§ 3

Supr. p. 195. As Mr. Gladstone denied that the Papal prerogatives were consistent with ancient history, I said in answer that that history on the contrary was the clearest witness in their favour, as showing how the promises made to St. Peter were providentially fulfilled by political, &c., changes, external to the Pope, which worked for him. I did not mean to deny that those prerogatives were his from the beginning, but merely that they were gradually brought into full exercise by a course of events, which history records. Thus it was a mistake to say that Catholics could not appeal in favour of the Papal power to history. To make my meaning quite clear, as I hoped, I distinctly said I was not speaking theologically, but historically, nay, looking at the state of things with “non-Catholic eyes.” However, as the following passage from the Etudes Religieuses shows, it seems that I have been misunderstood, though the writer himself, Père Ramière, does me the justice and the favour to defend me, and I here adopt his words as my defence. He says,—”Pour exprimer cette concentration providentielle, {357} dans les mains du Pape, du pouvoir eccelesiastique partagé autrefois dans une plus large mesure par l’episcopat, le P. Newman se sert d’un terme légal qu’il ne faut pas prendre à la lettre. Il dit que le Pape est héritier par défaut de la hierarchie écuménique du ive siècle. Le savant directeur de la Voce della Veritâ blâme cette expression, qui impliquerait, selon lui, qui le Pape tient son pouvoir de la hierarchie: mais le P. Newman exclut cette interpretation, puis qu’il fait deriver le plenitude du pouvoir pontifical de la promesse faite par Jésus-Christ à Saint Pierre,” p. 256, 7, note.