Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/392



386 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.

that He does not designate some, but all? We can make no exception where no distinction is made." ^

But it is opposed to the truth, and in evident contradic- tion with the divine constitution of the Church, to hold that while each bishop is individually bound to obey the authority of the Roman Pontiffs, taken collectively the bishops are not so bound. For it is the nature and object of a foundation to support the unity of the whole edifice and to give stability to it, rather than to each component part; and in the present case this is much more applicable, since Christ the Lord wished that by the strength and solidity of the foundation the gates of hell should be pre- vented from prevailing against the Church. _ All are agreed that the divine promise must be understood of the Church as a whole, and not of any certain portions of it. These can indeed be overcome by the assaults of the powers of hell, as in point of fact has befallen some of them. More- over, he who is set over the whole flock must have au- thority not only over the sheep dispersed throughout the Church, but also when they are assembled together. Do the sheep when they are all assembled together rule and guide the shepherd? Do the successors of the apostles assembled together constitute the foundation on which the successor of St. Peter rests in order to derive therefrom strength and stability? Surely jurisdiction and authority belong to him in whose power "have been placed the keys of the kingdom of heaven, not alone in all provinces taken singly, but in all taken collectively. And as the bishops, each in his own district, command with real power not only individuals but the whole community, so the Roman Pontiffs, whose jurisdiction extends to the whole Christian commonwealth, must have all its parts even taken collectively, subject and obedient to their authority. ^.Christ the Lord, as we have quite suf- ficiently shown, made Peter and his successors His vicars, to exercise forever in the Church the power which He


 * De Consideratione, lib. ii.. cap?