Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/390



384 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.

chair against that one chair, would be a schismatic and a sinner." ^ Hence the Reaching of Cyprian, that heresy and ^chism arise and are begotten from the fact that ^djua obedience is refused to the supreme authority. " Here- sies and schisms have no other origin than that obedience is refused to the priest of God, and that men lose sight of the fact that there is one judge in the place of Christ in this world. " ^ No one, therefore, unless in communion with Peter can share in his authority, since it is absurd to imagine that he who is outside can command in the Church. Wherefore Optatus of Milevis blamed the Dona- tists for this reason: "Against which gates (of hell) we read that Peter received the saving keys, that is to say, our prince, to whom it was said by Christ: 'To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the gates of hell shall not conquer them.' Whence is it therefore that you strive to obtain for yourselves the keys of the kingdom of heaven â€” you who fight against the chair of Peter?"Â®

But theJEpi^copal otcIct is rightly judged to be in com- munion with Petcr^ as Christ commanded^ if it be subject to_and obeys Peter; otherwise It necessarily becomes a lawfess^afid'^isofderTy crowd. It is not sufficient for the due preservation of the unity of the faith that the head should merely have been charged with the office of super- intendent, or should have been invested solely with a power of direction. But it is absolutely necessary that he should have received real and sovereign authority which the whole community is bound to obey. What^had the Son of God in view when He promised the keys o? the kingdom of heaven to Peter alone? Biblical usage and the unan- imous teaching of the Fathers clearly show that supreme authority is designated in the passage by the word keys'. Nor is it lawful to interpret in a different sense what 'was given to Peter alone, and what was given to the other apostles conjointly with him. If the power of binding,


 * De Schism. Donat.. lib. ii. ^ Epist. xii. ad Cornelium, n. 5.

^ Lib. ii., n. 4, 6.