Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/107

] doctrines of the Faith. He even mentioned the one whom a Universal Council had condemned. This would be painful to the School of Infallibility, but it was the accepted doctrine of Catholic France. But Bossuet's magnificent conception of twelve centuries of unity, and his strenuous appeal to do nothing by which that record might be broken, or that unity endangered, must have tended greatly to conciliate and set the tone for the subsequent discussions. So far as to his first task—the papal power.

He was no less strong on the power of the Episcopate. The jurisdiction bestowed on Peter was also bestowed by Christ upon the Twelve. He said the same thing to all the Apostles. Their Commission was also immediate, direct from Christ. "One cannot imagine a power better established nor a mission more immediate." "It was manifestly the intention of Jesus Christ to bestow primarily upon one that which He ultimately willed to bestow upon many." The relation of the Pope to the Episcopate is not that he is lord over the Bishops, but one of their number, as says St Bernard. The power of the Holy See has nothing above it, says Bossuet, except the entire Catholic Church. In the calamitous times when the Pope claimed the allegiance of Christendom, it was the Episcopate, urged the preacher, which terminated the Schism and restored the Pope. They must firmly maintain these principles which the Gallican Church had found in the traditions of the Universal Church; and which the French Universities, particularly that of Paris, had taught with the full knowledge of the Roman See.

On the relation of the temporal to the spiritual power Bossuet said:—