POPE
267
POPE
authority over all the faithful. This is also implied in
the words of the pastoral commission, "Feed my
sheep". The shepherd exercises immediate authority
over all the sheep of his flock. Every member of the
Church has been thus committed to Peter and those
who follow him. This immediate authority has been
always claimed by the Holy See. It was, however,
denied by Febronius (op. cit., vii, § 7). That writer
contended that the duty of the pope was to exercise
a general oversight over the Church and to direct the
bishops by his counsel; in case of necessity, where the
legitimate pa.stor was guilty of grave wrong, he could
pronounce sentence of excommunication against him
and proceed against him according to the canons, but
he could not on his own authority depose him (op.
cit., ii, §§ 4, 9). The Febronian doctrines, though de-
void of any historical foundation, yet, through their
appeal to the spirit of nationalism, exerted a powerful
influence for harm on Catholic life in Germany during
the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth century.
Thus it was imperative that the error should be
definitively condemned. That the pope's power is
truly episcopal needs no proof. It follows from the
fact that he enjoys an ordinary pastoral authority,
both legislative and judicial, and immediate in rela-
tion to its subjects. Moreover, since this power re-
gards the pastors as well as the faithful, the pope is
rightly termed Pastor pastorum, and Episcopvs epis-
copoTum.
It is frequently objected by writers of the Anglican school that, by declaring the pope to possess an im- mediate episcopal jurisdiction over all the faithful, the Vatican Council destroyed tlie authority of the diocesan episcopate. It is further pointed out that St. Gregory the Great expressly repudiated this title (Ep. vii, 27; viii, 30). To this it is repUed that no difficultj' is involved in the exercise of immediate jurisdiction over the same subjects by two rulers, pro- vided only that these rulers stand in subordination, the one to the other. We constantly see the system at work. In an army the regimental officer and the general both possess immediate authority over the soldiers; yet no one maintains that the inferior au- thority is thereby annulled. The objection lacks all weight. The Vatican Council says most justlj' (cap. iii): "This power of the supreme pontiff in no way derogates from the ordinary immediate power of epis- copal jurisdiction, in virtue of which the bishops, who, appointed by the Holy Spirit [Acts, xx, 28], have suc- ceeded to the place of the Apostles as true pastors, feed and rule their several flocks, each the one which has been assigned to him: that power is rather main- tained, confirmed and defended by the supreme pastor" (Enchir., n. 1828). It is without doubt true that St. Gregory repudiated in strong terms the title of universal bishop, and relates that St. Leo rejected it W'hen it was offered him by the fathers of Chalce- don. But, as he used it, it has a different signification from that with which it was employed in the Vatican Council. St. Gregory understood it as involving the denial of the authority of the local diocesan (Ep. v, 21). No one, he maintains, has a right so to term himself universal bishop as to usurp that apostolic- ally constituted power. But he was himself a stren- uous asserter of that inmiediate jurisdiction over all the faithful which is signified by this title as used in the Vatican Decree. Thus he reverses (Ep. vi, 15) a sentence passed on a priest by Patriarch John of Constantinople, an act which itself involves a claim to universal authority, and explicitly states that the Church of Constantinople is subject to the Apostolic See (Ep. ix, 12). The title of universal bishop occurs as early as the eighth century; and in 1413 the faculty of Paris rejected the proposition of John Hus that the pope was not universal bishop (Xatalis Alexander, "Hist, eccl.", s£EC. XV and XVI, c. ii, art. 3, n. 6).
(3) The Council goes on to affirm that the pope is
the supreme judge of the faithful, and that to him
appeal may be made in all ecclesiastical causes. The
right of appeal follows as a necessary corollary from
the doctrine of the primacy. If the pope really pos-
sesses a supreme jurisdiction over the Church, every
other authority, whether episcopal or synodal, being
subject to him, there must of necessity be an appeal
to him from all inferior tribunals. This question, how-
ever, has been the subject of much controversy. The
Gallican di\-ines de ^Iarca and Quesnel, and in Ger-
many Febronius, sought to show that the right of appeal
to the pope was a mere concession derived from eccle-
siastical canons, and that the influence of the pseudo-
Isidorean decretals had led to many unjustifiable
exaggerations in the papal claims. The arguments of
these writers are at the present day employed by
frankly anti-Cathohc controversialists with a \'iew to
showing that the whole primacy is a merely human
institution. It is contended that the right of appeal
was first granted at Sardica (343), and that each step
of its subsequent development can be traced. His-
tory, however, renders it abundantly clear that the
right of appeal had been known from primitive times,
and that the purpose of the Sardican canons was
merely to give conciliar ratification to an already
existing usage. It will be convenient to speak first of
the Sardican question, and then to examine the evi-
dence as regards previous practice.
In the years immediately preceding Sardica, St. Athanasius had appealed to Rome against the decision of the Council of Tyre (33.5). Pope Julius had an- nulled the action of that council, and had restored Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra to their sees. The Eusebians, however, had contested his right to call a conciliar decision in question. Tlie fathers who met at Sardica, and who included the most eminent of the orthodox party from East and West alike, de- sired by their decrees to affirm this right, and to establish a canonical mode of procedure for such appeals. The principal provisions of the canons which deal with this matter are: (1) that a bishop condemned by the bishops of his province may appeal to the pope either on his own initiative or through his judges; (2) that if the pope entertains the appeal he shall appoint a court of second instance drawn from the bishops of the neighbouring provinces; he may, if he thinks fit, send judges to sit with the bishops. There is nothing whatever to suggest that new privileges are being con- ferred. St. Julius had recently, not merely exercised the right of hearing appeals in the most formal man- ner, but had severely censured the Eusebians for neglecting to respect the supreme judicial rights of the Roman See: "for", he writes, "if they [.\thanasiu3 and Marcellus] really did some wrong, as you say, the judgment ought to have been given according to the ecclesiastical canon and not thus. . . . Do you not know that this has been the custom first to write to us, and then for that which is just to be defined from hence?" (Athanasius, "Apol.", 35). Nor is there the smallest ground for the assertion that the pope's action is hedged in within narrow limits, on the ground that no more is permitted than that he should order a rehearing to take place on the spot. The fathers in no way disputed the pope's right to hear the case at Rome. But their object was to deprive the Eusebians of the facile excuse that it was idle for appeals to be carried to Rome, since there the requisite evidence could not be forthcoming. They therefore provided a canonical procedure which should not be open to that objection.
Having thus shown that there is no ground for the assertion that the right of appeal was first granted at Sardica, we may now consider the evidence for its existence in earlier times. The records of the second century are so scanty as to throw but little fight on the subject. Yet it would seem that Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla appealed to Rome against the decision
