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Soloviev on the Papacy (Parts 3 & 4)
praiseofglory.com | Vladimir Soloviev

Posted on 08/30/2002 5:20:15 PM PDT by JMJ333

from Russia and the Universal Church
by Vladimir Soloviev
(originally published in 1889)

Taken from part two: THE ECCLESIASTICAL MONARCHY FOUNDED BY JESUS CHRIST

III--PETER AND SATAN

It was not Simon's apostleship that involved his change of name, for the change, though already predicted, was not made at the time of the choice and solemn sending forth of the Twelve. All with the single exception of Simon retained their own names in the apostleship; none of them received from our Lord a new and permanent title of wider or higher significance. (I am not speaking of surnames or of casual, incidental epithets such as that of Boanerges, given to John and James).

Apart from Simon, all the Apostles are distinguished from one another solely by their natural characteristics, their individual qualities and destinies as well as by the varieties and shades of personal feeling shown towards them by their Master. On the other hand, the new and significant name which Simon alone receives in addition to the apostleship shared by all, indicates no natural trait in his character, no personal affection felt for him by our Lord, but refers solely to the special place which the son of Jona is called to fill in the Church of Christ. Our Lord did not say to him: Thou art Peter because I prefer thee to the others, or because by nature thou hast a firm and stable character (which, incidentally, would hardly have been borne out by the facts), but: Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church.

Peter's confession, which by a spontaneous and infallible act of allegiance established the bond between mankind and Christ and founded the free Church of the New Covenant, was not just a piece of characteristic behavior on his part. Nor can it have been a casual and momentary spiritual impulse. For is it conceivable that such an impulse or moment of enthusiasm should involve not merely a change of name for Simon as for Abraham and Jacob in times past, but also the prediction of that change long previously as something which would infallibly come about and which held a prominent place in our Lord's plans?

Was there in fact any part of the work of the Messiah more solemn than the foundation of the Universal Church which is expressly connected with Simon under his new name of Peter? Moreover the notion that the first dogmatic decree of St. Peter came from him merely in his capacity as an individual human being is totally excluded by the direct and explicit witness of Christ: It is not flesh and blood which have revealed it to thee, but My Father Who is in heaven.

This confession of Peter's is then an act sui generis, an act whereby the moral being of the Apostle entered into a special relationship with the Godhead; it was this relationship which enabled human utterance to declare infallibly the absolute truth of the Word of God and to create an impregnable foundation for the Universal Church.

And as though to remove all possible doubt on the subject, the inspired record of the Gospel at once goes on to show us this very Simon, whom Jesus has just declared to be the Rock of the Church and the key-bearer of the Kingdom of Heaven, forthwith left to his own resources and speaking--with the best intentions in the world no doubt, but without the divine assistance--under the influence of his own individual and uninspired personality. 'And thereafter Jesus began to show His disciples that He must needs go to Jerusalem and suffer much at the hands of the elders and the scribes and the chief priests and be put to death and rise again the third day. And Peter, taking Him aside, began to rebuke Him, saying: Far be it from Thee, Lord; this shall not happen unto Thee. And turning about He said to Peter: Get thee behind Me, Satan, thou art an offence unto Me, for thou understandest not that which is of God, but that which is of men' (Matt. 16: 21-23).

Are we to follow our Greco-Russian controversialists in placing this text in opposition to the one before it and so make Christ's words cancel one another out? Are we to believe that the incarnate Truth changed His mind so quickly and revoked in a moment what He had only just announced? And yet on the other hand how are we to reconcile 'Blessed' and 'Satan'? How is it conceivable that he who is for our Lord Himself a 'rock of offence' should yet be the Rock of His Church which the gates of hell cannot shake? Or that one who thinks only the thoughts of men can receive the revelation of the heavenly Father and can hold the keys of the Kingdom of God?

There is only one way to harmonize these passages which the inspired Evangelist has with good reason placed side by side. Simon Peter as supreme pastor and doctor of the Universal Church, assisted by God and speaking in the name of all, is the faithful witness and infallible exponent of divine-human truth; as such he is the impregnable foundation of the house of God and the key-bearer of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The same Simon Peter as a private individual, speaking and acting by his natural powers and merely human intelligence, may say and do things that are unworthy, scandalous and even diabolical. But the failures and sins of the individual are ephemeral, while the social function of the ecclesiastical monarch is permanent. 'Satan' and the 'offence' have vanished, but Peter has remained.

IV--THE CHURCH AS A UNIVERSAL SOCIETY. THE PRINCIPLE OF LOVE

Since the existence of every human society is determined by its ideals and institutions, it follows that social progress and well-being depend primarily on the truth of the predominant ideals of the society and on the good order which prevails in its administration. The Church as a society directly willed and founded by God must possess these two qualities to an outstanding degree: the religious ideals which she professes must be infallibly true; and her constitution must combine the greatest stability with the greatest capacity for action in any direction desired.

The Church is above all a society founded on Truth. The basic truth of the Church is the union of the Divine and the human in the Word made Flesh, the recognition of the Son of Man as the Christ, the Son of the living God. Therefore in its purely objective aspect the Rock of the Church is Christ Himself, Truth incarnate. But if she is to be actually founded on the truth, the Church as a human society must be united to this truth in a definite manner.

Since in this world of appearances truth has no existence which is directly manifest or externally necessary, man can only establish contact with it through faith which links us to the interior substance of things and presents to our intelligence all that is not externally visible.

From the subjective point of view, then, it may be asserted that it is faith which constitutes the basis or 'rock' of the Church. But what faith, and on whose part? The mere fact of a subjective faith on the part of such and such a person is not sufficient. Individual faith of the strongest and most sincere kind may put us in touch not only with the invisible substance of Truth and the Sovereign Good but also with the invisible substance of evil and falsehood, as is abundantly proved by the history of religion. If man is to be truly linked by faith to the desirable object of faith, namely, absolute truth, he must be conformed to this truth.

The truth of the God-Man, that is to say, the perfect and living union of the Absolute and the relative, of the Infinite and the finite, of the Creator and the creature -- this supreme truth cannot be limited to a historic fact, but reveals through that fact a universal principle which contains all the riches of wisdom and embraces all in its unity.

Since the objective truth of faith is universal and the true subject of faith must be conformed to its object, it follows that the subject of true religion is necessarily universal. Real faith cannot belong to man as an isolated individual but only to mankind as a complete unity; and the individual can only share in it as a living member of the universal body.

But since no real and living unity has been bestowed on the human race in the physical order, it must be created in the moral order. The limits of natural egoism, of finite individuality with its exclusive self-assertion, must be burst by love which renders man conformable to God Who is Love. But this love which is to transform the discordant fragments of the human race into a real and living unity, the Universal Church, cannot be a mere vague, subjective and ineffectual sentiment; it must be translated into a consistent and definite activity which shall give the inner sentiment its objective reality.

What then is the actual object of this active love? Natural love, which has for its object those beings who are nearest to us, creates a real collective unity, the family; the wider natural love which has for its object all the people of one country or one tongue creates a more extensive and more complex, but equally real, collective unity, the city, state or nation. (The fact of dwelling in the same country or speaking a common language is not sufficient in itself to produce the unity of the fatherland; that is impossible without patriotism, that is to say without a specific love).

The love which is to create the religious unity of the human race, or the Universal Church, must surpass the bounds of nationality and have for its object the sum total of mankind. But since the active relationship between the sum total of the human race and the individual finds no basis in the latter in any natural sentiment analogous to that which animates the family or the fatherland, it is (for the individual subject) inevitably reduced to the purely moral essence of love, that is, to the free and conscious surrender of the will and the individual egoism of family or nation.

Love for one's family or for one's country are primarily natural facts which may secondarily produce moral acts; love for the Church is essentially a moral act, the act of submitting the particular will to the universal will. But the universal will, if it is to be anything more than a fiction, must be continually realized in a definite being. The will of all humanity is not a real unity, since all men are not in direct agreement with one another; some means of harmonizing them must therefore be found, that is to say, one single will capable of unifying all the others.

Each individual must be able to unite himself effectively with the whole of the human race (and thus give positive witness to his love for the Church) by linking his will to a unique will, no less real and living than his own, but at the same time a will which is universal and to which all other wills must be equally subject. But a will is inconceivable apart from one who wills and expresses his will; and inasmuch as all are not directly one, we have no choice but to unite ourselves to all in the person of one individual if we would share in the true universal faith.

Since each individual man cannot be the proper subject of universal faith any more than can the whole of mankind in its natural state of division, it follows that this faith must be manifested in a single individual, representative of the unity of all.

Each individual, by taking this truly universal faith as the criterion of his own faith, makes a real act of submission to, or love for, the Church, an act which makes him conformable to the universal truth revealed to the Church.

In loving all in one individual (since it is impossible to love them otherwise) each one shares in the faith of all, defined by the divinely assisted faith of a single individual; and this enduring bond, this unity so wide and yet so stable, so living and yet so unchanging, makes the Universal Church a collective moral entity, a true society far more extensive and more complex but no less real than nation or state.

Love for the Church is manifested in a constant adherence to her will and her living thought represented by the public acts of the supreme ecclesiastical authority. This love which is originally nothing but an act of pure morality, the fulfillment of a duty on principle (obedience to the categorical imperative, according to ' the Kantian terminology) can and must become the source of sentiments and affections no less strong than filial love or patriotism.

Those who agree with us in founding the Church upon love and yet see world-wide ecclesiastical unity only in a fossilized tradition which for eleven centuries has lost all means of actual self-expression, should bear in mind that it is impossible to love with a living and active love what is simply an archeological relic, a remote fact, such as the seven ecumenical councils, which is absolutely unknown to the masses and can only appeal to the learned. Love for the Church has no real meaning except for those who recognize perpetually in the Church a living representative and a common father of all the faithful, capable of being loved as a father is loved in his family or the head of the state in a kingdom.

It is of the nature of truth to draw into a harmonious unity the manifold elements of reality. This formal characteristic belongs to the supreme truth, the truth of the God-Man, which embraces in its absolute unity all the fullness of divine and human life. The Church which is a collective being aspiring to perfect unity must correspond to Christ the one Being and Center of all beings. And inasmuch as this interior and perfect unity of all is not realized, inasmuch as the faith of each individual is not yet in itself the faith of all, inasmuch as the unity of all is not directly manifested by each, it must be brought about by means of a single individual.

The universal truth perfectly realized in the single person of Christ draws to itself the faith of all, infallibly defined by the voice of a single individual, the Pope. Outside this unity, as we have seen, the opinion of the masses may be mistaken and the faith even of the elect may remain in suspense. But it is neither false opinion nor a vacillating faith, but a definite and infallible faith which unites mankind to the divine truth and forms the impregnable foundation of the Universal Church.

This foundation is the faith of Peter living in his successors, a faith which is personal that it may be manifest to men, and which is (by divine assistance) superhuman that it may be infallible. We shall not cease to challenge those who deny the necessity of such a permanent center of unity to point to any living unity in the Universal Church apart from it, to produce apart from it a single ecclesiastical act which concerns the whole of Christendom, or to give without appealing to it a decisive and authoritative reply to a single one of the questions which divide the consciences of Christians. It is of course obvious that the present successors of the Apostles at Constantinople or at St. Petersburg are imitating the silence of the Apostles themselves at Casarea Philippi.

To summarize shortly the foregoing reflections: The Universal Church is founded on truth affirmed by faith. Truth being one, true faith must be one also. And since this unity of faith has no present and immediate existence among the whole mass of believers (for in religious matters all are not unanimous) it must reside in the lawful authority of a single head, guaranteed by divine assistance and accepted by the love and confidence of all the faithful. That is the rock on which Christ has founded His Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.


TOPICS: General Discusssion
KEYWORDS: catholiclist

1 posted on 08/30/2002 5:20:15 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: *Catholic_list
Part 1

Part 2

2 posted on 08/30/2002 5:22:51 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: Siobhan; sitetest; Catholicguy; american colleen; EODGUY; Desdemona
!
3 posted on 08/30/2002 5:26:31 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: JMJ333
BTTT.

Thanks for the ping, but I must save the thread for future reading.
4 posted on 08/30/2002 6:17:22 PM PDT by EODGUY
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To: JMJ333; Antoninus; sandyeggo; frogandtoad; saradippity; maryz; Jeff Chandler; ken5050; Slyfox; ...
Absolutely excellent ..... PING!
5 posted on 08/30/2002 8:05:34 PM PDT by Siobhan
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To: JMJ333
.... it (faith) must reside in the lawful authority of a single head, guaranteed by divine assistance and accepted by the love and confidence of all the faithful.

Thank you, JMJ333, for posting this article. It is timeless.

6 posted on 08/30/2002 9:04:08 PM PDT by NYer
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To: NYer
You're welcome. I have enjoyed Soliviev's work so much that I have ordered the book. I really like the way he lays his views out. Clear as crystal.
7 posted on 08/30/2002 9:31:23 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: Siobhan
Thanks, as always. And nice to see you this evening. =)
8 posted on 08/30/2002 9:32:05 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: JMJ333
To summarize shortly the foregoing reflections: The Universal Church is founded on truth affirmed by faith. Truth being one, true faith must be one also. And since this unity of faith has no present and immediate existence among the whole mass of believers (for in religious matters all are not unanimous) it must reside in the lawful authority of a single head, guaranteed by divine assistance and accepted by the love and confidence of all the faithful. That is the rock on which Christ has founded His Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

I am no theologian, but the writer makes the point that those who promote schism or apostasy in the church as well as the heretics are totally outside of the law that is given through the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit and passed down through St. Peter and the papacy.

Is this his message or am I a little skewed. (As I was told on another thread that I was naive and not founded in the truth of the Council of Trent.)

My question back to that person was "Don't the Councils of Vatican I and Vatican II supersede the Council of Trent? Maybe you can help me put my brain in order here.

9 posted on 08/30/2002 9:57:17 PM PDT by Salvation
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To: Salvation
No, you're right on target. I didn't flag any of the schismatics to these threads, but they are fairly easy to find, especially late at night when there isn't much traffic and the threads stay on the religion main page for quite a long time. None of those posters has anything to say on these threads because they cannot figure out how to skew Soloviev's words or come up with a credible enough rebuttal. Hence their silence. In fact, the typical anti-Catholic posters who are so quick to trash the papacy have not appeared. The truth hurts. =)
10 posted on 08/30/2002 10:16:44 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: JMJ333
smashing series JMJ...just great
11 posted on 08/31/2002 4:03:49 AM PDT by Catholicguy
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To: Salvation
My question back to that person was "Don't the Councils of Vatican I and Vatican II supersede the Council of Trent? Maybe you can help me put my brain in order here.

<> They don't really supersede; that means to set aside. Vatican I and Vatican II are a continuation of the same Infallible Ecumenical Councils that Trent was just one representative of. All Ecuemnical Councils represent the Magisterial Teaching Authority. Denigrate one, denigrate all. From Nicea in 325 a.d. to Vatican II, all the Ecumenical Councils are infallible.

A better question is to ask those guys if Trent superseded all that came before. For some, Trent is THE Ecumenical Council and it wasn't necessary to ever have another one.

I just heard a subscription-begging tape by Fr McLucas, editor of The Latin Mass magazine. He mentioned Trent in his talk and said maybe I should genuflect when I mention Trent. He got a laugh form his "traditionalist" audience. But, it is a very telling laugh. It reveals they isolate Trent apart from all other Infallible Ecuemnical Councils because, in part, it issued its decisons with anathemas attached. For some, an anathema a day is the only way :)

I can't imagine Fr McLucas suggesting he genuflect when he mentions Vatican II, even though Vatican Two had precisely the SAME Infallible authority as did Trent AND it had the most Bishops attending of any Council ever...raw numbers and percentage included.

For some, apparently, the Church stopped teaching in the 16th Century. <>

12 posted on 08/31/2002 4:58:17 AM PDT by Catholicguy
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To: PFKEY
*
13 posted on 09/21/2002 8:57:28 PM PDT by JMJ333
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