upon the Psalms, applies to St. Peter the word rock of the Church, and regards him as its foundation.[1]
But in his work upon the Trinity he acknowledges that it is upon the rock of his confession — that is to say, upon the divinity of Jesus Christ — that the Church is built.[2] "There is," he adds, "but one unchangeable foundation,[3] that only rock confessed by the mouth of St. Peter, 'Thou art the Son of the living God.' Upon that are based as many arguments for the truth as perversity can suggest doubts, or infidelity calumnies."
It is evident that in this place the holy Father means only the object of St. Peter's confession of faith — that is, the divinity of Jesus Christ. If it should be claimed that he meant his subjective faith — that is to say, his adherence — and that the Bishops of Rome have inherited that unfailing faith, it suffices to recall the anathema of the same Father against Pope Liberius, who had grown weak in the confession of the divinity of Christ: "I say to thee anathema, O Liberius, to thee and to thine accomplices. I repeat, anathema. And again I say it to thee a third time; to thee, Liberius, thou prevaricator."[4]
According to St. Hilary of Poitiers, therefore, if St. Peter may be considered as the rock of the Church, it is only because of the confession of faith that he made in the name of the whole Apostolic College, and through the very object of that faith, which is the divinity of Christ. His doctrine thus agrees with that of Tertullian and the other Fathers, who have only in this sense applied to Peter himself the title of rock of the Church. If we add that this Father and the others nowhere imply that this title belongs to the Bishops of Rome, and fur-
