rights of the Holy See

upon too low a ground. We have cer-
tainly given up much. We have dis-
cussed the matter as one of ecclesiastical

right, rather than of divine ; and have

shown that, even thus, the jurisdiction

and succession claimed by the Tracts

[i.e.
f
the Tracts for the Times] for their

Church are null. But in fact it would be

in our power to show that such lights as

the Apostolical See held, and yet does hold,

over the episcopacy of the Church, are

not of ecclesiastical origin, but belong

essentially to the Chair of Petei, as

granted to it by our Lord Himself. This

leads us to another and a much higher

ground on which to base any resistance

to the pretensions of the English Church

and its upholders to be an ecclesiastical

establishment or ‘ a branch,’ as they

choose to call it
,

1 of the Catholic Church

—a ground, too, which still dispenses
with all inquiry into the validity of Angli-

can ordination. We mean the state of
schism into which it put itself at the

Reformation, and which at once acted as

a blight upon all its ecclesiastical powers

—withering them, and rendering them

incapable of any act of valid jurisdiction,

or any place in the Apostolical Succession.

This portion of our argument, with many



THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

other matters connected with this subject,
we reserve for our third [the present]
article upon the Tracts. We shall treat
it by the light of ecclesiastical antiquity,
and exhibit instances curiously parallel
with that of the Anglo-Hibernian estab-
lishment.

^

We hardly consider it necessary, for
the adversaries whom we are combat-
ing, to prove that a Church, placed in a
state of schism, at once forfeits all right
to the lawful exercise of its hierarchical

functions. All the examples quoted in
our former article, and the abundant
testimonies which we shall give in this,
will sufficiently prove that, according to
the principles of the ancient Church, a
state of schism is a state of sin, of out-
lawry, and deprivation

;
and that, even

where ecclesiastical functions might be
validly exercised, they cannot be so,
either lawfully or salutarily. The bishops
of a schismatical Church could not be
admitted to vote or deliberate at a Gene-
ral Council, nor be present, save as an
accused or an accusing party

;
they could

not be allowed to communicate with
other bishops, without first retracting
their schismatical principles ; and upon
returning to the unity of the Church,
they would require to be formally rein-



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 9

stated in their sees, or would be removed
to others, or remain suspended. In fine,
it is only in the true Church of God that
Apostolical Succession can be had

;
and

any one who, even maintaining the inte-
grity of faith, held not to unity of com-
munion, was anciently reckoned to be
out of that Church. u Nobiscum estis,”
writes St. Augustine, u in baptismo, in

symbolo, in caeteris Dominicis sacramen-
tis : in spiritu autem unitatis, et in vinculo
pads, in ipsa denique Catholica Ecclesia
nobiscum non estis.” 1

The paragraph we have extracted from
our former article pledges us to the pain-
ful duty of proving that the Anglican
Church is fundamentally and essentially
a schismatical Church, and, as such, has
no right to a place in the Apostolical Suc-
cession. Now, though we thus advance
to a closer position with our adversaries
than in our last argument, yet we are
aware that we are by no means going to
the extent to which we have a right. Is
the English Church only schismatical?
Is it not as truly heretical ? We unhesi-

1 “You are with us in baptism, in the creed, in
the other sacraments of the Lord

;
but in the spirit

of unity, in the bond of peace—in fine, in the
Catholic Church itself—you are not with us.” Ad
Vincent Rogat. Ep. xciii. ol. xlviii.



10 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

tatingly reply, Yes. The one state can-
not easily exist without the other. St.
Jerome clearly distinguishes the two, but
at the same time draws this conclusion,
of how naturally one runs into the other.
“ Inter haeresim et schisma,” he observes,
u hoc esse arbitrantur, quod haeresim per-
versum dogma habet

;
schisma, propter

episcopalem discessionem, ab ecclesia se-
paratur. Caeterum nullum schisma non
sibi aliquam confingit haeresim, ut recte
ab ecclesia recessisse videatur.” 1 And so
likewise St. Augustine : u Schisma [est]
recens congregationis ex aliqua senten-
tiarum diversitate dissensio

;
haeresis

autem schisma inveteratum.” 2 That is
to say, seldom will schism fail to justify
its separation from the Church by depart-
ing from its doctrine, and so insisting
that the supposed errors, which it aban-
doned, obliged it to separation. In this
way does the Anglican Church plead
doctrinal necessities for its schism—and

1 In Epist. ad Tit. c. iii. “ This they suppose to
distinguish heresy from schism, that erroneous
doctrine constitutes heresy—while schism is a
separation from the Church, by the secession of
bishops. However, no schism fails to frame some
heresy to justify its departure from the Church.”

2 The same Saint, writing against Gaudentius,
says : “ Cum schismaticus sis sacrilega discessione,
et haereticus sacrilego dogmate.” Lib. ii. c. ix.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION u

that very plea proves heresy. But in our
argument on the subject of Apostolical
Succession we are willing to consider the
separation as simply schismatical, in the

same manner as we speak of the Greek
Church, which is, in truth, heretical.
The fact is that we can attain our pur-
pose with the more lenient charge for
our basis, and therefore we prefer it.
The case of heresy in the Church of
England can, indeed, be summarily made
out on the simple ground of its having
rejected the decrees of an (Ecumenical
Council. Still it might be considered
necessary to go into details of doctrines,
to establish the point to full satisfaction.

At the same time the Fathers make no
distinction between heresy and schism,
as a ground of forfeiture of the rights
belonging to the true Church, of which
jurisdiction is one. Once more let us
hear the great Doctor of the Western
Church : “ Credimus et sanctam eccle-
siam, utique Catholicam. Nam et haeretici
et schismatici congregationes suas eccle-
sias vocant : sed haeretici de Deo falsa
pronunciando, ipsam fidem violant

;
schi-

smatici autem dissensionibus iniquis a
fraterna charitate dissiliunt, quamvis ea
credant quae credimus. Quapropter nec
haeretici pertinent ad Ecclesiam Catholi-



12 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

cam quae diligit Deum
;
nec schismatici,

quoniam diligit proximum.” 1

From the passages we have already
given, it mtist sufficiently appear what is
the distinction between the two states, the
one supposing error in faith, the other
separation from unity. Now in investi-
gating the position of the Anglican Church
in regard to the latter, we wish to examine
it by the light of antiquity, and to judge
it entirely by the rules laid down and
determined by the Fathers of the primitive
Church. Such, in fact, is the standard by
which these divines desire to be measured

;

and it is a satisfaction to us to have this
point, at least, of complete agreement.
We shall, therefore, take a case from the
history of the early Church, which we
consider parallel, even to an extraordinary
degree, with that of the English Estab-
lished Church

;
from it we shall learn

what were the criterions by which the
Fathers of the ancient Church judged of

1
S. Aug. De Fide et Symb. c. x. tom. vi. p. 161.

“We believe the holy, yea, the Catholic Church.
For heretics likewise and schismatics call their
congregations Churches

;
but heretics, by speak-

ing falsely of God, violate faith
;
and schismatics,

by wicked dissensions, depart from fraternal,
charity, although they believe what we believe.
Wherefore neither heretics belong to the Catholic
Church, which loves God, nor schismatics, because
she loves her neighbour,”



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 13

a case of schism, and what the manner in
which they expressed their sentiments
concerning it. We shall, moreover, hear
the objections brought by the schismatics,
and the answers given to them.
No schism longer or more extensively

afflicted the Church, or gave rise to
more interesting discussions, than that of
the Donatists in Africa

;
and we therefore

select it as an illustration of the contro-
versy between us and the Anglicans.
The Donatists, although they received

their name from Donatus, schismatical
bishop of Carthage, yet dated from the
intrusion of his predecessor, Majorinus,

consecrated by several bishops, while
Caecilianus held the see

;
on the ground

that the latter was disqualified from
holding it, because his consecrators had
delivered up the sacred volumes to the per-
secutors. These bishops, seventy in num-
ber, assembled in council at Carthage, with
Secundus, of Tigisi, primate of Numidia,
at their head, wrote to the Churches of
all Africa a synodal letter, in which they
declared the consecration of Caecilianus
to be schismatical, and refused to com-
municate with him. 1 Here then we have

•
1
St. Aug. in Brevicul. Collationis, cap. xiv. Oper

tom. ix. p. 569. Auct. lib. cont. Fulgentium
Donatist. cap. xxvi. Ibid. Append, p. 12.



14 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

a strong case, in the supposition that each
national Church has an independent
existence. A large body of bishops,
headed by the neighbouring primate,
steps in to examine an election charged
with grievous irregularities, and pro-
nounces a sentence which is communi-
cated to all the rest of the African
Church. They consider Caecilianus as an
intruder, and appoint Majorinus in his
place. A large portion of the African
Church assent to their sentence, and from
henceforth consider the latter as the
legitimate archbishop, and refuse to hold
communion with the former. On the
other hand, many continue to consider
Caecilianus as true bishop of Carthage,
and remain united with him in com-
munion.

But before examining how this com-
plicated state of things was resolved, we
must not omit to say a few words con-
cerning the unhappy passions that led to
this schism

;
the reader, we think, will be

as struck as we have always been with
their exact resemblance to those that
produced the separation of England from
the communion of the Church. St. Optatus
sums them up in these words : “ Schisma
igitur illo tempore confusae mulieris
iracundia peperit, ambitus nutrivit, avaritia



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 15

roboravit.” 1 The first of these causes
was the anger of a powerful woman
called Lucilla, who could not brook the
discipline and reproofs of the true
Church.

2

She thought it therefore ad-
visable to excite a schism, and with money
and influence encouraged those bishops
who were already inclined to cause one.
Who does not here see a remarkable
coincidence with the case of Anne Boleyn
and her fautors,3 who, seeing that the
discipline of the Church would not admit
of her impious designs, brought about, as
the first cause, the king’s awful separation ?
u irascenti et dolenti,” as St. Optatus
writes, “ ne disciplinaesuccumberet.” The
second cause of the schism was ambition

;

in Africa, that of some who sought to
obtain episcopal dignity

;
in England,

that of Henry, who desired to possess the
supremacy of the national Church. The
third was covetousness, in both cases,

1
St. Optatus De Schism. Donatist. lib. i. cap.

xix. ed. Dupin, p. 18. “The schism, therefore,
was at that time bred by the rage of a disgraced
woman, was nourished by ambition, and strength-
ened by covetousness.”

2 Ibid. c. xvi. She had been reprehended by
Caecilianus for superstitious devotion to unauthen*
ticated relics.

3 “Cum omnibus suis potens et factiosa femina,
communioni misceri noluit.” Ibid* c. xviii*



i6 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

after the wealth of the Church. A con-
siderable quantity of Church plate and
ornaments had been deposited in the
hands of some leading men among the
clergy and people, by the Deacon Felix,
from fear of persecution. These they
appropriated to themselves, and, when
called on by Caecilianus to restore what
was not theirs, preferred to become
schismatics, so as to retain possession of

their ill-gotten wealth. A very similar
desire to enrich themselves by the plunder
of the Church and appropriation of the
accumulated wealth of ages, will easily be
recognized as the chief corroborator, in
powerful men among the laity and clergy,
of their wish to depart from the unity of
faith.

The foundations of the schism thus
laid, it became every day more and more
complicated in its operation. For the
number of bishops who maintained it was
very considerable, and spread over the
whole of Christian Africa, to such an
extent that many dioceses were entirely
in their hands, and the Catholics in some
districts exceedingly few in number. The
Donatists became so powerful as to take
forcible possession of churches, and seize
upon the property and persons of the
Catholics. Hence the civil power found



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 17

it necessary to interfere, and send de-
puties into Africa, to repress the extrava-

gances and chastise the excesses of these
desperate men. This only led to their
having a new boast, that of confessors
and martyrs, titles which they readily
gave to all that suffered for crimes con-
nected with the schism . 1 Many of the
questions of fact, as we learn from St.
Augustine, became, in course of time,
involved in obscurity, such as the true
case of Caecilianus’s consecration, and his
real character

;
so that, in truth, it had

become difficult for a simple individual to
unravel the matter, or decide for himself

to which party he ought to belong. The
Catholic pastors therefore exerted them-
selves, by every means in their power,
to point out such simple arguments as
would at once convince the most illi-
terate with whom they ought to side.
These we shall proceed to present to
our readers.

In the first place, they generally treat
with the Donatists as with schismatics,
and not heretics. It is a question

1 See, for instance the Acts of Macrobius,
written with all the pathos of those of the true
martyrs, and those of Maximian and Isaac, first
published by Mabillon, and republished in St.
Optatus’s Works, p. 193, seq, Macrobius was the
Foxe of the Donatists.

B



1

8

THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

whether these men insisted upon the
erroneous doctrine generally attributed
to them, of having rebaptized those who
had been baptized by heretics, whether
such truly or only in their judgement.
St. Augustine quotes Tichonius, of whom
we shall later speak, as assuring us that
in 330 a council of two hundred and
seventy Donatist bishops condemned the
practice

;
and as appealing to witnesses

still living in 380. 1 The same Father
acquits them of any error respecting the
Trinity, although Donatus himself is
supposed by him to have had some
erroneous opinions concerning it. St.
Optatus clearly acquits them of errors in
faith, thus writing to Parmenianus : “Bene
clausisti hortum haereticis, bene revocasti
claves ad Petrum, &c. . . . Vobis vero
schismaticis, quamvis in Catholica non
sitis, haec negari non possunt, quia vobis-
cum vera et communia sacramentatraxistis.
Quare cum haec omnia haereticis bene
negentur, quid tibi visum est, haec et
vobis negare voluisse, quos schismaticos
esse manifestum est ? Vos enim foras
existis.” 2 Hence this saint always calls

1 Ep. xxxix.
2 Lib. 1. c. xii. p. 12. “ Rightly hast thou

closed up the garden to heretics, rightly hast
thou claimed the keys for Peter. , . , But to you



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 19

Parmenianus by the title of brother
;
and,

when this was indignantly rejected, vin-
dicates it at length in the opening of his
fourth book. Once more he repeats that
the Donatists are brethren, because they
possess the same sacraments. 1

Secondly. The Donatists, as well as
their adversaries, claimed the title of the
Catholic Church. The general body of
them (for we shall see that an important
modification of their principles on this
head was later introduced among them)
maintained that the Catholic, that is, the
true Church, only existed among them-
selves, and cut off from its pale all who
were not in communion with them.2 At
the celebrated Conference of Carthage,
held by order of Honorius, in 41 1, be-

schismatics, although you are not in the Catholic
Church, these things cannot be denied, because
you have taken the true sacraments in common
with us. Wherefore, since these are all rightly
denied to heretics, why have you thought that
there is any wish to deny them to you who are
schismatics ? For you have gone out.”

1 Cap. ii. p. 72. However St. Augustine occa-
sionally calls them heretics, as Cont. lit. Petil. lib.
i. c. 1, where he says, “ Donatistarum haereti-
corum.” He again argues the point more fully,
Cont. Crescon. Gram. lib. ii. cap. 4.

2 “ Earn (ecclesiam) tu frater, Parmeniane, apud
vos solos esse dixistis.” S. Opt. lib, ii. cap. i,

p. 28.



20 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

tween the Catholic and Donatist bishops,
the former headed by St. Augustine, the
latter by Petilianus, the schismatics were
exceedingly indignant that the title of
Catholic should be exclusively claimed by,
and given to, the other side. On the
third day of the conference, when the
moderator Marcellinus called the ortho-
dox by this name, Petilianus rose and
said,

u Only that side is the Catholic
which shall carry off the victory in this
contest.” 1 But throughout the conference,
the Catholics strove in vain to bring their

opponents to the point as to who had a
right to be considered the true Church

;

and it may be worth while to extract a
few passages from the Acts, to show how
similar the mode of argument pursued on
both sides is to what would be pursued in
a modern debate between Catholics and
Protestants.

11 Fortunatianus, bishop of the Catholic
Church, said: ‘Explain the grounds of
your separation and dissension from the
universal Church, spread over the entire
world .'9 ” After some tergiversation, being
once more pressed by Fortunatianus,
“ Petilianus, bishop, said :

1 That the
Catholic Church is with me, our pure

1 Gesta Collat. Carthag. diei 3. cxlvi. ad Calc,
Oper. S

f
Opt. p. 305.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 21

observance of the law, and your vices
and crimes establish/ ” He then goes
off to other matters irrelevant to this

question. Later, when Marcellinus once
more gives the title of Catholic to the
anti-Donatist side, Petilianus again de-

mands that the Acts should give his party
the same title. Marcellinus replies that
he gives that name to one party, because
the imperial decree bestows it

;
and then

Petilianus answers that till the present
contest is decided, it will be to them but
an empty name. “ He shall obtain it,”
he adds, “who at its conclusion, shall be
found truly a Christian.” 1 Emeritus,
another Donatist bishop, spoke in the
same strain. St. Augustine had urged
the necessity of being in communion
with the Church which the Scriptures
proclaim must be diffused over the entire
world, “ whose communion,” he adds,
“ we appear to hold, but which is falsely
charged by you with grievous crimes.”
To this Emeritus replied, that whoever is
truly a Christian, he only is Catholic and
can claim the name

;
and, that though it

is by a sort of prescription borne on the
forehead by the other party, yet it should
be placed between the two as the reward

1 Ibid. p. 299.



22 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

of the victors. 1 This speech of Emeritus
contains another plea, presenting a curious
resemblance to the reasoning of the Tracts
to which we may later allude.

Thirdly. In addition to this desire to

claim an equal right with their opponents
to the name of Catholic, we must notice
the desire on the part of the Donatists to
disclaim this name

2

or to fasten a similar

one on the Catholics, just as that of
“ Romanist ” or “Papist” is in vain
applied to us by Protestants. Thus
Petilianus, in the same conference, said :
“Donatistos nos appellandos esse credunt,
cum si nominum paternorum ratio vertitur,
et ego eos dicere possum, immo palam
aperteque designo, Mensuristos et Cae-
cilianistos esse.” 3

1 “ Quicunque justis legitimisque ex causis Chris-
tianus fuerit approbatus, ille meus est Catholicus,
illi hoc nomen imponitur, ille debet sibi hanc
regulam vindicare

;
quamvis ipsa Catholica, quae

nunc pro praescriptione partis adversae quasi in
fronte quadam rite adversum nos temperari cog-
noscitur, medium esse debet

;
et in judicio ita

ccnstitui, ut hoc nomen victor accipiat.” Ibid.
p. 301.

2 The Tracts disallow the title of Protestant as
applied to the Anglican Church. Vol. iii. p. 32.
See also Mr. Newman’s “ Letter to Dr. Faussett,”
2nd edit.

3 “ They think that we ought to be called
Donatists

;
whereas, if account has to be taken of



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 23

Let us now see how the Fathers argued
on the other side, and what broad, clear,
and simple arguments they chose to con-
vict the Donatists of the schism

;
to prove

to them that they belonged not to the
Church of Christ, that is, to the Catholic
Church, but must be content to bear the
title which at once designated them as
separatists, and followers of men and not
of God.

I. The first, the most frequently and
the most earnestly urged of these argu-
ments, is the fact of the Donatist Church,
however numerous its bishops and its
people, being excluded from communion
by other Churches, and not being ad-
mitted by them within the pale of the
true Church. And this, as we shall see,
is not an argument based upon right, but
upon fact : it does not require, in the
opinion of the Fathers, any previous ex-
amination into which party was right

;

the very fact of one’s being in communion
with foreign Churches, and the other’s
not, was considered a decisive proof that
the latter was necessarily in a state of
schism. They lay down as principles,
that the true Church of Christ was to be

the parental names, I could call them, yea, I do
openly and publicly call them, Mensurians and
Caecilianists.” Ibid. p. 296.



M THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

dispersed over the entire world, and that,
consequently, no national Church could
claim for itself the distinction of being
this only true Church. Thus reasons St.
Optatus : “ Ergo Ecclesia una est. . . .
Haec apud omnes haereticos et schi-
smaticos esse non potest. Restat ut uno
loco sit. Earn tu, frater Parmeniane,
apud vos solos esse dixisti. ... Ergo
ut in particula Africae, in angulo parvae
regionis, apud vos esse possit

;
apud nos

in alia parte Africae non erit ? In Hi-
spaniis, in Gallia, in Italia, ubi vos non
estis, non erit ? ” 1 He then enumerates
other countries in which the Church
existed, that held not communion with
the Donatists : and reasons upon the
texts of Scripture, which promise the
entire earth to Christ as His kingdom.
Now the reasoning here is twofold, and

in two ways applicable to modern con-
troversy. In the first place, it attacks the

foolish presumption of those who would

1 “Therefore, the Church is one. ... It cannot
be with all heretics and schismatics. It must
therefore be only in one place. Thou, brother
Parmenianus, hast said that it Is with you alone.
Therefore, that it may be with you in a small por-
tion of Africa, in a little corner of the land, with
us, is it not, in another part of Africa ? Is it not,
in Spain, in Gaul, in Italy, where you are not ?

”

Lib. ii. cap. i. p. 28.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 25

maintain that the Anglican Church is the

only apostolic one, the only true Church

of God, in consequence of the corruption

of every other in communion with the
Holy See. This is a common boast, of
which it can hardly be necessary to bring

examples to any reader versed in con-

troversy. The argument of Optatus,
grounded upon Scripture testimony, de-
nies at once the possibility of any

national Church being exclusively the

true one, and those over the world that

are in communion being false. Secondly,
this reasoning strikes as much at the
theory of the Tracts, and other High
Church writings, which would fain have
us consider the Church of Christ as an
aggregate of many Churches, holding,
indeed, different opinions and practices,

and not actively communicating together,
so that the Anglican Church may be
called “that branch of Christ’s Church
which is established amongst us,” and
the Church of Rome is allowed to be a
portion (though a corrupt one) of the

same Church of Christ. This system is
directly at variance with the arguments

of St. Optatus : “ Restat ut uno loco sit.”
He does not imagine the possibility of
Donatists being considered a part of the

true Church : if they constitute it, the



26 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

rest of the world is excluded—if Spain,
Gaul, and Italy, which are in mutual
communion, Donatist Africa is shut out
from the pale.

St. Augustine’s reasoning on this subject
is precisely the same. We think it need-
less to quote passages from him, where he
maintains the universality of the Church,
and that only that can be the true Church
which is dispersed over the whole earth :
because it would be difficult to read many
pages of his writings against the Donatists
without meeting a commentary on one of
these or similar passages : “ In thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed ”

;

“
I will give thee the nations

for thine inheritance,” &c.
;

“ He shall
rule from sea to sea, and from the river to
the bounds of the earth.”
Upon these texts he insists against Par-

menianus, against Petilianus, and against
Cresconius, as sufficient to prove that the
Churches in communion must be true, to
the exclusion of all that stand in separa-

tion from them. However, the texts
which we shall have occasion to quote
will put the sentiments of this most
learned Doctor beyond all question. In
fact, we must now see the pleas whereby
the Donatists justified their state of

separation from communion with the



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 27

rest of the world
;
and we shall see how

exactly they resemble those of Protestants,

and how they were met by this great
Father.

1. They argued that the corruptions of
the Church were such as rendered it im-
possible for them to keep in communion
with it. This was the common plea of all
schismatics. St. Jerome tells us that a
Luciferian, disputing with a Catholic,

“asserted that the entire world belonged
to the devil, and, as it is their wont to
say, that the Church was become a house
of wickedness.” 1 Parmenianus in like
manner affirmed, “ that the Gauls, the
Spaniards, and the Italians and their
friends, by whom he must understand
the entire world, resembled the African
traditors by participation in their crimes
and companionship in their guilt.” 2
“ Hence,” he concluded, “ that the whole
world had been contaminated by the
crime of surrendering the sacred books,

1 “ Asserebat quippe [Luciferianus] universum
mundum esse diaboli et, ut jam familiare est ipsis
dicere, factum de Ecclesia lupanar.” Dialog, adv.
Lucifer, cap. 1, tom. ii. p. 173, ed. Vallars.

2 “Gallop, et Hispanos, et Italos, et eorum socios
(quosubique totumorbem vult intelligi) traditoribus
Africanis commercio scelerum, et societate crimi-
num dicit esse consimilem.” August, cont. Epist.
Parmen. lib. i. cap. ii.



28 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

and other sacrileges.” 1 This language
resembles not a little that of the Book of
Homilies regarding the corruptions of the
Church before the Reformation.

But the resemblance between the
ancient and modern schism is, on this
point, still stronger. The Donatists went
on to say that there came at that time
godly men, who bore witness against the
prevarications of the Church, and urged
those certain provinces to purge out the
foul abuses that had crept in, and to
separate themselves from those among
them that adhered to them, and con-
sequently from those foreign Churches
who kept communion with these. u Dicit
enim legatione functos quosdam, sicut ipse
asserit, fidelissimos testes ad easdem ve-
nisse provincias, deinde geminato adventu
sanctissimorum, sicut ipse dicit, Domini
sacerdotum, dilucide, plenius ac verius
publicata esse quae objiciunt.” 2 “ Frustra

1 “ Dicit Parmenianus hinc probari consceleratum
fuisse orbem terrarum criminibus traditionis, et
aliorum sacrilegiorum.’’ Ibid. cap. iii.

2 “ He says that most faithful witnesses, as he
calls them, acted as ambassadors to those provinces,
then by the repeated arrival of most holy priests
of the Lord, as he says, these things which they
object were clearly, more fully and truly pub-
lished.” Ibid. c. ii. The first witnesses may re-
present the foreign Reformers

;
the second class

corresponds to Cranmer, Ridley, &c.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 29

dicit Parmenianus 1 damnatos in Africa
traditores in consortium damnationis

acceptos a provinciis transmarinis.’
” 1

Now, the answer which the Fathers make
to this excuse for separation is such

exactly as we make, and is perfectly
applicable to the case between us and
the Anglican Church. They put against
it at once the promises of Scripture, that
the universality of God’s Church should
never fail, and made it a question between
the authority of God and of men, whether
those promises could fail, or not rather

the testimony of men be false. u Homo
putans sibi magis credi debere quam
Deo,” St. Augustine calls the man who
makes that argument. “ Quid, quaeso te,”
he asks, u quid per ipsos fideles testes
quosvultis Deo esse fideliores, quid publi-
catum est ? An quia, per Afros traditores,
semen Abrahae quod est Christus, non est
permissum venire usque ad omnes gentes,
et ibi exaruit quo pervenit ? Dicite jam
magis collegis vestris credendum esse
quam testamento Dei.” 2 We would

1 “In vain does Parmenianus say that the
traditors condemned in Africa, were received into
fellowship of condemnation by the provinces
beyond the seas.” Ibid. cap. iv.

2 “A man who thinks he ought to be believed
rather than God.” “What, I ask you, what was



30 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

willingly extract the entire paragraph,
which is most apposite and conclusive
for our case. St. Jerome makes use of a
similar argument from the Scripture pro-
mises. “ If Christ has not a Church, or
has it only in Sardinia, He has become
too poor

;
and if Satan possess Britain,

the Gauls, the people of India and bar-
barous nations, and the entire world, how
have the trophies of the Cross been
bestowed upon one corner of the whole
earth ?

”'
1

But the reasoning of the Fathers is
sometimes closer and more to our purpose
even than this. They propose to the
Donatists the same dilemma as we, in our
controversy, do to Protestants. Either
the Church was so corrupted before your

published by these faithful witnesses, whom you
make more worthy of credit than God Himself ?
That, through the African traditors, the seed of
Abraham, which is Christ, was not permitted to
come to all nations, and was dried up where it had
reached ? Say at once, that we must believe your
colleagues more than God’s Testament.” Ibid,
cap. ii.

1 “ Si ecclesiam non habet Christus, aut in
Sardinia tantum habet, nimium pauper factus est.
Et si Britannias, Gallias, Indorum populos, bar-
baras nationes, et totum semel [simul] mundum
possideat Satanas, quomodo ad angulum universae
terrae Crucis trophaea collata sunt?” Ubi sup.
No. 15, p. 186.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 31

Reformers came that it had ceased to be
the Church of God, or not. If it was,
then had Christ’s promises failed, which
secured perpetuity to His Church : if not,
whence did those who separated from it
derive their authority for this purpose, or

how could any act or teaching of theirs
make it cease to be what it was before ?
The following passage of St. Augustine

is to this effect :
u Quod si erat etiam

tunc Ecclesia, et hasreditas Christi non,
interrupta, perierat, sed per omnes gentes
argumentaaccipiens permanebat, tutissima
ratio est in eadem consuetudine permanere
quae tunc bonos et malos in una com-
plexione portabat. Si autem tunc non
erat Ecclesia, quia sacrilegi haeretici sine

baptismo recipiebantur, et hoc universali
consuetudine tenebatur

;
unde Donatus

apparuit ? de qua terra germinavit ? de
quo mari emersit ? de quo ccelo cecidit ?
Nos itaque, ut dicere cceperam, in ejus
Ecclesiae communione securi sumus, per
cujus universitatem id nunc agitur quod
est ante Agrippinum, et inter Agrippinum
et Cyprianum per ejus universitatem
similiter agebatur.” 1 Here, then, it is

1 “ But if the Church then was, and Christ’s
inheritance had not perished by being interrupted,
but, receiving increase through all nations, yet
endured, it is the safest principle to persevere in



32 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

taken for granted that the very fact of
any practice being followed or tolerated
in the Church is a sufficient vindication of
it

;
and that, whenever a separation takes

place from the body of the Church on the
ground of such being corruptions, those
are safe who adhere to the portion that
perseveres in those practices, while the
pretended reformers are at once to be
rejected, as having no mission or com-
mission for their schismatical undertakings.
The same Father uses the same argu-

ment on other occasions. For instance,
in his treatise “ De unico Baptismo,”
where he writes as follows : u If that
be true which these men assert, and
by which they endeavour to maintain
or excuse the cause of their separation,
namely, that the fellowship of the wicked

the same practice which then united in one
embrace the good and the evil. But if at that time
there was no Church, because sacrilegious heretics
were received without [repetition of] baptism, and
this was the universal practice, whence did
Donatus make his appearance ? from what earth
did he spring up ? from what sea did he emerge ?
from what heavens did he fall ? We, therefore, as
I had begun to say, are secure in the communion
of that Church, through the entire of which that is
now practised, which, in like manner, was practised
through it entire before Agrippinus, and between
Agrippinus and Cyprian.” De Baptisrno conh
Donatistas, lib. iih cap. 2.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 33

in the same sacraments defiles the good,
and that, therefore, we must separate
ourselves bodily from the contagion of
the evil, lest all should together perish

;

1

it clearly follows that at the time of

Stephen and Cyprian the Church had
perished, nor was any left to posterity,
in which Donatus himself could be
spiritually born. But if they consider
it impious to say this—as in truth, it
is impious—then, as the Church remained
from these times to the times of Caecili-
anus and Majorinus, or of Donatus, . ^ .
so could the Church remain after this
latter period, which, increasing through
the entire world, as had been foretold of
her, the particular crimes of any traditors
or other wicked men could not defile. . . .
There was no reason, therefore, but it
was an act of the greatest madness, for
these men, as if to avoid the communion
of the wicked, to have separated them-
selves from the unity of the Church,
diffused over the entire world.” 2

1 How often do we see and hear applied to
those in communion with the Catholic Church,
those words, “ Go out from her, my people, that
you be not partakers of her sins, and that you
receive not of her plagues 55 (Rev. xviii. 4).

2 “ Si ergo verum est quod isti dicunt, et unde
causam suae separationis asserere vel excusare

c



34 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

These passages hardly require any
comment

;
any reader of ordinary judge-

ment will see how St. Augustine must,
upon his principles, have judged the
case of the English Church, if it put
in the plea of justification, which the
great body of its defenders do, that
the absolute corruptions of the foreign

Churches with which it had before been
in communion, as well as of those at
home who resolved upon keeping up
that communion, made it imperative on
her to refuse communion without their
reformation. For he takes it for granted

;

first, that before such a call on them was
made, these aggregated Churches con-

conantur, in una communione sacramentorum
mali maculant bonos, et ideo corporali disjunctione
a malorum contagione recedendum est ne omnes
pariter pereant

;
jam tunc Stephani et Cypriani

temporibus constat periisse Ecclesiam, nec posteris
derelictam, ubi Donatus spiritualiter nasceretur.
Quod si dicere nefarium judicant, quia revera
nefarium est, sicut mansit Ecclesia ex illis tem-
poribus usque ad tempora Caeciliani et Majorini,
sive Donati, ... sic potuit et deinceps Ecclesia
permanere, quam toto, sicut de ilia praedictum est,
terrarum orbe crescentem nullo modo poterant
quorumlibet traditorum ac facinorosorum aliena
crimina maculare. . . . Nulla igitur ratio fuit, sed
maximus furor, quod isti velut malorum com-
munionem caventes, se ab unitate Christi quae
toto orbe diffunditur separarunt.” De unic. Bapt.
cont. Petil. c. xiv.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 35

stituted the true unfailing Church of
Christ

;
secondly, that if a particular

Church, such as the African or the

British, called upon them to make
changes, or by making such, separated
itself actually or virtually from their
communion, they could not thereby lose
their prerogative, but remained what they
were before

;
thirdly, that it was safe to

remain in communion with these rather
than with the separating Church

;

fourthly, that if Cyprian (still less,

if Berengarius or Huss), with some,

protested against a practice, held in his

time by the great body of the Church
,

1

it could not thereby cease to be what
it was before, nor could any portion of
the Church plead in excuse of its separa-
tion any such decision, but such a
portion at once became involved in the
guilt of schism and all its entailed
forfeitures.

These principles, if applied to modern
controversy, will go a great way towards
deciding the respective positions of the

Catholic and Anglican Churches.
2. But it may perhaps be said that

the case between us and Protestants

1 “ Multi cum illo (Stephano) quidam cum isto
(Cypriauo) sentiebant.” Ibid.



36 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

is by no means so simple as that of the
Donatists and the Catholics of their
times, but that the decision as to a case
of schism must depend upon the examina-
tion of the points of difference. Now to
this we reply that by the Fathers who
combated the Donatists, the question was
essentially considered one of fact rather
than of right

;
that is to say, the very

circumstance of one particular Church
being out of the aggregation of other
Churches, constituted these judges over
the other, and left no room for questioning
the justice of the condemnation. St.
Augustine has a golden sentence on this
subject, which should be an axiom in
theology : u Quapropter securus judicat
orbis terrarum, bonos non esse qui se
dividunt ab orbe terrarum, in quacumque
parte orbis terrarum.” 1 This principle
he repeats in fuller terms on another
occasion : “ Inconcussum igitur,” he
writes,

u firmumque teneamus, nullos
bonos ab ea [Dei Ecclesia] se posse
dividere

;
id est nullos bonos etiamsi

cognitos sibi malos patiantur, ubicumque

1 li Wherefore, the entire world judges with
security that they are not good, who separate
themselves from the entire world, in whatever
part of the entire world.” Cont. Epist. Parmen.
lib. iii. cap. 3.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 37

versantur, propter se a longe positis et

incognitis bonis temerario schismatis

sacrilegio separare
;

et in quacumque
parte terrarum vel facta sunt ista, vel

bunt vel futura sunt
,

ceteris terrarum

partibus longe positis, et utram facta sint,
vel cur facta sint ignorantibus, et tamen
cum orbe terrarum in unitatis vinculo
permanentibus, ea ipsa sit firma securitas

non hoc potuisse facere, nisi aut superbiae
tumore furiosos, aut invidentiae livore
vesanos, aut sasculari commoditate cor-
ruptos, aut carnali timore perversos.” 1

Here then is a general rule applicable
not merely to the Donatist case, but
to all future possible divisions in the

1 “ Let us, therefore, hold it for an unshaken
and stable principle, that no good men can separate
themselves from it [the Church] : that is, that,
although they may have to endure evil men
known to themselves, no good men, wherever
they may be, can on their own account separate
by the rash sacrilege of schism, from the good
living far off and unknown to them. And in
whatever part of the world this has been done, or
is done, or shall he, while the other distant parts of
the earth are ignorant that it has been done, or
wherefore it has been done, and yet continue
in the bond of union with the rest of the world

;

let this be considered quite certain, that none can
have so acted, unless they had been either furious
with swelling, pride, or insane with livid envy,
or corrupted by worldly advantage, or perverted
by carnal fear.” Ibid, cap. 5,



38 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

Church. Those cannot be possibly right
who have separated themselves from the
communion of distant Churches which
remain still connected in the bond of
unity. Whatever plea may be set up
of corruptions or abuses, the true ground
of separation will be one of those pointed
out by the great St. Augustine. And, in
truth, who does not acknowledge that
the u haughty fury ” of Henry VIII, the
u worldly advantage” of his and his
son’s “ corrupt ” nobility, and the “ carnal
fear ” and time-serving policy of a
11 perverted ” heartless clergy, who had
not the courage to follow More and
Fisher to the scaffold, produced and
promoted the first schismatical separation
of England from the communion of other
Churches dispersed over the world ?

3. The principles thus far laid down,
on the authority of the ancient Church,
meet not only the reasoning of the ultra-
Protestants, but also those of the High
Church, or Oxford school. For they
maintain that, although throughout the
Middle Ages, the Church in communion
with Rome was, in spite of her errors,
the true Church, because she had not
sanctioned them by any positive decree

;

yet she forfeited her title, -and became
heretical, when at the Council of Trent



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 39

she did so. 1 Now this was precisely the
argument of the Donatists, which we have
seen combated by St. Augustine. They
allowed that at the time of St. Cyprian
the Church in communion with Pope
Stephen was true and orthodox, though
the same evil principles and abuses
existed which they so severely reproved

;

but no sooner did the body of foreign
Churches formally adopt and approve
these malpractices, and the erroneous
maxims on which they were grounded,
than they fell into a state of heresy and
schism. Now we have seen St. Augustine
put this case, and demonstrate that either
the Church failed in the first instance,
and so was lost, and with it lawful sacra-
ments and orders

;
or else that this could

not be admitted in the second. We have
seen how any one Church, in one portion

1 “True, Rome maybe so considered [heretical]
now

;
but she was not considered heretical in the

first ages. If she has apostatized, it was at the
time of the Council of Trent. . . . Accordingly,
acknowledging and deploring all the errors of
the Middle Ages, yet we need not fear to maintain
that after all they were but the errors of individuals,
though of large numbers of Christians.” Tract xv.
p. 10, where, in a note, the opinion of Gilpin is
quoted with approbation, that after that epoch,
“ it seemed to him a matter of necessity to come
out of the Church of Rome.” This is perfectly the
Donatist vie\y of the case.



40 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

of the world, could not possibly be
allowed to be right, while protesting
against the union of other Churches over
the rest of the world. The very fact of
its being in such a position at once con-
demns it, and proves it to be in schism.
Still it may be both interesting and in-
structive to pursue this inquiry still
further, and see this particular plea more
closely examined : for it so happened
that the Donatists, like the modern
Anglicans, asserted that they were not
the separatists, but that the other Churches
were. These are their words : “ Si vos
tenere Catholicam dicitis, Catholicos illud
est quod Graece dicitur unum sive totum.
Ecce in toto non estis, quia in partem
cessistis.” 1 To this St. Augustine on this
occasion contents himself with first ex-
plaining the meaning of the term
“Catholic”—to wit, that which is ex-
tended over all the world—and then by
throwing ridicule on the extravagance of
the assertion. “ How can we be separa-
tists,” he asks, “whose communion is
diffused over the entire world ? But as,
if you were to say to me, that I am

1 “ If you say that you have the Catholic Church,
KaOoXucog is, in Greek, ‘one,’ or ‘whole.’ Behold,
you do not constitute the whole, since you have
seceded apart.” Cont. Lift. Petil, lib, ii. cap. 38.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 41

Petilianus, I should not know how to
refute you, except by laughing at you
as in jest, or pitying you as insane ;

—

I see no other course now. But as I do
not think you were joking, you see what
alternative remains.” 1

On another occasion, the same holy
Father gives a decisive criterion whereby
it may be determined who went forth
from the Church, or who were, in other
words, the violators of Catholic unity. It
was not long before the Donatists split
into innumerable sects—the usual con-
sequence of departure from unity. But
the account of this division is so well
given by St. Augustine, and so accurately
describes the vicissitudes of modern as
well as of ancient schism, that we must
be allowed to quote his words : “Eadem
pars Donati in multa minutissima frusta
conscissa est, quas omnes minutissimas
particulae hanc unam multo grandiorem
in qua Primianus est, de recepto Maxi-
miniastarum baptismo reprehendunt, et
singulae conantur asserere apud se tantum-

1 “ Sed quemadmodum, si mihi diceres quod ego
sim Petilianus, non invenirem quomodo refellerem,
nisi, ut aut jocantem riderem, aut insanientem
dolorem

;
hoc mihi nunc faciendum esse video

;

sed quia jocari te non video, vides quid restate”
Ibid.



42 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

modo verum baptismum remansisse, nec
omnino esse alibi, neque in toto orbe
terrarum, qua Ecclesia Catholica ex-
panditur, nec in ipsa grandiore parte
Donati, nec in ceteris praeter se unam
ex minutissimus particulis.” 1 If for the
u pars Donati ” we substitute the Angli-
can Church, what a faithful picture we
have of the minute subdivisions of
separation into which dissent from her
has broken, every one of which denies
to the others sound doctrine—as the
Donatists did baptism—as well as to the
original branch of which they are the
boughs, and to the great trunk of Catholic
and apostolical descent from which both
it and they have been lopped off.

But to come to our point, which is, the
criterion suggested by St. Augustine for
determining who are the separatists and
schismatics. It is this : You have no
difficulty in deciding that these different

1 “ The very sect of Donatus is divided into many
very minute parts, every one of which minute parts
blames this much larger one, in which Primianus
is, for having received the baptism of the Maxi-
minianists

;
and each one endeavours to maintain

that true baptism has remained in it alone, and is
nowhere else, neither in the entire world, over
which the Catholic Church is spread, nor in the
larger sect itself of Donatus, nor in any other
except itself, one of the said most minute parts,”
Pe Baptis. cont. Donafisfas, lib. i. cap. 2 ,



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 43

sects separated from you, and not you
from them (as they pretend)

;
because,

while primitive Donatism is commensurate
with them all, each of these prevails more
in one than another province

;
the Roga-

tenses, for instance, in Caesarean Mauri-

tania
;
the Urbanenses in some parts of

Numidia
;
and so forth. This criterion

would apply to the Anglican Church.
For some parishes are comparatively free
from dissent

;
and there is no portion of

England, however occupied by it, in
which that Church is not found : then
some sects, as the Quakers, are unknown
in some districts, while they are abundant
in others

;
different classes of Methodism,

Unitarianism, or Moravianism, have their
favourite districts, in which their teachers
and followers more abound. And as the
Anglican Church occupies all the space
subdivided among them all, we justly
conclude that they all went forth from
it, and not it from them. In like manner,
observes this learned Father, we see one
heresy infest one country, and another,
another

;
each sect has its own territory

—for where it has sprung up, there,
being of its nature unprolific, it lies till it
withers up. But the Catholic Church
occupies the whole world, taking in the
very countries in which the respective



44 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

sects exist, surrounding and compene-
trating them, and, therefore, by parity of
argument, this is proved to be the true
Church, from which all they are separa-
tists and schismatics . 1 This argument is
at once simple and conclusive. It
supposes, what is of great importance
in our controversy with the Oxford
divines, the possibility—nay, the necessity
of the Church having members in countries

•

1 “ Contra universitatem vero Ecclesiae, quia te
inania repetere libuit, etiam hie tibi respondeo.
Sicut in Africa pars Donati vos estis, a quibus apparet
partem Maximiani schisma fecisse, quoniam non
est per Africam, qua vos estis, vos autem et in
regionibus in quibus ilia est non deestis, nam et
alia schismata facta sunt ex vobis, sicut Rogatenses
in Mauritania Caesariensi, Urbanenses in quadam
Numidiae particula, et alia nonnulla, sed ubi praecisa
sunt ibi remanserunt. Et hinc enim apparet eos a
vobis exiisse, non vos ab ipsis, quia vos etiam in
his terris ubi ipsi sunt, illi autem quaquaversus vos
estis non nisi forte peregrinantes inveniuntur. Sic
Ecclesia Catholica, quae, sicut ait Cyprianus, ‘ramos
suos per universam terram copia ubertatis extendit,’
ubique sustinet scandala eorum qui ab ilia, vitio
maximae superbiae praeciduntur, aliorum hie, ali-
orum alibi atque alibi. . . . Ubi enim cadunt, ibi
remanent, et ubi separantur ibi arescunt, unde ipsa
dc qua prcecidentur etiam in eas terras extendihir

,

ubi jacent ilia in sua queeque regione fragmenta ; in
ilia vero, singula, quacumque distenditur, non sunt,
quamvis aliquando vix rarissima folia ex eorum
ariditate ventus elationis in peregrina dispergat.”
Cont, Crescon, lib. iv. cap. 60,



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 45

under a schismatical hierarchy, who com-
municate with the rest of the Catholic
world

;
a point on which we shall have

later to speak : 11 Ipsa (Ecclesia) de qua
praeciduntur, etiam in eas terras extenditur

ubi jacent ilia quaeque in sua regione

fragmenta.”

Let us, then, apply the argument to our
times. We see the Lutherans occupying
the northern parts of the European con-
tinent, the Calvinists Switzerland, the

Presbyterians Scotland, the Anglicans

England. Not one of these has a
Church, properly so called

,

1 in any
other country

;
none in Spain, or Italy,

or France, or Southern Germany, or
South America, or Syria, or China.
“ Ubi cadunt ibi remanent.” But we

—

that is, the Church wherewith we are
in communion—extend over the whole
of the world, occupying extensively several
of these countries, and having large bodies
of Christians in others. And even where
those Protestant sects prevail, congrega-
tions and numerous flocks are found com-
municating with the one Church spread
over the world. And what we have said
of Protestant countries, we may ex-

1 The small number of Protestants in France or
Piedmont are not in communion with any other
“fragment,” but form independent sects.



46 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

tend, as St. Augustine does, beyond the
Donatists, to other heresies, as the Nes-
torians and Eutychians in the East. For
almost wherever these are, Catholics exist

;

but they are not to be found, except as
strangers, nisi forte peregrinanteSj in coun-
tries entirely Catholic. We see, then,
how simple and yet how efficacious is
the test proposed by St. Augustine, for
deciding whether the English Church
be a seceder or not from Catholic unity.

At the same time we cannot forbear
quoting another criterion proposed by
the other Father—whom we have already
copiously cited—St. Jerome. His words
are strikingly applicable to our present

case. We will give them in the original :
a Poteram diem istiusmodi eloquio ducere,
et omnes propositionum rivulos uno
Ecclesiae sole siccare. Verum quia jam
multum sermocinati sumus . . . brevem
tibi apertamque anirni mei sententiam
proferam, in ilia esse Ecclesia perma-
nendum, quae ab Apostolis fundata usque
ad diem hanc durat. Sic ubi audieris
eos qui dicuntur Christi non a Domino
Jesu Christo sed a quoquam alio nuncupari,
ut puta Marcionitas, Valentinianos, Mon-
tenses, seu Campitas

;

1 scito non Ec-
1 These were the names by which the Donatists

pf Rome were distinguished.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 4

7

clesiam Christi, sed Antichristi esse

synagogam. Ex hoc enim ipso quod
postea instituti sunt, eos se esse indicant

quos futuros Apostolus praenunciavit. Nec
sibi blandiantur, si de Scripturarum
capitulis videntur sibi affirmare quod
dicunt, cum et diabolus de Scriptura
aliqua sit locutus et Scripturae non in
legendo consistant sed in intelligendo.” 1

Now, though this criterion will, in most
special wise, apply to those sects which
bear the names of men, as Lutherans,
Calvinists, and Wesleyans

;
yet will it be-

found applicable no less to any, whose

1 “ I could occupy the entire day with this
subject, and dry up all the dribblets of [schis-
matical] propositions by the sun of the Church
alone. But since our discourse has been long
... I will briefly and clearly lay you down my
opinion, that we must remain in that Church
which, founded by the Apostles, endures unto
this day. Wherever you hear those who are
called Christians receive their name not from
the Lord Christ Jesus, but from some one else

;

as, for instance, the Marcionites, Valentinians,
Montenses, or Campites, know that they are not
the Church of Christ, but the synagogue of Anti-
christ. For, from the very fact of their being
of later institution, they show themselves to be
those whom the Apostle foretold. Neither let
them flatter themselves if they appear to
prove what they say by texts of Scripture

;

seeing that the devil cited passages from Scrip-
ture, and Scripture consists not in the reading,
bat in the understanding of it.” Ubi sup. in fine.



48 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

designation indicates a state of separation
from the rest of the Church. For the
new Oxford school will not easily per-
suade men that their Anglican Church
forms no part of the great Protestant
defection, a title which at once ex-
presses separation from and opposition
to that greater aggregation of Churches
dispersed over the whole world, on which
no efforts have succeeded in fixing any
different title beyond that of the Catholic .

4. But the Donatists endeavoured to
escape from the application of this test
by another sophistry. You, they said,
are no more universal or Catholic than
we. A great part of the world is still
heathen, 1 and much is occupied by sects
which you do not admit into the pale
of the Church.2 Or rather sometimes
the Donatists affected to believe that

Catholics readily admitted the latter into
communion with them, in order to enlarge
their grounds to claim that title. To this
St. Augustine replies, that heathen nations

1 “Omitto gentium barbararum proprias re-
giones, Persarum ritus, sidera, Chaldeorum,
Egyptiorum superstitiones.” Crescon. ap. Aug.
cont. eumd. lib. iv. cap. 61.

2 “ Non ergo nobis communicant sicut tu dicis,
Novatiani, Ariani, Patripassiani, Valentiniani,” &c.

Ibid.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 49

will gradually be converted, and that,
to the end of the world, room will be
left for the dilatation of religion, and the
fulfilment of God’s promises regarding

the propagation of the faith. With re-
gard to the other objection, he observes

that we do not admit any who differ from
us in faith into religious community

;
but

that these, like the Donatists, are in dif-

ferent countries unprolific, and confined
within certain limits, beyond which they
have no power to spread, so as to put
in a title to be considered the Church
Catholic. 1

We see here two important points
decided

;
first, how the Catholicity of

our Church is not hemmed in by the
many unconverted nations yet remaining,
inasmuch as they are rather a field on
which the Catholic prerogative of propa-

1 “ 1. Unde necesse est, non solum fcecunditate
nascentis Ecclesiae, verum etiam permixta mul-
titudine inimicorum ejus, per quos pietas ejus
exerceri et probari posset, usque in finem
judiciariae separationis totus orbis impleatur.
. . . 2. Verumtamen ubicumque sunt isti
(haeretici) illic Catholica, sicut in Africa, ita et
vos : non autem ubicumque Catholica est, aut
vos estis aut haeresis quaelibet illarum. Unde
apparet quae sit arbor ramos suos per universam
terram extendens, et qui sint rami fracti non
habentes vitam radicis, atque in suis cuique
jacentes et arescentes locis,” Ibid.



5o THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

gation and fecundity is to be exercised
till the end of time

;
and, secondly, how

the Catholic Church, then, as now, sternly
excluded from its communion all sects
that differed from it, instead of making
the Catholic Church consist, as the tract-
writers would desire, of the heterogeneous
amalgamation of various Churches differ-
ing in doctrine, as the Greeks, Syrians,

and Anglicans, with the many har-
moniously united in communion with
Rome . 1 On another occasion, we find
St. Augustine answering the other form of
the second of the rehearsed objections

;

namely, that the number of sects not
in communion with those that call them-
selves the Catholic Church, excluded this
from that title

;
“ Quomodo,” asked Cres-

conius,
11 totus orbis communione vestra

plenus est, ubi tarn multae sunt haereses,

quarum vobis nulla communicat ?” 2 To
this the saint replies as on the other
occasion, tacitly acknowledging the fact

1 See for example, Tract viii. p. 4, where the
Churches of Rome, Holland, Scotland, Greece,
and the acknowledgedly heretical Churches of
Asia, are enumerated as forming so many parts
of the Church Catholic.

2 “ How is all the world full of your com-
munion, while there are so many heresies, not
one of which communicates with you ? ” Cont,
Cresc. lib. iii, cap. 66,



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 51

of non-communion with heretics, but
still maintaining the universality of the

Catholic Church.

5. Only another subterfuge remains :
it is, that to belong to the universal
Church, it is not necessary to be in
active intercourse and communion with
the different parts that compose it

;
so

that the Anglican Church may be a
portion of Christ's Church Catholic,
although it has no actual badges to
show of amity and harmony with other
portions of the same Church in Europe,
or the East. Cresconius, the Donatist,

made use of precisely this principle,
which is necessary to the establishment
of the system maintained on this subject
by the Oxford divines : u Non com-
municat Oriens Africae, nec Africa
Orienti." 1 To this St. Augustine replies,
that u with the chaff, that is out of the
Lord's barn-floor, the East does not in-
deed communicate, but with the Catholic
wheat, and with the straw that is within,
the East does communicate with Africa,
and Africa with the East." 2

1 “ The East does not communicate with Africa,
nor does Africa with the East.” Ibid. cap. 67.

2 “ Non sane sed in paleis haereticis ab area
Domini separatis : in frumentis autem catholicis
et interioribus paleis omnino communicat Africae,
et Africa Orienti.” Ibid.



52 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

The Donatists seem to have wished
to maintain the independence of the
African Church, as requiring no direct
connection with the Churches of Asia.
Hence, on another occasion, when St.
Augustine had a friendly conference with
Fortunius, a Donatist bishop, the ques-

tion, almost at its outset, turned upon
this point. The learned Father asked
him, which was the Church in which
one must live well—u whether that which,
according to the predictions of Holy
Writ, was to be diffused over the entire
world, or that which a small part of
Africa, or the Africans, contained? At
first, he tried to assert that his com-
munion was over the whole world. I
asked him whether he could give letters
of communion, which we called formatce

,

whithersoever I wished
;
and I affirmed

what was clear to all, that by this test
the entire question could be brought to
a close.” 1 But the Donatist soon ran off
his ground, and turned to other matters.

1 “ Deinde quaerere ccepimus, quaenam ilia esset
ecclesia ubi vivere sic oporteret, utrum ilia quae,
sicut Sancta ante Scriptura praedixerat, se terrarum
orbe diffunderet, an ilia quam pars exigua vel
Afrorum, vel Africae contineret. Hie primo
asserere conatus est, ubique terrarum esse com-
munionem suam: Quaerebam utrum epistolas
coipmunicatorias quas formatas dicimus, posset



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 53

Now, if the courteous reader will take
the trouble to turn over to the third

volume of the [Dublin] Review (July, 1837),
he will find us challenging the Anglicans
to the same proof of the assertion, which
they make in common with the Donatists,
that they are a part, or a branch, of the
Church Catholic, dispersed over the world.
We took Barrow’s criterions of religious
unity, and showed how no prelate of the
Anglican Church could safely attempt to
apply them in practice to his Church. 1 If
he sent letters of communication to any
foreign bishop (except perhaps in North
America), they might be answered through
courtesy, but the pledge of amity would
not be accepted. We can challenge
them, therefore, to the very same proof
as Augustine challenged Fortunius to

;

and the very fact of their not being able
to submit to it would decide the question,
as it did then, that they are in a state of
schism. The twenty-third canon of the
African code prescribes, that if any bishop

quo vellam dare
;
et affirmabam, quod manifestum

erat omnibus, hoc modo facillime illam terminari
posse quaestionem.” Epist. ad Eleus. Glor. et
Fel. tom. ii., Ep. xliv. ol. clxiii. cap. 2.

1 Pp. 69, sqq. The criterions proposed by Dr.
Barrow are all acts of communion, not one of
which would in practice be applicable to the
English Church.



54 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

travel beyond the sea, he provides himself
with literce formatce

,
or letters of com-

munion from his primate. This proves
that an active communion was required
between Churches separated by the sea,
so that any bishop bearing such letters
would be readily admitted into participa-
tion in all religious and ecclesiastical rites
with the bishops of the country in which
he might travel. Would such letters from
the English primate be heeded even in
Europe ? How much less in China, in
India, or Syria ! Yet, not only the letter

of a Catholic primate, but that wherewith
every bishop or vicar-apostolic usually
furnishes any of his clergy who have
occasion to go abroad, is received with
respect by every foreign bishop, and
secures to its bearer all the rights of

communion in belief and practice, and
opens to him at once the gates of the
sanctuary and the hearts of his fellow-
labourers in Christ.

St. Augustine is careful to remove the
impression that when he wrote to any
Donatist leaders he thereby entered into
communion of faith

;
and thus proves to

us the difference between civility and
charitable intercourse, and communion in
religion. “ Unde factum est,” he writes,
“ ut etiam ad nonnullos Donatistarum



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 55

primarios scriberemus, non communica-
torias literas

,
quas jam olim

,
propter suam

perversitatem, ab imitate Catholica
,

gz/tf?

toto orbe diffusa est
f
non accipiunt

,
sed

tales privatas qualibus nobis uti etiam ad
paganos licet.” 1

If the case, therefore, of the Anglican
Church had to be decided by the prin-
ciples and the voice of antiquity, we do
not see how any verdict but that of
schism could be pronounced against it.
It is in a state of separation from the
aggregate of Churches dispersed over the
world. It cannot make an excuse, it
cannot raise a point either of fact or of
right, in bar of judgement, which has not
been already met by the judicious sagacity
of the great supporter of the unity of the

Church, when combating the cavils of the
Donatists. But we have yet a second and
most important test provided for us by
antiquity, whereby we must farther prove
our point before we proceed to investi-
gate the awful consequences, in regard
to apostolical succession and claims to

1 “ Whence it came that we wrote to some of
the chief men among the Donatists, not letters of
communion, which they do not receive for a long
time from the Catholic unity disposed over all the
world on account of their perversity, but such
private letters as it is lawful for us to send even to
pagans.” Ep. xliii. ol. clxii. cap. 1.



56 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

authority, that result ' from this state of
separation.

II. The second criterion of the true
Church is closely allied to the first, though
simpler in its application. According to
the doctrine of the ancient Fathers, it is

easy at once to ascertain who are the
Church Catholic, and who are in a state
of schism, by simply discovering who are
in communion with the See of Rome and
who are not. This test, as we just re-
marked, is nearly connected with the
foregoing : inasmuch as, the Chair of
Peter being the centre of the Catholic
unity, all that communicated with it knew
at once that they were in communion
with the rest of the Church dispersed
over the world. To have kept up an
active communication with all the sees,
even with all the metropolitans of the
world, would have been, for each bishop,
a difficult, not to say an impossible, under-
taking. Nor could the faithful have easily
discovered whether their own bishop pre-
served Catholic unity in this way. Let us
then at once show the various ways in
which this connection with the Apostolic
See was applied to the preservation of
unity and the immediate detection of
schism.

i. We have seen that communion was



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 57

actively kept up by means of the epi-
stolce formatce . No doubt on particular
occasions, such as that mentioned by St.
Augustine, any bishop writing to other
sees would have received in reply letters
of communion. But ordinarily this regular
interchange of religious communion all
centred in the Apostolic See. We will
not here inquire whether the formatce
which it sent even to patriarchs were not
of a much higher character, and contained
a confirmation of their election, without
which it was not admitted. We think
decidedly that such was the case. 1 But
as we have throughout this discussion
desired and endeavoured to deal gene-
rously with our opponents, and have not
insisted upon any point which we could
waive in our argument, we are willing to
act consistently in this matter too : and
shall therefore suppose that the formatce
of the Holy See went no farther than to
acknowledge religious communion with
the bishops to whom they were addressed.

1 Pope Boniface I informs us that Theodosius,
fearing lest the election of Nectarius to the Con-
stantinopolitan patriarchate would be null, “habere
non existimans firmitatem,” because he (the Pope)
had not known of it, sent a deputation of courtiers
and bishops, and “ formatam huic a Sede Romana
dirigi depoposcit, quae ejus sacerdotium roboraret.”
Ap. Constant. Epp. Rom. Pont. ol. 1043.



58 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

Still, this intercourse was considered
essential to the maintenance of religious
unity, and its absence was a clear indica-
tion of a state of schismatical separation.
We have a remarkable proof of this com-
munication carried on by distant Churches
through the medium of the Holy See, in
an argument employed by St. Augustine.
The Donatists, to prove that the rest of
the Church had kept communion with
them, asserted that the Council of Sardica
had written a letter to Donatus of Car-
thage. To this the holy Father replies
that, supposing the synod to have been
orthodox, it does not follow that the
Donatus mentioned was the Bishop of
Carthage, as the names of the sees are
not cited in the letter. He then adds,
“ quod hinc maxime credibile est, quocl
ad Carthaginis episcopum, Romano prae-
termisso, nunquam orientalis Catholica
scriberet.” 1

But St. Optatus is the writer who uses
this argument in the clearest manner, and

1 “ Which is the more credible because the
oriental Catholic Church never wrote to the
Bishop of Carthage, passing over the Bishop of
Rome.” Cont. Crescon. lib. iii. cap. 34. [As a
matter of fact, the letter was found in the archives,
but it was from the heretical Council of Philip-
popolis, which claimed to be the Council of
Sardica. L.R.]



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 59

proves the schism of the Donatists by the
simple fact of their not communicating
with the rest of the world through him
who sat in the Chair of Peter. After
tracing the succession of pastors from St.
Peter to Siricius, he adds, “who is in
fellowship with us, with whom the entire
world is joined in the society of one
communion, through the intercourse of
formatce” 1

2. But this was by no means the highest
ground on which communion with the See
of Rome was required of all who wished
to be considered within the pale of the
Catholic Church. It was not for the con-
venience of mutual intercourse, but for
the necessity of ecclesiastical unity that

the Chair of Peter and his successors had
been made the centre, and received the
headship, of the Church. St. Ambrose,
writing to the Emperors, calls the Holy
City, “totius orbis Romani caput Ro-
manam ecclesiam . . . inde enim in
omnes venerandae communionis jura
dimanant.” 2 St. Optatus, however, lays

1 See the text quoted below.
2 “ The Roman Church head of the entire

Roman Empire . . . for thence flow to all the
rights of venerable communion.” Ep. ii. ad Grat.
et Valent.



6o THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

the greatest stress upon this point. Again
and again he presses the charge of
schism upon the Donatists, because they
are separated from the Chair of Peter.
Having proved that the Catholic or true
Church must be diffused over the entire
world, he proceeds to point out more
particular marks and ornaments whereby
it may be more easily distinguished.
The first of these is the Cathedra or
episcopal chair. By this it is evident
that he did not mean episcopacy in
general, nor the succession of bishops
validly ordained, as he allows the Dona-
tists to have possessed these. He goes
on, therefore, to explain his meaning and
apply it. “We must see,” he writes,
“ who sat first upon the chair, and where.
If you are ignorant, learn

;
if you know

it, blush
;
you cannot be charged with

ignorance, therefore you must know
it. . . . Therefore you cannot deny that
you know, that in the city of Rome, the
episcopal chair was bestowed on Peter
first, on which sat Peter, the head of all
the apostles, whence he was called
Cephas

;
in which one chair unity was

to be preserved by all, lest the rest of
the apostles should stand up each one
for a separate Church

;
so that he

SHOULD BE A SCHISMATIC AND A SINNER



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 61

WHO SHOULD SET UP AGAINST THE ONE
chair another.” 1

Before proceeding to the next words
of the Father, we will indulge in one
or two remarks. It is repugnant to the
obvious purport of his argument to
imagine, with Chillingworth or Mr.
Poole, that he here speaks only of schism
within the Roman Church, strictly so
called, by the setting up of a Donatist
bishop in the city of Rome, in opposi-
tion to the one in direct succession from
St. Peter. For St. Optatus speaks of the
Roman See as one and singular

,
in refer-

ence not to any rival pretensions that
might be set up with it, but in reference
to the sees erected by the other apostles.

1 “Videndum est quis, et ubi prior cathedram
sederit. Si ignoras, disce

;
si nosti, erubesce

;

ignorantia tibi adscribi non potest, restat ergo ut
noveris. . . . Igitur negare non potes scire te in
Urbe Roma, Petro primo Cathedram episcopalem
esse collatam, in qua sederit omnium apostolorum
caput Petrus, unde et Cephas appellatus est, in qua
una cathedra unitas ab omnibus servaretur

;
ne

ceteri apostoli singulas sibi quisque defenderent :
ut jam schismaticus et peccator esset, qui contra
singularem cathedram, alteram collocaret.” De
Schism. Donat, lib. ii. cap. 2, p. 31. The learned
author to whom we allude on page 64, reads tibi
for sibi in the last sentence. St. Cyprian Vin-
dicated

,
p. 20. We follow Dupin’s edition, which

gives no various reading here. Of course the
sense is precisely the same.



62 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

Unity was to be preserved in this chair,
in such way as that no other apostolic
chair was to be set up against it, without
incurring the guilt of schism. What
could be the motive for introducing here
the mention of other apostolic sees, if
the object was only to lay the basis for
an argument that he was a schismatic
who erected a rival throne in the same
see ?—a proposition so evident, that it
certainly required no appeal to the
respective positions of Peter and the
other apostles. But St. Optatus well
knew that there was a twofold form of
schism, one by separation from the im-
mediate bishop, who forms the first link
with each one in the chair of unity, and
the other, consequent on it, by separation
from the centre at which the various
chains are joined together. For other-
wise, what can be the meaning of his
thus addressing Parmenianus : u Nec
Caecilianus recessit a Cathedra Petri vel

Cypriani, sed Majorinus cujus tu cathe-
dram sedes.” 1 What, we ask, is the
meaning of these words, unless a schism
in Africa, at Carthage, was considered
a separation not only from the See of

1 “ Nor did Caecilianus separate himself from the
chair of Peter or Cyprian, but Majorinus did, whose
see you occupy.” Lib. i. cap. io, p. io.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 63

that city, in which Cyprian had sat,
but also from that of Rome ? We there-
fore conclude that St. Optatus, in declar-
ing every one a sinful schismatic who
sets up a rival chair to that of Peter,
spoke not of those in Rome itself, but
of any who, in distant countries, estab-
lished the independence of their sees.
The learned Father having thus laid

the foundation of his argument, proceeds
to apply it to the Donatist controversy,
in the following terms : u Therefore, the
one chair, which is the first of the pro-
perties [of the Church], Peter filled the
first, to whom succeeded Linus

;
to Linus

succeeded Clement. . .
.

[Here the
saint enumerates all the pontiffs down
to his time

;
then concludes] to Damasus,

Siricius, who is now in fellowship with
us, with whom the entire world is joined
with us in the society of one communion,
through the intercourse of formatce. Give
then an account of the origin of your
chair, you who wish to claim to be the
holy Church .” 1 It may be deemed

1 “ Ergo cathedram unicam, quae est prima de
dotibus sedit prior Petrus, cui successit Linus, Lino
successit Clemens. . . . Damaso Siricius, hodie
qui noster est socius, cum quo nobiscum totus orbis,
commercio, formatarum in una communionis socie-
tate concordat. Vestrae Cathedrae vos originem



64 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

necessary for us to reply to the cavils
of the two above-named divines upon
this, as we have done on the preceding
part of St. Optatus’s text. We are,
indeed, dispensed from the task, by the
able manner in which we find it has
been done by the Rev. F. C. Husenbeth,
who, by his answer to Mr. Poole, has
added another to the many claims he
already possessed to the respect and
gratitude of British Catholics, and has
gained a new title to the character he
so justly bears of a sound divine, a ready
polemic, and a zealous ecclesiastic . 1 We
will content ourselves, therefore, with a
very few remarks.

In laying down the point which he in-
tended to prove, that is, which Church
had the marks or properties of the
Catholic, St. Optatus never once intimates
that he had removed the question from
Africa to Rome, for it is evident that he
wrote his work for the conviction of the
African Donatists, and naturally selected
arguments applicable to them

;
so his

marks of the Church are such as would

reddite qui vobis vultis sanctam ecclesiam vindi-
care.” Lib. ii. cap. 4, p. 32.

1
St. Cyprian Vindicated against certain Mis-

representations of his Doctrine in a Work by the
Rev, G. A. Poole, p. 64. Norwich, 1839,



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 65

apply in any country. Now, after he
has given the argument we have just
seen from the Chair of Peter, he intro-
duces, simply as an objection to the argu-
ment, the Donatists’ assertion that they

too had a Church and a chair at Rome.
11 But you say,” he writes, “ that you also
have some part in the city of Rome.” 1

Surely this is not the way in which the
main argument is likely to be introduced !
It is evidently nothing more than an objec-
tion which the writer thinks might be
thrown in by an adversary, and which he
thinks it right to remove before proceed-
ing with the argument. Accordingly, the
Father shows how little right the Dona-
tists have to consider their African bishop
resident in Rome the true representa-
tive of the Apostolic See, and then con-
cluding that Peter, u the Prince of the

Catholics ” (nostrum Principem), had
alone the keys given him, he proceeds with
the argument on general grounds, by no
means applicable to Rome alone. Yet
throughout he continues to argue against
the Donatist schism in general, as sepa-
rated from the Chair of Peter, and
thereby at once condemned : u Unde est

1 Sed et habere vos in urbe Romse partem
1 iquam dicitis.” Cap. iv.



66 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

ergo quod claves regni coelorum vobis
usurpare contenditis, qui contra cathedram
Petri . . . sacrilegio militatis ?

” 1 Nay,
he even goes farther than this. He had
proposed five marks of the true Church,
whereby it could be distinguished from
all schismatical congregations. The first
is the one we have seen, the Chair, and
he concludes that this is proved to be
exclusively his side’s, through the Chair
of Peter. u Igitur de dotibus supradictis
cathedra est, ut diximus, prima, quam
probavimus per Petrum nostram esse.”

2

This surely could not be said if, as Mr.
Poole supposes,3 the argument was only
of use against Macrobius and his miserable
handful of lurking sectarians in Rome.

Then, what is still more important,
St. Optatus hardly touches upon several
of these marks, but contents himself with

asserting that he has proved his Church
to possess them, through the Chair of
Peter : “ et per cathedram Petri quae

1 “ How is it that you should attempt to usurp
the keys of the kingdom of heaven, who are en-
gaged in sacrilegious war against the Chair of
Peter ? ” Cap. v.

2 “ Therefore of the above-rehearsed properties,
the Chair is the first, which we have proved to be
ours through Peter.” Cap. vi.

3 Ap. Husenbeth ubi sup.



OP APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 67

nostra est, per ipsam et ceteras dotes
apud nos esse.” 1 By proving, therefore,
this one point, he considered the argu-
ment as satisfactory, as if he had fully
demonstrated each of the other marks to
belong exclusively to his Church.

Farther, we will observe that these
characteristics of the true Church were
not originally proposed by St. Optatus,
but by his Donatist adversary . 2 Now
it is not probable that he should by
u cathedra ” have meant the see of
Rome, which they could not, without con-
summate impudence, pretend to claim

;

particularly, as we shall see that it was
part of their tactics to keep the question on
African ground, and decline all reference
to the state of foreign Churches. In fine,
we find St. Augustine employs the same
argument from the succession in the
Roman see, where certainly there can be
no room for Chillingwortifis exceptions.
For this Father composed a rude poem,
or psalm, which might be sung by the

1 “And by the Chair of Peter which is ours, by
it the other properties are with us.” Cap. ix.

P- 38.
2 “ Videndum ubi sunt quinque dotes quas tu sex

esse dixisti.” Lib. ii. cap. ii. St. Optatus after-
wards tells us which he excluded to reduce them
to five

;
which, consequently, he admitted. Cap.

viii.



68 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

common people of Africa (for he always
speaks of other Churches under the title
of transmarine) and in this he gives, as
the principal evidence against the Dona-
tists, the succession of bishops in the

Chair of Peter. These are his words :

“ Venite fratres, si vultis ut inseramini in vite.
Dolor est cum vos videmus praecisos ita jacere.
Numerate sacerdotes vel ab ipsa Petri sede,
Et in ordine illo Patrum quis cui successit

videte.

Ipsa est petra, quam non vincunt superbas infe-
rorum portae.”

“ Come, brethren, if you wish to be engrafted in
the vine,

It grieves us to see you thus lie cut off.
Number the priests in the very Chair of Peter,
And see in that order of fathers who succeeded

the other.

This is the rock which the proud gates of hell
overcome not.”

Contra partem Donati Psalmus versus fin.

3. It will not, therefore, be surprising

to see how, in practice, this simple rule
was adopted for at once ascertaining
who were the Catholics and who the
schismatics. St. Ambrose informs us
that his brother Satyrus, not yet partaker

of the Sacred Mysteries, being in immi-
nent danger of shipwreck, tied the
Blessed Eucharist round his neck in an
ovarium or scarf, and fearlessly committed



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 69

himself to the waves. Arrived on shore,
and having experienced the efficacy of
this great sacrament when thus externally
applied, he concluded how much more
excellent its virtue must be when actually
received into the breast, and therefore
ardently desired to be partaker of it.
But the schism of Lucifer prevailed in
that country

;
and therefore he resolved

to be cautious how he communicated
with the clergy. “ He sent for the bishop,
nor did he think there was any true grace
save that of true faith. He asked of him
whether he agreed with the Catholic
bishops, that is, with the Roman Church.” 1
Such was the simple test which one, not
yet initiated in the mysteries of Chris-

tianity, had learnt
;
he did not inquire

into the succession of that particular

Church or see, nor whether it taught all
that is declared in the creeds, nor whether
it was u an independent branch of the
Church Catholic ”

;
but simply whether

the bishop who came to him kept, or not,
communion with the Roman Church.
Had Satyrus thus been cast in our days

1 “ Advocavit ad se episcopum, nec ullam veram
putavit, nisi verae fidei gratiam

: percontatusque ex
eo est, utrumnam cum Episcopis Catholicis, hoc
est cum Romana Ecclesia conveniret.”—De Obitu
Satyri Fratris.



7o THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

upon the shores of England or Ireland,
he certainly would have rejected the
ministry of the Establishment-bishops,
who claim their rights upon the pretended
grounds just rehearsed, and would have
admitted the bishop, or vicar, or priest,
who could alone have answered affirma-
tively to his one simple question.

Another instance of the application of
this easy test we have in the life of St.
Fulgentius, written by his disciple. As
he was proceeding to the deserts of
Thebais, to study virtue from its cele-
brated anchorites, the Bishop Eulalius
thus addressed him : “ You do right thus
to aim at perfection

;
but you know that

without faith it is impossible to please

God. The countries which you desire to
visit, a perfidious dissension has separated

from the communion of the B. Peter
;

all

those monks, whose wonderful abstinence
is celebrated, have not the sacrament of

the altar in communion with you. . . .
Return, my son, lest, for the sake of per-
fection of life, you incur danger of right
faith.” 1 Thuswe see how, even in Egypt,

1 “ Recta fads cupiens meliora sectari ; sed scis

quoniam Deo sine fide impossibile est placere.
Terras ad quas pergere concupiscis a communione
B. Petri perfida dissentio separavit

;
omnes illi

monachi quorum prsedicatur admirabilis absti-



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 71

communion with the See of Rome was at
once a sufficient test of orthodoxy and
participation in the communion of the
Catholic Church. It is hardly necessary
for us to cite the well-known words of
St. Jerome, who by the same process,
resolves the complications of a manifold
schism, and decideswho is right. il Hinc
in tres partes divisa Ecclesia ad se rapere
me festinat. . . . Ego interim clamito : si
quis Cathedrae Petri jungitur meus est

;

Meletius, Vitalis, et Paulinus tibi [the

pope], haerere se dicunt
;
possem credere

si hoc unus asseret : nunc autem .duo
mentiuntur aut omnes.” 1 Nay, so well
understood was this rule, that Eusebius
gives an instance of its application by a
heathen emperor. For when Paul of
Samosata had refused to obey the decree
of deposition pronounced against him by

nentia, non habent tecum altaris sacramenta com-
munia. . . . Revertere, fili, ne vitae melioris intuitu
periculum rectae fidei patiaris.”—Apud Bolland.
1 Jan. cap. 12.

1 “ Hence the Church, divided into three parts,
strives to drag me, each to itself. ... In the
meantime, I cry out, if any one is joined to the
Chair of Peter, he is mine. Meletius, Vitalis, and
Paulinus say that they cleave to you. I might
believe it, if one said it

;
but now two of them, or

all three, speak untruly.” Epist. tom. iv. 13. ed.
Maur.



72 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

the Council of Antioch, or yield his see
to Domnus, the case being referred to
Aurelian, he decided that he should be
held the true bishop, who had letters (of
communion) from the bishop of Rome. 1

4. This principle, however, was not
merely adopted for convenience of applica-
tion as affording a rule, which rude and un-
enlightened minds could supply, but it was
followed by the highest dignitaries of the
Church on the most solemn occasions.
The Council of Constantinople, under the
patriarch Mennas, lays down this rule :
u We follow and obey the Apostolic See

;

and’ those who are in communion with it,
we hold in communion

;
those whom it

condemns we likewise condemn.” 2 We
have another remarkable declaration of
John, patriarch of Constantinople, who,
writing to Pope Hormisdas, protests that
he follows in all things the Apostolic See,
and preaches all that it has decreed, and
therefore hopes to be in one communion
with that see, u in which is the entire
and perfect solidity of the Christian

1 Ap. Euseb. H.E. lib. vii. cap. 30.
2

Hfieig yap ... no clttogtoXikiCj Spovw E^aKoXov-
Srov)uev te, Kal 7TEL^6pt6a, Kal rovg KoivooviKovg ai rbv

koiviovikovq exopEv, ical TOVGV7T ’ avrov KaTaKpiOsi'rag
Kal r)pEig KaraKplvorjtEv. Labbe Gone. tom. v.
pi. 92.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 73

religion.” Should any one assert that
this is said only under the circumstance
of the Pope’s being at that time acknow-
ledged orthodox by the rest of the Church,
and does not contain the maintenance of
a principle applicable to all possible cases,

we beg him to attend to the words which
immediately follow : u Promising for the
future, that whoever are separated from
the communion of the Catholic Church,
that is who consent not in all things with the
Apostolic See

,
their names shall not be

recited in the sacred mysteries,” the

ordinary mark of communion . 1 This at
once excludes all idea of the possibility
of the See of Rome, or those in unity
with it, being considered heretics or
schismatics, as the Tracts for the Times

,

professing to deliver the doctrines of

antiquity, would pretend is now the case.
As we are treating of this great Pope, we
cannot help turning the reader’s attention
to another letter, from the bishop of
Nicopolis to him, in which he holds even
stronger language. But as it refers more

1 “ In qua est integra Christianae religionis, et
perfecta soliditas. . . . Promittentes in sequenti
tempore, sequestratos a communione Ecclesiae
Catholicae, id est in omnibus non consentientes
Sedi Apostolicae, eorum nomina inter sacra non
esse recitanda mysteria.” Ibid. tom. iv. ol. 1487.



74 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

to the jurisdiction of the pontiffs over the
entire world, and to their infallible autho-
rity in teaching than to the necessity of
union with them, we will only refer to it
in general terms. 1 St. Gregory the Great
has preserved the formulary signed by
bishops reclaimed from schism, U 1 a
bishop . . . willingly and spontaneously
have, by the Divine grace, returned to the
unity of the Apostolic See

;
and ... I

pledge myself, under pain of forfeiture of
my order, and under the penalty of
anathema I promise to thee, and through
thee to St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles,

and to his vicar, the blessed Gregory, or
his successors, never to return to the
schism . . . but always to remain in the
unity of the holy Catholic Church, and the
communion of the Roman Pontiff.” 2
We have thus seen the two grounds

on which the ancient Church mainly

1 Ibid. ol. 1438.
2 “ Ego episcopus . . . prona et spontanea volun-

tate ad unitatem Sedis Apostolicae, divina gratia
duce, reversus sum . . . Et sub mei ordinis casu
spondeo, et anathematis obligatione, atque promitto
tibi, et per te S. Petri Apostolorum Principi, atque
ejus Vicario Beatissimo Gregorio, vel successoribus
ipsius, ad schisma . . . nunquam reversurum, sed
semper me in imitate S. Ecclesiae Catholicae et
communione Romani Pontificis permansurum.”
S. Gregorii M. Opera, tom. ii. p. 1300, ed. Maur.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 75

supported an accusation of schism
;
the

two rules which it gave to the faithful for
deciding when they were to continue in
communion with a body of Christians,
however great and however national, who
claimed their obedience or their com-
munion. They had not to perplex
themselves with doctrinal points, or con-
troversial subtleties—they had simply to
ascertain, first, whether or no these were
held in . communion by the rest of the
Church, that is by the aggregate of
Churches dispersed over the world

;
and

secondly
,
whether they adhered to the

Apostolic Roman See. Wherever they
found these two conditions verified, there
they were to join themselves : wherever
they existed not, there was schism, and
they were to have no part with those
that formed it. 1 Now let us apply these
two tests to the Anglican Church. In
our first article above referred to, we
proved that it can show no communion
with the rest of the Christian episcopal
world, even taking those criterions of

1 There is an interesting passage in St. Augus-
tine, too long to quote (cont. Lit. Petil. lib. ii. cap.

125), in which he unites the two criterions of the
Roman and the universal Church’s communion,
observing that the Church founded upon a rock is
not by reason of this foundation confined to one
place, but is spread all over the world.



76 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

that communion which its own approved
divines have laid down. And as to the
second condition, that of communion
with the Roman See, we think there can
be no hesitation what to decide, inas-
much as, by a formal act, the English
Church, in 1534, disavowed all depen-
dence upon it, and from that moment
ceased to communicate with it. Certain
it is, that de facto that Church has, since
that time (excepting the reign of Mary),
held no unity or communication with
either Rome or the rest of the Catholic
world. And this has nothing to do with
the question of doctrine, or any inquiry
as to whether the body of the Catholic
Church deviated from true faith at Trent,
and rendered it imperative then to
separate from it

;
an idea, however,

incompatible with what we have already
seen above, and much that we could add.
For the separation from unity took place
before this, and had no reference to
doctrine, farther than the exclusion of

the supremacy on Scriptural grounds. 1

1 See Dublin Review
,
vol. v. p. 298, note. “ No

event in the history of England is marked by
circumstances so peculiar as those which attended
the separation of the national Church from the
Romish communion.” (British Critic

,
No. xliv.,

Oct., 1837, P- 300')



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 77

The Anglican Church, therefore, spon-
taneously constituted itself in a state of

schism.

At the outset of this article, we
assumed, as a point on which our
principal adversaries would agree with
us, that a Church, or portion of a Church,
thus constituted in schism, however valid
its ordination, could have no part in the
apostolical succession. For the satis-
faction, however, of such readers as may
not be so well versed in ecclesiastical
antiquities, we will now say a few words
on the subject.

1. Schism is pronounced by the
Fathers a dreadful sin, whether in a
Church or in individuals who knowingly
persevere in it. St. Augustine thus writes
of it :

“ Quod autem vos a totius orbis
communione separatos videmus (quod
scelus et maximum, et manifestum, et
omnium vestrum est) si exaggerare velim,
tempus me citius quam verba deficient.” 1
On another occasion he calls it “ sacrile-
gium schismatis quod omnia scelera

1 “ That you should be found separated from the
communion of the entire world (which is a
wickedness most grievous, manifest, and charge-
able on you all), if I wished to show its aggrava-
tion, time would fail me before words.” Cont,
Lit. Petil. lib. ii. cap. 8.



78 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

supergraditur.” 1 St. Fulgentius, in the
strongest terms, excludes all schismatics
from eternal salvation.

2

2 . Further, they do not admit a possi-
ble case that can justify such separation :
as they consider the evil done to the
Church by schism sufficient to counter-
balance any imaginary good to be gained,
and equal to any real or imaginary evil to
be thereby avoided. St. Irenaeus says
that such persons swallow a camel while
they strain at a gnat, u for no correction
can be made by them equal to the bane
of schism.” 3 St. Augustine, speaking of
converts made by the Donatists from
heathenism, employs this severe lan-
guage : “ Itaque illos quos sanant a
vulnere idolatriae, gravius feriunt vulnere

schismatis.” 4 We refrain from further

1 “ The sacrilege of schism which transcends all
crimes.” Cont. Epist. Parmen. lib. ii. cap. 4.

2 “ Firmissime tene et nullatenus dubites haere-
ticos atque schismaticos, qui extra Ecclesiam
Catholicam praesentem finiunt vitam, in ignem
aeternum ituros.” De Fide ad Pet. Biblioth. Vet.
Par. tom. ix. p. 82, ed. Paris.

3 “ Nulla enim ab eis potest fieri tanta correctio,
quanta est schismatis pernicies.” Lib. iv. cap. 33.

4 “ Therefore those whom they cure of the
wound of idolatry, they more grievously strike
with the wound of schism.” De Baptismo cont.
Donat, lib. i. cap. 8.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 79

quotations, which we could multiply to
any extent.

3. Though the valid exercise of the
sacramental power was allowed to such
schismatics as preserved the lawful forms,

yet its legitimate exercise was never
acknowledged. St. Augustine makes the
distinction respecting baptism : “ Item
alia duo dicimus, esse apud Donatistas,
baptismum, non autem illic reste accipi.” 1

And, on another occasion, he says of the
same sacrament that, in his opinion, when
given under certain circumstances (not
then cleared up by a General Council),
the sacrament would be valid, but u not
profitable to life eternal, so long as they
remained separated from the Catholic
Church.” 2 Now, the same Father re-
peatedly compares the sacrament of
orders with that of baptism, illustrating
the latter from the former : so that
the same distinction between validity and
lawfulness of exercise must be admitted.
For instance, “ Nam sicut redeuntes, qui

1 “ Likewise two other things we say are among
the Donatists

;
baptism, but that it is not there

rightly received.” Ibid. cap. 3. He had just said
that in the Catholic Church, “et esse baptismum,
et illic tantum recte accipi.”

2 “ Quanquam eis ad vitam aeternam non pro-
desset, si charitate caruissent qua Catholicae
insererentur Ecclesiae.” Ibid. lib. vii. cap. 53.



8o THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

priusquam recederent baptizati sunt, non
rebaptizantur

;
ita redeuntes, qui prius-

quam recederent ordinati sunt, non utique
rursus ordinantur, sed aut administrant
quod administrabant, si hoc Ecclesias
utilitas postulat, aut si non administrant,
Sacramentum ordinationis tamen gerunt
. . . Nam neque Sacramentum baptismi,
nec Sacramentum dandi Baptismi . . .
Felicianus amisit.” 1 Ordination, here
pronounced a sacrament (contrary to the
doctrine of the Anglican Church), is put
on the same footing with baptism, in
reference to the effects exercised on it by
schism, and therefore, however validly,
cannot be lawfully or profitably conferred
in a Church separated from the unity of
faith and religious communion. There is
another passage, still more beautiful, that
illustrates the doctrine of baptism by that
of order and other sacraments, which we
cannot forbear quoting, on account of its

1 “ For, as those that return, who before they
separated had been baptized, are not rebaptized,
so they that return, who before they separated had
been ordained, are not again ordained, but either
resume the ministry they had before, if the service
of the Church require it, or if they minister not,
yet bear the sacrament of orders. For neither the
sacrament of baptism, nor the sacrament ofgiving
baptism, did Felicianus . . . lose.” Ibid. lib.

vii* cap* 2 .



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 81

likewise contradicting the Anglican, and
confirming the Catholic, doctrine of the

sacraments. It is the following : “ Si

ergo ad hoc valet quod dictum est in
Evangelio, ‘ Deus peccatorem non audit/
ut per peccatorem sacramenta non cele-
brentur

;
quomodo exaudit homicidam

deprecantem vel super aquam baptismi,
vel super oleum, vel super Eucharistiam,

vel super capita eorum quibus manus
imponitur ? Quae omnia tamen et fiunt
et valent etiam per homicidas . . . etiam
in ipsa intus Ecclesia. ‘ Cum nemo dare
possit quod non habet/ quomodo dat
homicida Spiritum Sanctum ? ” 1 The dis-

1 “ If, therefore, what is said in the Gospel that
‘ God hears not sinners ’ have this force, that a
sacrament cannot be conferred by a sinner, how
does he hear a murderer ” [one devoid of charity,
as the Father explains it] “ praying either over
the water of baptism, or over the oil (confirmation)
or over the Eucharist, or over the heads of those
on whom he lays hands (orders) ? All which, how-
ever, are done, and are validly done even by
murderers . . . even within the Church itself.
Since no one can give that which he has not, how
can a murderer give the Holy Ghost f ” Ibid. lib.
v. cap. 20. From which we draw two conclusions
opposed to the doctrines of the Tracts

,
first, that

order, as well as confirmation, is a true sacrament,
that gives the Holy Ghost

;
secondly, that it has a

form of words, and does not differ from the true
sacrament, by consisting only in the imposition of
hands. Cf. Tract No. i, p. 3, v. 10 ; and P

n

Pusey’s Lett. Tr. ypl iii, p. 11.
F



82 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

tinction, therefore, holds good between
the valid and the lawful exercise and
bestowing of orders

;
so that the former

may exist in a schismatical Church
;
the

latter never can.

4. Hence St. Augustine has no hesita-
tion in addressing the following strong

language to the Donatist bishops : u If
you ask me by what fruits we know you
to be rather ravenous wolves, I object to
you the crime of schism, which you will
deny, but I will instantly prove

;
for you

do not communicate with other nations,
and with the Churches founded by the
labour of the Apostles.” 1

5. In fine, upon the return of any
Donatist bishop to the unity of faith,
the Church sufficiently showed how far
it was from admitting any right in him to
a place in the apostolical succession. The
third Council of Carthage, in 397, decreed
as follows

: first, that what had been de-
creed in preceding councils be confirmed,
“ne quis Donatistarum cum honore suo
recipiatur sed in numero laicorum ”

;

1 " Si autem a me quaeras quibus fructibus vos
potius esse lupos rapaces cognoscamus, objicio
schismatis, crimen, quod tu negabis, ego autem
statim probabo

;
neque enim communicas omnibus

gentibus, et illis ecclesiis apostolico labore funda-
tis,” Cont. Litteras Petil, lib. ii. cap f 16.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 83

secondly
,
that an exception be made in

favour of those who had never rebaptized,
or who came over to the Catholic Com-
munion with their flocks

;
thirdly

,
it was

deemed advisable that the decree should
not be finally confirmed till the judgement
of the transmarine or Italian Church had
been obtained . 1 This was similar treat-
ment to that of the Meletians and Nova-
tians, mentioned in our former article . 2

The voice of antiquity is therefore clear
and loud upon the claims to apostolical
succession of any Church involved in
schism, that is, which is not in communion
with other Churches, and especially with
that of Rome. Implicated in a crime
which no possible circumstances can
justify

;
exercising their functions, even

when validly, still without profit to the
souls of men

;
styled wolves rather than

1 Labbe, tom. iii. ol. 1181. St. Augustine thus
speaks of this matter acknowledging the validity
of Donatists’ orders—not because hands are
imposed, which the theory of the Tracts requires,
but because a proper form of words was used.
“ Et de episcopis quidem vel clericis recipiendis,
alia quaestio est. Quamvis enim, cum apud vos
ordinantur, non super eos invocetur nomen Donati
sed Dei, tamen ita suscipiuntur ut videtur paci et
utilitati Ecclesiae convenire.” Cont. Cresconium
Grammat. lib. i. cap. 11.

2 Vol. v. p. 289,



84 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

shepherds
;

admitted into the Church
only as laymen—can bishops so charac-
terized have been considered by the
ancient Church descendants and repre-
sentatives of the apostles ?

Our argument ought naturally to close
here but the lessons furnished us by the
Donatist schism are not ended. We will
therefore beg our readers’ further indul-
gence for several remarkable points of
resemblance, not yet noted, between the
former schism and that which unfortu-
nately separates our country from the
Universal Church.

I. It is singular that, in process of time,

there sprang up among the Donatists a
High Church party, the most distinguished
of whom seems to have been Ticonius.
He saw the absurdity of excluding the
numerous Churches dispersed all over
the world from the pale of Christ’s true
Church, one of whose principal attributes
he perceived was universality. This Ti-
conius demonstrated with great learning
and acuteness

;
but remained blind to

the natural consequences to be drawn
from his views, namely, that his own
Church was schismatical, and that it was
his individual duty to abandon it, and
become a Catholic. His fellow-church-
men, however, saw this

;
they were



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 85

aware that his principles, pushed to their
legitimate consequences, would necessa-
rily lead to the abandoning of Africanism

,

the embracing of Catholicity. Parmeni-
anus was the champion who undertook
to chastise the audacity of this reformer

;

and not content with writing a letter or
pamphlet against him, he had him con-
demned by a council of his Church.
Parmenianus seriously warns him of the
danger of maintaining, as he did, that
foreign Churches in communion with
Rome formed part of the true Church
of Christ. The Catholics, however, were
not slow to step in between the dis-
putants

;
and giving due commendation

to the learning and good intentions of
Ticonius, took proper advantage of the
truth he had discovered. St. Augustine
placed the shield of his vast genius over
him, and defends him against Parmeni-
anus . 1

2. The High Church divines in Eng-
land maintain that the Irish and English
Catholics are schismatics, because they
“ separate themselves from the Anglican
Church, and make congregations contrary
to their canonical bishops.” 2 The answer

1 Cont. Epist. Parmen. lib. i. cap. 1.
2 British Critic, No. x. 7. p. 435. Dub. Rev.,

vol. iii. p. 73



86 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

to the assertion resolves itself into the in-

quiry whether one is bound to prefer the
communion of the Universal Church out
of one’s own country to that of bishops
in it (all questions of doctrine being left
aside) who are not in that communion.
This is a case particularly applicable to
Portugal at this moment, as it was to
England at the time of the Reformation,
more than now. St. Augustine seems to
have had no doubt on the subject. He
observes that Ticonius did not perceive
the. true consequence of his own princi-
ples ;—but we must give the holy Father’s
own words : u Non vidit quod conse-
quenter videndum fuit, illos videlicet in
Africa Christianos pertinere ad Ecclesiam
toto orbi diffusam, qui utique non istis ab
ejusdem orbis communione atque unitate
sejunctis, sed ipsi orbi terrarum per com-
munionem connectererentur. Parmenianus
autem caeterique Donatistae viderunt hoc
esse consequens.” 1 It is therefore our

1 “ He did not see, what as a consequence he
should have seen, that those Christians in Africa
belonged to the Church spread over the whole
world, who, indeed, were not connected with
those who were separated from the communion
and unity of that world, but were united by
communion with the world itself. Parmenianus
and the other Donatists saw this consequence,”
Ibid.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 87

duty to preserve communion with the
general Catholic Church, rather than with

the particular Church of our country,
when that has separated itself from that
communion.

3. The writers in the Tracts for the
Times

,
seeing how the argument which

they make against English Catholics can
be well retorted against French Protest-
ants, are anxious not to introduce into

the controversy at home the question of
foreign Catholics and separatists from
them. 1 We observe a similar solicitude
in the Donatists of old. Emeritus, one
of their bishops, thus expresses this feel-

ing at the conference of Carthage :
“ Intelligit praestantia tua nihil nobis de
peregrinis, nihil nobis de longe positis
praejudicare posse, cum inter Afros hoc
negotium ventiletur.” 2

4. The same Tracts consider the
Catholic bishops as intruders, because
sent where there were already bishops
in quiet and legitimate possessions The

1 Tract iv. p. 6. “Neither do we desire to pass
any sentence upon persons of other countries.”

2 “ Your Excellency understands that nothing
from strangers, nothing from persons living far
off, can prejudice us, since this cause is between
Africans.” Gesta Collat. dies 3. No. 99. ad Calc,
op. S. Opt.

3 Tract 35.



88 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

same complaint was made by the Dona- •

tists, that the Catholics sent bishops into

dioceses in their possession
;

which
proved that the Catholics then believed
themselves to have the same rights as
they have later exercised. Petilianus
complains that, in the diocese of Milevis,
they had erected three new bishoprics,
and that in his own, Delphinus had been
appointed in opposition. 1 At the same
time, the Catholics severely reproved the
Donatists for appointing one of their
bishops to a see where there was already
one in communion with the rest of the
Church beyond the seas.

2

This will
apply to the Protestant hierarchy, as the
former principle will to the English. In
the canonical code of the African Church,
we have a decree of a provincial council
that, dating from a certain period, the
Catholic bishops had to claim jurisdiction
over the dioceses held by the Donatists,
whether converted to unity or not. 3 This
shows in how little esteem was held a
bishop’s authority, who communicated
not with the rest of the Church.

1 Gesta Collat. Dies i ubi sup. p. 258.
2

St. Aug. contra Epist. Parmen. lib. 1. cap. 3.
3 Integer Codex Canonum Eccl. Afric. ap.

Labbe, t. iii. ol. 1116.



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 89

5. We have been struck how the
Donatists, while they did not relish this

name, had no objection to the national
appellation of Africans — the African
Church — which is consequently often
applied to their party by the Fathers,
without any offensive meaning : at the
same time that the latter gloried in bear-
ing no other appellation than that of
Catholic. In like manner, the denomina-
tion Anglican is assumed by our High
Churchmen, and we willingly accord it :
at the same time, we repudiate every
designation save that of Catholic.

6. In fine, as from the great Donatist
Church we have seen how many dissent-
ing sects sprang up, and have therein
traced no small resemblance to the fate
of the Anglican, so have we a counter-
part to our conduct towards this, in
the conduct of the Fathers towards
the former. For the great body of the
Donatists immediately treated those
separatists as schismatics, and severely
denounced against them the penalties of
schism, precisely as the Tract-writers
deal with dissenters from the Anglican
Church. 1 St. Augustine thus retorts upon
the Donatists what they said of their

1 See Tracts ii. p. 3, iv. p. 5 ; and xxix.



90 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

separatists :
u Cui enim unquam schi-

smatico suo pepercerunt, qui sibi ab orbe
terrarum, cujus ipsi schismatici sunt,

nimis impudenter parci volunt ? cum a
vera sola ipsa imitate justissime schismata

puniantur, si eo modo ista punienda sunt.” 1
This is a severe retort, but not more
severe than we have a right to make in
our days. The Council of Carthage,
seeing the advantage which this argument
gave the Catholics, decreed that envoys
should be sent among the Donatists, ex-
pressly to inculcate it

;
since “ by it is

demonstrated, if they will but attend to
it, that it was as wicked for them to be
then cut off from the unity of the Church,
as they now cry out that it was wicked in
the Maximianists to make a schism from
them.” 2 For Maximianists, read Wes-

1 “ For what schismatic from themselves did
they ever spare—they who too impudently wish
to be spared by the entire world, from which they
are schismatics ? whereas, only by the true unity,
schisms are most justly punished, if, indeed, they
are to be punished in that manner ”—that is, by
appeal to the civil power, which this Father
strongly blames in them. This constant eagerness
for the exclusive support of the civil magistrate
might have formed another point of contrast be-
tween the African and Anglican Churches. Ubi
sup. lib. ii. cap. 13.

2 “ Ubi eis demonstratur, si attendere velint, tarn
inique tunc illos ab Ecclesiae unitate praecisos,



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 91

leyans or Quakers, and you have an exact
answer to the complaints in the Tracts.
On another occasion, writing to some

Donatists, he bids them contrast the great
body of bishops from which they sepa-
rated with the small number from which
their schismatics departed. “ Multum
quidem interest et incomparabiliter distat
vel auctoritate vel numero Africana Eccle-
sia” (observe the name) 11 si cum ceteris
orbis partibus conferatur

;
et longe minor

est, etiamsi unitas hie esset
,
longe omnino

minor est comparata ceteris Christianis
omnibus gentibus, quam pars Maximiani
comparata parti Primiani.” 1 Here is an
argument well fashioned to our hand to be
wielded at pleasure against the arrogant
pretensions of the Anglican High Church-
men, when they on the one hand charge
others with the mote of schism from a
national Church, seeing not the beam of

quam inique nunc clamant a se Maximianistas
schisma fecisse.” Cone. Carthag. Africae univ.
ad Calc. S. Opt. p. 21 1.

1 “ There is much difference, and an incompara-
ble distance in number or authority, between the
African Church and the remaining parts of the
world

;
and it is far smaller—supposing unity

to exist in it—it is, indeed, far smaller, compared
with all other Christian nations, than the party of
Maximianus is, compared to that of Primianus.”
Epist. xliii. ol. clxii. cap. 9.



92 THE ANGLICAN CLAIM

schism from the Universal Church, which
fearfully presses on their own cause.
Truly, if we would but fill our quiver from
the armoury of the Fathers, we should
find no difficulty in piercing any mail of
proof in which our adversaries may think
proper to encase themselves. There is
not an argument, a cavil, which they can
use, that will not be found answered by
anticipation, in the writings of the

venerable lights of the ancient Church.
There is one view of the apostolical

succession, taken by the authors of the
Tracts, which we most cordially admit,
because conformable to the doctrine of
antiquity. It is that explained in the

fifty-fourth Tract, p. 4, In these words :
“ How had the right interpretation of
Scripture been preserved in each of those
places ? (Rome, Corinth, &c.). By the
succession of bishops, each in turn hand-
ing over to the bishop that followed him
what he had himself learned of his pre-
decessors.” Thus it appears that the
apostolical succession, where it exists, is
a guarantee to the faithful that the same
doctrine is taught which has been taught
from the beginning. Now, if we apply
this test to the Anglican Church, how
certainly it must fail ! For it is as clear
as noonday that the bishops, after the



OF APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 93

so-called Reformation, taught the doctrine
opposite to that of their immediate pre-
decessors. Cranmer for instance, blas-
phemed Transubstantiation under Edward,
which had been taught in his see till his
time. Where, then, is that evidence of
such succession, which perseverance in
the same doctrine ought to afford ?



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