SCHISM
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SCHISM
as schismiitics. Those who rend the unity of the
Church receive the Divine chastisement awarded to
Jeroboam; they must all be avoided" (iv, 26).
At the beginning of the third century Clement of Alexandria describes the Church as the city of the Logos which must be sought because it is the assem- blage of all those whom God desires to save ("Strom." iv, 20; vii, v; "Paedag.", i, 6; iii, 12). Origen is more explicit; for him also the Church is the city of God (Contra Cels., iii, 30), and he adds: "Let no one be deceived; outside this abode, that is outside the Church, no one is saved. If anyone leaves it he himself shall be accountable for his death" (In lib. Jesu Nave, Horn., iii, 5). In Africa TertuUian Uke- wise condemns all separation from the existing Church. His "De prajscriptionibus" is famous, and the funda- mental thesis of the work, inferred by its very title, is summed up in the priority of truth and the relative novelty of error (principalitatem veritatis et pos- teritatem mendacii), thus implying the prohibition to withdraw from the guidance of the living mag- isterium: "If the Lord Jesus Christ sent His Apostles to preach we conclude that we must not receive other preachers than those appointed by Him. What they have preached, in other words, what Christ has re- vealed to them, can only be established by the Churches founded by the Apostles themselves, to which they preached the Gospel by word and writing " (De prjEscr., xxi).
But the great African champion of ecclesiastical unity was St. Cyprian, against the schismatics of Rome as well as those of Carthage. He conceived this unity as reposing on the effective authority of the bishops, their mutual union, and the pre-eminence of the Roman pontiff: "God is one, Christ is one, one is the Church, and one the chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord" (Epist. Ixx); "This unity we bishops who govern in the Church should firmly uphold and defend, in order to show that the epis- copate itself is one and undivided" (De ecclesite unit., v); "Know that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop, and that if anyone is not with the bishop he is not in the Church. . . . The Catholic Church is one, formed of the harmonious union of pastors who mutually support one another" (Epist. Ixxvi, 5). To unity of faith must be joined liturgical unity: "A second altar and a new priesthood cannot be set up beside the one altar and the one priesthood" (Epist. Iii, 24). Cyprian saw no legiti- mate reason for schism for "what rascal, what traitor, what madman would be so misled by the spirit of discord as to believe that it is permitted to rend, or who would dare rend the Divine unity, the garment of the Lord, the Church of Jesus Christ?" (De eccl., unit., viii); "The spouse of Christ is chaste and in- corruptible. Whoever leaves the Church to follow an adulteress renounces the promises of the Church. He that abandons the Church of Christ will not receive the nnvards of Christ. He becomes a stranger, an ungodly man, an enemy. God cannot be a Father to him to whom the Church is not a mother. As well might one be saved out of the ark of Noah as out of the Church. ... He who does not respect its unity will not respect the law of God; he is without faith in the Father and the Son, without life, without salvation" (op. cit., viii).
From the fourth century the doctrine of the unity of the Church was so clearly and universally ad- mitted that it is almost superfluous to quote particular testimonies. The lengthy polemics of Optatus of Milevis ("De schism. Don.", P. L., XI) and of St. Augustine (especially in "De unit, eccl.", P. L., XLIII) against the Donatists accuse these sectaries of being separated from the ancient and primitive trunk of Christianity. And to those who represented their group as a portion of the universal Church St. Augustine replied: "If you are in communion with
the Christian world send letters to the Apostolic
Churches and show us their replies" (Ep., xliv, 3).
These letters (litterae formatie) then constituted one
of the authentic marks and elements of visible unity.
Concerning this unity the various forms of which he
explains, St. Augustine agrees with St. Cyprian in
maintaining that outside of it there is no salvation:
"Salus extra ecclesiam non est" (De bapt., iv,
24), and he adds in confirmation of this that out-
side the Church the means of salvation, baptism,
and even martyi'dom will avail nothing, the Holy
Ghost not being communicated. During the same
century Roman supremacy began to be emphasized
as a factor of unity. Jesus Clu-ist, says St. Optatus,
desired to attach unity to a definite centre; to this
end He made "Peter the head of all the Apostles;
to him He first gave the episcopal see of Rome, in
which sole see unity should be preserved for all;
he is therefore a sinner and a schismatic who would
erect another see in opposition to it" (De schism.
Don., ii, 2); "SoHctude for assuring unity caused
blessed Peter to be preferred before all the Apostles
and to receive alone the keys of the Kingdom of
Heaven that he might admit others" (vii, 3). Pa-
cianus of Barcelona also says that Christ gave to
Peter alone the power of the keys "to make him alone
the foundation and beginning of unity" (ad unum
ideo ut unitatem fundaret ex uno Epist., iii, 11).
Most contemporary writers in the Latin Church, Hilary, Victorinus, St. Ambrose, the Ambrosiaster, St. Jerome, speak in like manner and quite as ex- plicitly. All regard Peter as the foundation of the Church, the Prince of the Apostles who was made per- petual head in order to cut short any attempt at schism. "Where Peter is," concludes St. Ambrose, "there is the Church; where the Church is there is no death but eternal life" (In Ps., xl, 30). And St. Jerome: "That man is my choice who remains in union with the chair of Peter" (Epist., xvi, 2). Both declare, like St. Optatus, that to be out of the Roman communion is to be out of the Church, but they lay especial emphasis on the jurisdictional and teaching authority of the centre of unity. Their texts are classics: "We must have recourse to your clemency, beseeching you not to let the head of all the Roman world, the Roman Church, and the most holy Apostolic Faith be disturbed; for thence all derive the rights of the Catholic communion" (Ambrose, "Ep.", xi, 4). "I who follow no guide save Christ am in communion with Your Holin(>ss, that is with the chair of Peter. I know that on this rock the Church is built. Whosoever partakes of the Lamb outside this hou.se commits a sacrilege. Whosoever does not gather with you, scatters: in other words whosoever is not with Christ is with Antichrist" (Jerome, "Epist.", xv, 2).
The East also saw in Peter and the episcopal see founded by him the keystone of unity. Didymus calls Peter "the corypheus, the head, who was first among the Apostles, through whom the others received the keys"(De Trinit., i, 27, 30; ii, 10, 18). Epiphanius also regards him as "the cory- pheus of the Apostles, the firm stone on which rests the unshakable faith" (Anchor.", ix, 34; "Ha?r.", lix, 7, 8) and St. Chrysostom speaks unceasingly of the privileges conferred on Peter by Christ. Moreover the Greeks recognized in the Roman Church a pre-eminence and consequently an incon- testable unifying role by acknowledging her right to intervene in the disputes of the particular Churches, as is proved by the cases of Athanasius, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Chrysostom. In this sense St. Gregory Nazianzen calls ancient Rome "the president of the universe, Ti]v wpbeoSpov rOiv 8\wv" (Carmen de vita sua), and it is also the reason why even the Eusebians were willing that the case of Athanasius, after they had passed on it, should be
