What if Protestantism in its present form is the fractured remains of a Catholic protest movement that began in 1517, but which has long since forgotten not only what it was protesting, but that it was formed by Catholics, in protest over conditions and practices within the Catholic Church? What if Protestantism has forgotten that its original intention was to return to full communion with the Catholic Church when certain conditions were satisfied?

During the week approaching Reformation Sunday last year those questions prompted me to write, “Trueman and Prolegomena to “How would Protestants know when to return?”.” I included the term ‘prolegomena’ because before discussing the conditions under which Protestants can return to full communion with the Catholic Church, Protestants (and Catholics) must first recover the memory of our history, not only our shared history as one Church prior to the sixteenth century, but also the history by which we came to be divided during that century. Recovering that history shows not only that the early Protestants never intended to form a perpetual schism from the Catholic Church, but also helps us remember that Protestant communities are by their history, communities in exile from the Catholic Church, and thereby by that history ordered toward eventual reconciliation and reunion with the Catholic Church. According to that history Protestantism began as a protest movement initially made up of Catholics protesting the Catholic Church and seeking to reform her; it was never intended to remain perpetually in schism from her.¹ Semper Reformanda does not translate as “perpetually in schism.” Hence in “Trueman and Prolegomena” I quoted Protestant professor of historical theology Carl Trueman, who wrote:

[W]e [Protestants] need good, solid reasons for not being Catholic; not being a Catholic should, in others words, be a positive act of will and commitment, something we need to get out of bed determined to do each and every day.

Yet even among those Protestants who retain the memory of Protestantism’s origin as a Catholic protest movement, Reformation Day is typically viewed as a day of celebration. On Reformation Sunday of 2009, we posted a 1995 Reformation Day sermon by the Protestant theologian Stanley Hauerwas, named by Time magazine as America’s best theologian. A few weeks ago I had a chance to talk with Hauerwas in person, and he said that he still affirms every word of that sermon. In that sermon Hauerwas says:

After all, the very name ‘Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.

Tomorrow will be celebrated by many Protestants as “Reformation Sunday.” To be sure, part of what Protestants celebrate on Reformation Day are what they believe to be the truths upheld and preserved within Protestantism. But without careful qualification, celebrating “Reformation Day” while remaining separated from the Catholic Church is a kind of performative contradiction, because it implies that separation, not reform, is the ultimate goal of the protest. Celebrating Reformation Day can be for that reason like celebrating a divorce, or more accurately, celebrating estrangement from our mother and from all our brothers and sisters who remain in her bosom, when in truth Christ calls us all to full communion and prays that we would be one. Moreover celebrating what is a division can blind the celebrants to the evil of that continuing division, just as celebrating divorce could blind children to its evil, or celebrating abortion could blind the celebrants to its evil.

But Reformation Day can be approached differently. It should be an annual reminder of the continuation of the evil in our midst that is the Protestant-Catholic division, a division that causes scandal to the rest of the world regarding the identity and efficacy of Christ’s gospel. In that respect, Reformation Day is a day to ask ourselves the following question:

What have I done, since the last Reformation Day, to help bring reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics?

If the answer is ‘nothing,’ then by our inaction we are in actuality perpetuating the schism which has continued now for almost five hundred years. Reformation Day ought therefore be a day in which Protestants are reminded to enter into authentic and charitable dialogue with Catholics, and Catholics are reminded to enter into such dialogue with Protestants, in order to put this schism behind us as a tragic event in Church history, through which God can nevertheless bring good. The lot of those who despair over the possibility of reconciliation is to die without seeing it. However, that generation which in faith truly believes that with God nothing is impossible will live to see it, and will be graced with the everlasting privilege of being the instruments through which this reconciliation is accomplished.

Having recollected our memory of our history, and a shared understanding of the early Protestants’ intention to reform the Catholic Church, not to form a schism from the Catholic Church, each Protestant faces the following question: How would I as a Protestant know when to return? No one Protestant can answer that question for all Protestants, because no one Protestant has the authority to speak for all Protestants. Each Protestant therefore must answer that question for him or herself.

But at the same time, the Protestant is faced with a second-order question and a second-order problem. The problem is that if we survey a thousand Protestants, and ask each what the Catholic Church would have to change, in order for him or her to stop protesting and be reconciled to the Catholic Church, we get almost a thousand different answers. When the Protestant reflects on his own act of setting conditions that the Catholic Church must meet in order for him to return to full communion with her, he is faced with an awareness that because each Protestant has a different set of conditions for return, and because he has no unique authority above that of all other Protestants to speak for all other Protestants, his very approach makes Protestant-Catholic reconciliation impossible. That’s because even if (per impossible) the Catholic Church could abandon her own doctrine and adopt a Protestant doctrine, the Church could not possibly adopt and simultaneously hold the incompatible Protestant positions on any particular theological question.²

The Protestant who reflects on this cannot but notice that to approach reconciliation this way is to fall into ecclesial consumerism, as each person demands that the Church conform to his own interpretation of Scripture before he will submit to her. Implicit in the very nature of an “I won’t return unless the Church does x” condition for reconciliation is a denial of ecclesial authority, a denial that not only presumes precisely what is in question between Protestants and the Catholic Church with respect to the existence of magisterial authority, but implicitly exercises that magisterial authority. So the second-order question is this: How can a Protestant pursue an end to the Protestant-Catholic schism without falling into ecclesial consumerism?

If, as Neal and I argued in “Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority,” to make conformity to one’s own interpretation a condition for submission is performatively to make oneself one’s own authority, the Protestant’s very act of laying out a list of conditions for reunion with the Catholic Church is not a theologically neutral act. In this act the Protestant intrinsically arrogates to himself an interpretive authority exceeding that of the magisterium of the Catholic Church. He is therefore confronted not only with the changes he wants to see in the Catholic Church, but with the realization that if he sets conditions that the Catholic Church must satisfy in order for him to return to full communion with her, he is performatively arrogating to himself ultimate interpretive authority, and seeking to conform the Church to the image of his own interpretation of Scripture. So the question I invite our Protestant readers to answer is not “What would the Catholic Church have to change in order for me to return to her?” but rather, “What does the multiplicity of Protestant answers to that question reveal about both the prospects and presuppositions of that approach to Protestant-Catholic reconciliation?

1. So long as Protestants redefine schism from the Church as heresy, that memory will remain hidden.
2. See, for example, the various Protestant notions of justification in the recent book Justification: Five Views.

Michael Horton is the editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation, co-host of the White Horse Inn radio program, and the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California. Recently on the White Horse Inn blog Michael Horton wrote about the nature of schism.

He wrote a post titled “Have Denominations Had Their Day?,” in which he responded to a post by Christianity Today contributor Ed Stetzer titled “Do Denominations Matter?.” Stetzer thinks that denominations are important for pragmatic reasons, namely, that by working together Christians can accomplish much more than by working alone. Horton agrees that denominations matter, but not merely because working together is more efficient or useful. Horton writes:

Scripture’s focus is on what God is doing rather than on what we are doing. The Triune God is saving sinners through preaching and sacrament. There is “one holy catholic and apostolic church” not because individual believers realized that they could more effectively reach the world and accomplish their goals in tandem. Rather, this church exists because of the Father’s eternal election of a people, the Son’s mediation and saving work for them, and the Spirit’s work of uniting them to Christ through the gospel. We are recipients of a kingdom; the Father is the builder, by his Son and Spirit, through the Word.

Therefore, there really is one church—catholic, spread throughout the world yet united in one Lord, one faith, one baptism—even though its visible shape right now seems to speak against it. Same thing with the holiness of the church: holy in Christ, it is nevertheless “simultaneously justified and sinful.”

Horton’s point is that there is only “one holy catholic and apostolic Church” not because Christians thought it would be more useful and effective to work together, but because “of the Father’s eternal election of a people, the Son’s mediation and saving work for them, and the Spirit’s work of uniting them to Christ through the gospel.” However, merely electing, redeeming and [covenantally] uniting persons to Christ does not entail the existence of a Church; it merely entails the existence of persons elected, redeemed and united to Christ. So Hortons’s “Therefore, there really is one church-catholic” does not follow. (See “Why Protestantism has no “visible catholic Church”.”) Christ did something in addition to offering Himself on the cross, and sending His Spirit; He founded a Church, and gave its keys to St. Peter. Cf. Mt. 16:18-19.¹ Because Horton’s conclusion does not follow, this makes Horton’s claim irrelevant to the question of denominations. If by “church-catholic” Horton simply means all the elect, this has no implications regarding whether there should be only one denomination, many denominations, or no denominations.

In his statement Horton makes use of the Lutheran/Reformed notion of simul iustus et peccator [simultaneously justified and sinful] to defend his claim that “there really is one church—catholic, spread throughout the world yet united in one Lord, one faith, one baptism—even though its visible shape right now seems to speak against it.” In other words, just as in Reformed soteriology a believer is perfectly justified by extra nos imputation even while that person remains full of wickedness and eternally damnable sins, so in Reformed ecclesiology the “church-catholic” is perfectly united spiritually and invisibly even while visibly divided into thousands of factions.

The problem with the claim of simul iustus et peccator is that it makes God capable of self-deception or schizophrenia, as I have explained elsewhere.² It also allows us to believe a falsehood, by appealing to the power of God to declare to be true what is simultaneously in fact not true. But that would not be a power on God’s part; that would be a weakness, i.e. an inability to speak only the truth. Moreover, this position devalues and dismisses the physical and material actions of men, and of sects, since the only thing that counts is the invisible and spiritual. What follows from this position is that sin in our heart and body does not matter (i.e. does not affect our salvation in any way), because in no way does it detract from God’s immutable forensic declaration proleptically revealing His declaration concerning us on the Day of Judgment. Of course this theology stipulates that good fruit should follow, just like it stipulates that visible unity should follow. But no length or severity of visible division falsifies the posited invisible union, because according to this ecclesiology visible union is not essential to the invisible [covenantal] union with Christ all believers possess, just as according to this soteriology holiness of life is not essential to the invisible forensic extra nos justification enjoyed by all believers.

For this reason, this position entails that schisms between believers are not in themselves sinful or evil, because they do not detract from the invisible unity between Christ and every believer; they only (sometimes) hurt the Christian cause in the pragmatic ways Stetzer notes. According to this notion, the truth is in the invisible realm of the divine declaration, even when the condition in the material, visible world is exactly the opposite. The same nominalism that leads to a gnostic conception of justification leads likewise to a gnostic ecclesiogy in which the visible and material is unimportant and ultimately irrelevant. Because merely electing, redeeming and [covenantally] uniting persons to Christ does not entail the existence of a Church, what Horton refers to as the “church-catholic” is impervious to any condition on earth, nor does this ecclesiology entail any condition on earth, so long as one or more persons are [covenantally] united to Christ.

But I wanted to understand how Horton conceives the “church-catholic” to be both one and united, and yet visibly divided. His statement reduced the unity of the Church to something purely invisible. So on his blog I asked him the following the question:

You say that the catholic Church is united (in certain respects) even though “its visible shape now seems to speak against it.” It seems to me that one could look at the present situation and see not a problem with the Church’s “visible shape,” (as though the problem is only a problem between branches within the Church) but rather *schisms from* the visible Church, as were the Donatists in the fourth century. So, what is it, exactly, in your opinion, that distinguishes a *branch within* the catholic Church, from a *schism from* the catholic Church? That is, how does one rightly determine whether a particular denomination is a *branch within* the Church, or a *schism from* the Church?

Michael then replied:

With our confessions, I’d say that this is determined by proclamation of the true gospel and the administration of the sacraments according to Christ’s institution. While no church exhibits these marks with complete purity, bodies that reject the gospel or anything essential to it and substitute their own dogmas, duties, and discipline for Christ’s institution have separated themselves from the visible Church.

I appreciate his reply, but I think it reveals a fundamental flaw in Reformed [and Protestant] ecclesiology. Horton’s reply defines schism from the Church as synonymous with heresy, and in this way eliminates the very possibility of schism from the Church [in the traditional sense of schism from as treated in the Church Fathers]. For the traditional sense of schism from the Church, see, for example, what the fourth century bishop St. Optatus says about schism in “St. Optatus on Schism and the Bishop of Rome.” Similarly, St. Jerome wrote:

Between heresy and schism there is this difference, that heresy perverts dogma, while schism, by rebellion against the bishop, separates from the Church. Nevertheless there is no schism which does not trump up a heresy to justify its departure from the Church. (In Ep. ad Tit., iii, 10)

In St. Augustine’s work titled “Of Faith and the Creed” which he delivered to the bishops assembled at the Council of Hippo-Regius in AD 393, which was the “general assembly of the North African Church,” he wrote the following:

Inasmuch, I repeat, as this is the case, we believe also in The Holy Church, [intending thereby] assuredly the Catholic. For both heretics and schismatics style their congregations churches. But heretics, in holding false opinions regarding God, do injury to the faith itself; while schismatics, on the other hand, in wicked separations break off from brotherly charity, although they may believe just what we believe. Wherefore neither do the heretics belong to the Church catholic, which loves God; nor do the schismatics form a part of the same, inasmuch as it loves the neighbor, and consequently readily forgives the neighbor’s sins, because it prays that forgiveness may be extended to itself by Him who has reconciled us to Himself, doing away with all past things, and calling us to a new life. And until we reach the perfection of this new life, we cannot be without sins. Nevertheless it is a matter of consequence of what sort those sins may be. (Of Faith and the Creed, 10)³

To the best of my knowledge, St. Optatus, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and all the Church Fathers who wrote about schism wrote about schism from as something conceptually distinct from heresy. Yes, any schism from the Church would invariably fall into some heresy, at least in order to justify its schism from the Church. But, nevertheless, schism from the Church referred to a particular Church’s (or smaller group’s) visible break in communion with the Catholic Church (even where that particular Church or group had not embraced any heresy), whereas ‘heresy’ always referred to a departure from the Apostolic faith, even if communion had not yet been visibly broken.

So, it seems to me that Michael has departed from the Church Fathers in this respect, by defining schism from the Church as heresy, and thus eliminating from his ecclesiology the possibility of schism from the Church [in the traditional sense of schism from]. And when schism from the Church is defined out of existence, one loses the possibility of recognizing whether one (or anyone else) is in schism from the Church; it becomes a meaningless question, a question that evokes a blank face, or an attempt to translate the question into the only definition of ‘schism’ one knows, namely, a question about heresy, which is then answered with an assurance that one is holding on to the biblical gospel and sacraments, and therefore that one is surely not in schism from the Church.

When terms in the Tradition are redefined in a way that replaces (rather than develops) the essence of their meaning, then not only does this lead to ecumenical difficulties, but it also leads communities who adopt these redefinitions to a different way of seeing, in this case, a way of seeing in which schism from is not even conceptually visible. By redefining schism from the Church as heresy, the community that adopts this redefinition essentially goes blind to schism from the Church and to the very possibility of schism from the Church.

What has happened, when a fundamental patristic concept is no longer even accessible or intelligible? This concept of schism from the Church dropped out of Protestant theology because the justification of the Protestant departure from the Catholic Church required an underlying radical change in ecclesiology, from an essentially visible catholic Church to an essentially invisible catholic Church with local visible expressions. This concept of schism from the Church is therefore no longer available (and has to be redefined as heresy to cover the semantic hole its absence would leave) in Protestant ecclesiology because the conjunction of (a) the denial of the ministerial priesthood and Holy Orders and (b) the denial of an essentially unified divinely established visible principle of unity entails that the Church is not essentially visible, and therefore that visible unity is not essential to her. But schism from the Church is impossible unless the Church has visible unity. Hence the Protestant move from a visible Church ecclesiology to an invisible Church ecclesiology (even though the language of ‘visible Church’ is retained by Reformed persons) eliminated conceptually the very possibility of schism from the Church, and thus required redefining schism from as just a synonym for heresy.

For this reason, even if Horton wanted to hold to the possibility of schism from the Church by claiming that the visible Church is, say, NAPARC (or some other association of Reformed denominations), he could not do so. That is because if some denominations which held to the same doctrines affirmed by NAPARC denominations were not in communion with NAPARC denominations, nothing would make those denomination the ones in schism from the Church, rather than the other way around. Without a divinely established visible principle of unity that serves as the defining point of reference for the location of the Church, schism from the Church must be redefined as “not holding to [my interpretation of Scripture regarding what is] the gospel and [my interpretation of Scripture regarding what are] the sacraments.” For Catholics, by contrast, that divinely established principle of unity is St. Peter to whom Christ entrusted the keys of the Kingdom, as St. Ambrose said: “Where Peter is, there is the Church.”⁴

Moreover, to justify redefining schism from as heresy, one must assume that all the early Church Fathers who addressed schism from the Church were deeply mistaken, having departed from the Apostolic faith regarding the nature of schism from the Church. In that sense, to justify departing from the Church Fathers regarding the nature of schism from the Church, one must presuppose some form of ecclesial deism. Otherwise, if in their teaching concerning schism from the Church, the Church Fathers were faithfully preserving and defending the Apostolic faith they had received, those who are now redefining schism from as heresy are departing from the Apostolic faith, and thus ironically (given their own their definition of ‘schism’) in that respect separating themselves from the visible Church.

1. See “Christ Founded a Visible Church.”
2. See comment #83 in the “Habitual Sin and the Grace of the Sacraments” post.
3. There St. Augustine implicitly distinguishes between mortal and venial sins. No believer on earth avoids all venial sin, but no one can be at the same time both in mortal sin and in a state of grace.
4. For the role of St. Peter as the Church’s principle of unity see “The Chair of St. Peter.”

While other early African bishops such as St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, and St. Augustine of Hippo are better known to Christians of our day, St. Optatus is another important African bishop and theologian in the early Church. He was influenced deeply by St. Cyprian, and in turn he influenced the thought of St. Augustine, who drew substantially from St. Optatus’s writings in his own efforts to reconcile the Donatists to the Catholic Church. St. Optatus remains theologically important in our day, by providing an early testimony to the nature of Catholic ecclesiology, especially regarding the unique ecclesial authority and role of the episcopal successor of St. Peter in Rome.

Milevus (El Milia, Algeria), where St. Optatus was Bishop

Outline
I. A Brief History of the Donatist Schism
II. How We Know Which Side Went Out from the Catholic Church
III. The Donatist Claim to be the Catholic Church
IV. The Catholic Rejoinder: The Successor of St. Peter holds the Keys
A. The Donatist Bishop in Rome does not hold the Keys
B. St. Peter and his Successors in Rome hold the Keys
V. Conclusion

I. A Brief History of the Donatist Schism

On May 24 we celebrated the feast day of St. Vincent of Lérins, who wrote his Commonitory in AD 434. St. Optatus wrote his work, Against the Donatists, approximately sixty years earlier. For this reason, Protestants willing to believe that St. Vincent and St. Augustine wrote before some ‘great apostasy’ have even more reason to accept the testimony of St. Optatus concerning the apostolic faith.

St. Optatus opens Against the Donatists by explaining that Christ gave one faith to His Church.¹ Moreover, before He ascended, writes St. Optatus, Christ gave His divine peace to His Apostles, willing it to be with His Church always. (John 14:27) This peace is a peace that the world does not have; it is to be exemplified in the Church Christ founded, for all the world to see. But, claims St. Optatus, the authors of the Donatist schism disturbed this peace.²

St. Optatus is writing in reply to a person name Parmenian. Parmenian was the third in the line of succession of the Donatist bishops of Carthage. The first Donatist bishop was Marjorinus, who was succeeded by Donatus, who was succeeded by Parmenian. Parmenian had just written a book against the Catholic Church; he wrote, according to St. Optatus, to “strike an undeserved blow at the Catholic Church.”³ This book prompted St. Optatus to write Against the Donatists in reply.

Before addressing the criticisms of Parmenian, St. Optatus first presents a brief history of the Donatist schism. The Donatist schism from the Catholic Church began in the year 311. In that year, Caecilian the deacon was chosen by the people of Carthage to take the chair of the previous bishop (Mensurius), and was ordained by Felix, bishop of Aptonga. Secundus, a bishop of a nearby city, subsequently came with other bishops, and declared the ordination of Caecilian to be invalid because, according to Secundus and company, Felix was a traditor.⁴ According to St. Optatus, however, the bishops accompanying Secundus had themselves “impiously betrayed the records of the law of God.” Among these were Donatus of Macula, Victor of Rusicca, Merinus of Tibilis, Donatus of Calama, Pupurius of Limata, and Menalius.⁵ St. Optatus describes the way by which these bishops started the Donatist schism, writing:

It was not long after this, that these very persons whom I have mentioned, … proceeded to Carthage, and there, although Caecilian was already the Bishop, made the Schism by consecrating Majorinus on whose Chair, Parmenian, you sit.⁶

Secundus and the bishops with him ordained a new bishop of Carthage, a man named Majorinus, who had been a lector under Caecelian’s deaconry. At that point there were (seemingly) simultaneously two [canonical] bishops of Carthage: Caecelian, and Majorinus. As the bishops associated with Majorinus continued to ordain other bishops not in communion with Caecelian, the Donatist schism spread. The matter was then brought before nineteen bishops at a council at Rome, headed by Pope Miltiades (pope from 311-314). St. Optatus describes the events of this council as follows:

Donatus brought forth his witnesses; they admitted that they had nothing of which they could accuse Caecilian. Caecilian was pronounced innocent by the sentence of all the above named Bishops; also by the sentence of Miltiades, by which the matter was closed, and judgement pronounced in these words:

Since it is certain that those who came with Donatus have failed to accuse Caecilian in accordance with their undertaking, and since it is also certain that Donatus has not proved him guilty on any count, I judge that, according to his deserts, he be maintained in the communion of the Church, continuing to hold his position unimpaired.

It is, therefore, sufficient, that Donatus was condemned by the verdict of so many Bishops, and that Caecilian was cleared by the judgement of so great an authority [i.e. the Pope].⁷

It is not insignificant that the dispute between Caecilian and the Donatists was brought to a council of bishops assembled at Rome, and that the verdict was pronounced by Pope Miltiades. This was the authoritative decision of the Catholic Church concerning the Donatist schism. But, as St. Optatus explains, a short time later Donatus returned to Carthage and in disobedience to the decision of the Holy See, refused to relinquish his claim to the episcopal Chair at Carthage.

St. Optatus recounts the history of the Donatist schism to show that the Catholic Church did not go out from the Donatists, but rather, that the Donatists went out from the Catholic Church. He writes:

The question is about a Division. Now in Africa, as in other parts of the world, the Church was One, before it was divided by those who consecrated Majorinus whose Chair you have inherited, and now occupy. We shall have to see who has remained in the root, with the whole world; who went forth; who sits on a second chair, which had no existence before the Schism; who has raised altar against altar; who has consecrated a Bishop when another was in undisturbed possession; who it is that lies under the judgement of John, the Apostle, when he declared that many Anti-Christs should go forth without, because they were not of us, for if they had been of us they would have remained with us. Therefore, he who was unwilling to remain with his brethren in unity has followed the heretics, and gone forth without, as an Anti-Christ.⁸

St. Optatus explains that prior to the Donatist schism, the Church was visibly one. So he proposes to determine which side came to be in schism from the Church by setting up a second episcopal chair (i.e. cathedra) where there was none before, by setting up a second altar [for the Eucharistic sacrifice] where there was none before, and by consecrating a Bishop when another Bishop was already in undisturbed possession of the episcopal office in that See. In this investigation St. Optatus seeks to show likewise which side has “remained in the root, with the whole [Christian] world.”⁹ According to St. Optatus, the party in schism from the Church lies under the judgment of the Apostle John, who wrote, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” (1 John 2:19) St. Optatus explains that according to the Apostle John, to separate from the Church through schism is to act as an Anti-Christ. St. Optatus knows that Parmenian cannot deny that schism is the supreme evil. St. Optatus writes:

Even you will not be by any means be able to deny that schism is the supreme evil [scisma summum malum esse].¹⁰

St. Optatus is not speaking of the sort of schism in which two Christian parties break fellowship with each other, but each party remains in communion with the rest of the Catholic Church. That sort of schism can only be short-lived, for reasons explained below. He is speaking about schism from the Church, the sort the Apostle John is referring to when he writes of persons that “went out from us.” (1 John 2:19) Concerning that sort of schism, St. Optatus writes:

But schism, after the bond of peace has been broken, is brought into existence through passion, is nourished by hatred, is strengthened by envy and dissensions, so that the Catholic Mother is abandoned, whilst her unfilial children go forth outside and separate themselves (as you have done) from the root of Mother Church — cut off by the shears of their hatred — and wickedly depart in rebellion.¹¹

In this sort of schism, the schismatic party does not remain in the Catholic Church, but abandons its Catholic Mother, separating itself from “the root of Mother Church.” Thus, this kind of schism is necessarily a form of “rebellion,” because it separates from that magisterial authority by which it was established and to which it therefore owes obedience and fealty.

II. How We Know Which Side Went Out from the Catholic Church

St. Optatus’s Against the Donatists is composed of seven books (see the table of contents). After laying out the history of the schism in Book One, he turns in Book Two to the question: “Which is the One True Catholic Church and Where is it to be Found?” In what may be the most important and revealing statement in the whole of his work, he writes:

For it was not Caecilian who went forth from Majorinus, your father’s father,¹² but it was Majorinus who deserted Caecilian; nor was it Caecilian who separated himself from the Chair of Peter, or from the Chair of Cyprian — but Majorinus, on whose Chair you sit — a Chair which had no existence before Majorinus himself.¹³

How does St. Optatus show that the Catholic Church did not go out from the Donatists, but that the Donatists went out from the Catholic Church? He does so by way of the Chair of St. Peter. The bishop that remains in communion with the Chair of St. Peter in Rome is the bishop who has remained with the Catholic Church. In this particular case, the bishop of Carthage who had remained in communion with the bishop of Rome, was Caecilian and his episcopal successors in Carthage. The bishop who has broken communion with the Chair of St. Peter is the bishop who is in schism from the Catholic Church. Therefore the bishop in Carthage who had broken fellowship with the Chair of St. Peter in Rome, was the bishop in schism from the Catholic Church. In this way St. Optatus shows that because Majorinus and his episcopal successors (and all the laypeople who followed them) had broken fellowship with the Chair of St. Peter, therefore they were the ones who had gone out from the Catholic Church, and were presently in schism from the Church.

Concerning this passage, the translator, Fr. Vassall-Phillips, writes:

The manner in which St. Optatus goes first to the See of Peter and only in the second place to the local See of Carthage in order to prove that the Donatists were in schism, is a fact of the greatest significance. It is quite clear that, in the eyes of Optatus, any bishop out of communion with the See of Rome was ipso facto schismatic. Otherwise, the reference to the Chair of Peter in this connection is utterly meaningless and unintelligble.”¹⁴

Of course, in the invisible church ecclesiology of contemporary Protestantism (where no Protestant denomination claims to be the Church Christ founded), there can be no such thing as schism from the Church, because every splitting of Christian communions is a mere ‘branching’ in which each party remains within “the small-c catholic Church.” (See “Branches or Schisms?“.) Thus from within the perspective of the invisible-church paradigm, every splitting of Christian communions, though perhaps temporarily lamentable, shortly becomes a cause of celebration, as God providentially transforms it into an increase in diversity in “the catholic Church.” In this invisible church ecclesiology of contemporary Protestantism, there is not even any conceptual space for the notion of schism from the Church Christ founded. St. Optatus’ speaking of schism from the universal Church, as an action distinct from apostasy from the Christian faith, does not even fit into the Protestant ecclesial paradigm.¹⁵

The translator notes that the Protestant ecclesiology according to which there is one [small-c] catholic Church in which many different religious bodies each holding a different set of doctrinal beliefs and not visibly unified are nevertheless assumed to be invisibly united, is an ecclesial ‘option’ of which St. Optatus is entirely unaware. The translator writes:

Evidently the idea of Comprehensiveness — that the One Church could be Catholic (Universal) in the sense of comprehending various kinds of religious bodies, varying in belief and without any external bond of union (cf . ii, 3) — never occurred to St. Optatus even as a possibility. Any branch theory in which the branches were separated from the trunk or from one another (cf. ii, 9 etc.) would have seemed to him unthinkable. He agrees with Parmenian in ruling it out ab initio.¹⁶

Both the Donatists and the Catholics would have entirely rejected an invisible-church ecclesiology. But their silence concerning that sort of ecclesiology shows that it was not even on their conceptual horizon. If “visible Catholic Church” ecclesiology had been a human innovation, as a result of ecclesial deism, it had so wiped out the ‘original’ apostolic “invisible Church” ecclesiology that by the fourth century, neither the Donatists nor the Catholics even conceived of it.¹⁷ To posit such a phenomenon by bumping up the alleged ‘great apostasy’ from the fifth century to the second century, is to take on all the implications described in “Ecclesial Deism.” And of course if “invisible Church” ecclesiology had been even a remote memory or a conceptual possibility, the Donatists would have seized on it, because in this way they could have avoided the charge of schism from the Church, by claiming to be a branch within the larger ‘small-c’ invisible catholic Church. And Sts. Optatus and Augustine would not have needed to concern themselves with the Donatist schism, laboring to bring them back into the Church, because they could have simply treated Donatism as a “branch within” the invisible, small-c catholic Church. But, invisible, “small-c catholic” ecclesiology would not be conceived for another twelve centuries, not entering the discussion until the sixteenth century.

III. The Donatist Claim to be the Catholic Church

We learn from St. Optatus that the Donatists claimed to have the keys of Peter, to be the one Church of Christ, and thus to deny that those outside of themselves could baptize or celebrate the Eucharist. Parmenian recognized that the one Church of Christ cannot be among all the heretics and schismatics, so he claimed that the Church of Christ was made up of the Donatists alone.¹⁸ St. Optatus writes to Parmenian:

Rightly hast thou closed the Garden to heretics; rightly hast thou claimed the Keys for Peter; rightly hast thou denied the right of cultivating the young trees to those who are certainly shut out from the garden and paradise of God; rightly hast thou withdrawn the Ring from those to whom it is not allowed to open the Fountain. But to you schismatics, although you are not in the Catholic Church, these things cannot be denied, since you have shared true Sacraments with us.¹⁹

Parmenian had claimed that the Keys of Peter belonged to the Donatists, and that they (i.e. the Donatists) were the Garden outside of which there were no sacraments and no means of eternal life. In order to claim that the Donatists were the Church, Parmenian had to claim that the Keys of St. Peter belonged to them. St. Optatus agrees with Parmenian that having the Keys of St. Peter is necessary in order to be the Church, but St. Optatus proceeds below to show that the Donatists do not have the Keys of St. Peter, and therefore are not the Church in which are found the sacraments of eternal life.

In order to prop up their claim to be the Catholic Church, the Donatists had an anti-pope, as it were, in the City of Rome, as a way of justifying their claim to possess the keys of St. Peter. At the time Parmenian wrote, the Catholic bishop in Rome was Pope St. Damasus (366-383), and the Donatist bishop in Rome was a man named Macrobius. St. Optatus writes, “But you allege that you too have some sort of a party in the City of Rome.”²⁰ So the task St. Optatus takes up in Book Two of Against the Donatists is showing that the Donatists are not the Catholic Church, but are in fact a schism from the Catholic Church, and that their anti-pope in Rome is in fact not the bearer of the Keys of St. Peter, but a kind of anti-pope.

IV. The Catholic Rejoinder: The Successor of St. Peter holds the Keys
A. The Donatist Bishop in Rome does not hold the Keys

St. Optatus writes to Parmenian:

But you allege that you too have some sort of a party in the City of Rome. It is a branch of your error growing out of a lie, not from the root of truth. In a word, were Macrobius to be asked where he sits in the City, will he be able to say on Peter’s Cathedra? I doubt whether he has even set eyes upon it, and schismatic that he is, he has not drawn nigh to Peter’s Shrine…. Behold, in Rome are the Shrines of the two Apostles [i.e. Sts. Peter and Paul]. Will you tell me whether he [i.e. Macrobius] has been able to approach them, or has offered Sacrifice in those places, where as is certain are these Shrines of the Saints.²¹

Though Macrobius is in Rome, he does not sit on St. Peter’s Chair, held by Pope St. Damasus. Nor, claims St. Optatus, has Macrobius ever offered the Sacrifice of the mass at the altars of the shrines of the Apostles Peter and Paul. The tombs of Sts. Peter and Paul had been Christian shrines since the first century, but Constantine had built structures over them in the early fourth century, and the Catholics of Rome celebrated mass at the altars over these tombs. St. Optatus supposes justifiably that Macrobius has never offered mass at these shrines, because they belong to the Catholics, with whom Macrobius has not been in communion. This subverts the Donatist claim to possess the Keys of Peter, since they do not even have possession or ritual access to the shrines of Sts. Peter and Paul. They cannot have the Keys of St. Peter if they are not even in communion with those who have succeeded from St. Peter in unbroken continuity.

Then St. Optatus shows that the line of Donatist bishops in Rome does not extend back to St. Peter, but began with Victor of Garba:

So it follows that your colleague Macrobius must confess that he sits where once sat Encolpius; and if Encolpius himself could be questioned, he would say that he sat where before him sat Bonifacius of Balla; and if Bonifacius could be asked, he would in his turn reply that he sat where Victor of Garba sat, whom some time ago your people sent from Africa to a few wanderers. How do you explain that your party has not been able to possess a Roman citizen as Bishop in Rome? How is it that in that City they were all Africans and strangers who are known to have succeeded one another? Is not craft here manifest? Is this not the spirit of faction the mother of schism?²²

St. Optatus explains that Victor of Garba, from whom Macrobius’ episcopal line takes its origin, was not a successor of St. Peter in Rome, but came to Rome in the fourth century, at the request of some African Christians living in Rome. Further evidence for this is found in the fact that no Roman citizens had occupied this Donatist line in Rome, but only Africans. St. Optatus then continues his explanation of the history of the Donatist party at Rome:

This Victor of Garba was sent first, I will not say as a stone into a fountain (for he could not ruffle the pure waters of the Catholic people), but because some Africans who belonged to your party, having gone to Rome, and wishing to live there, begged that someone should be sent from Africa to preside over their public worship. So Victor was sent to them. He was there as a son without a father, as a beginner without a master, as a disciple without a teacher, as a follower without a predecessor, as a lodger without a home, as a guest without a guest-house, as a shepherd without a flock, as a Bishop without a people. For neither flock nor people can that handful be termed, who amongst the forty and more Basilicas in Rome, had not one place in which to assemble.

Accordingly they closed up a cave outside the City with trellis-work, where they might have a meeting-house at once, and on account of this were called Mountaineers.

Since then, Claudian has succeeded to Lucian, Lucian to Macrobius, Macrobius to Encolpius, Encolpius to Boniface, Boniface to Victor. Victor would not have been able, had he been asked where he sat, to show that anyone had been there before him, nor could he have pointed out that he possessed any Cathedra save the Cathedra of pestilence [Ps. 1:1]; for pestilence sends down its victims, destroyed by diseases, to the regions of Hell which are known to have their gates gates against which we read that Peter received the saving Keys Peter, that is to say, the first of our line, to whom it was said by Christ :

To thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,

and these keys

the gates of Hell shall not overcome.

How is it, then, that you strive to usurp for yourselves the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, you who, with your arguments, and audacious sacrilege, war against the Chair of Peter? ²³

As evidence that Victor of Garba was not the bishop of Rome, St. Optatus explains that in Rome, Victor had no place to worship. Of the forty or so Basilicas available in Rome in which to offer the Eucharistic sacrifice, none of them was available to Victor of Garba, because he was not in communion with the Apostolic See. Hence he made use of a cave outside Rome.

In addition, Victor could not have shown that he had an episcopal predecessor at Rome, or that he had any genuine Cathedra. Hence, claims St. Optatus, Victor had only the Cathedra of pestilence [Ps. 1:1], which leads to hell (Ps. 1:6). But for St. Optatus, St. Peter is the “first of our line,” i.e. the first in the line of Catholic bishops. And Christ promised to St. Peter that the gates of hell would not prevail over the Keys He gave to him, and hence over the one holding the keys. So St. Optatus makes an argument here to the effect that hell would never prevail over the authentic line from St. Peter, and that by setting up a second Chair in opposition to the Chair established by Christ through St. Peter, the Donatist not only “war against the Chair of Peter,” but set themselves on the very path to hell, dooming themselves to destruction by the indefectibility of the Keys held by St. Peter in the Catholic Church. To set up a second Chair in opposition to the Chair of St. Peter is to attempt to “usurp” an authority they do not have. Just as Satan arrogated to himself an authority he did not have, and so chose for himself the way to hell, so by arrogating to themselves the authority of the Keys Christ gave to St. Peter, the Donatists align themselves with the forces of hell and the end assigned to those forces. The conflict between Christ and Satan is expressed visibly in this age in the conflict between the one to whom Christ entrusted the Keys of the Kingdom, and the forces of hell that shall not prevail against the one bearing those Keys. By setting themselves up against the true holder of the Keys, and warring against the Chair of St. Peter, the Donatists thereby align themselves with the forces of hell, which Christ has assured us can never prevail over the Church, and are thus doomed to defeat and destruction.

B. St. Peter and his Successors in Rome hold the Keys

Who then, in St. Optatus’ time, holds the Keys of the Kingdom? Repeatedly St. Optatus declares that the one holding the Keys must receive them from St. Peter. First, he points out that among all the Apostles, only St. Peter received the Keys. He writes:

When He [i.e. Christ] praises One, He condemns the others because, besides the one which is the true Catholc Church, the others amongst the heretics are thought to be churches, but are not such. Thus He declares in the Canticle of Canticles (as we have already pointed out) that His Dove is One, and that she is also the chosen Spouse, and again a garden enclosed, and a fountain sealed up. Therefore none of the heretics possess either the Keys, which Peter alone received, or the Ring, with which we read that the Fountain has been sealed.²⁴

Later in the work he shows that St. Peter, the Head of the Apostles, was the first to occupy the Episcopal Cathedra in Rome, and that the purpose of this Cathedra was to preserve unity among all Christians, including even the other Apostles. He writes:

You cannot then deny that you do know that upon Peter first in the City of Rome was bestowed the Episcopal Cathedra, on which sat Peter, the Head of all the Apostles … that, in this one Cathedra, unity should be preserved by all [in qua unica Cathedra unitas ab omnibus servaretur], lest the other Apostles might claim each for himself separate Cathedras, so that he who should set up a second Cathedra against the unique Cathedra would already be a schismatic and a sinner. Well then, on the one Cathedra, which is the first of the Endowments, Peter was the first to sit.²⁵

According to St. Optatus, anyone who sets up a second Cathedra against the unique Cathedra of St. Peter in Rome, is by that very fact “a schismatic and a sinner.” Of course in addition to the bishops ordained by the other Apostles, there were many lines of bishops extending down from St. Peter. And though all bishops receive equally the sacramental office of bishop, only one line of bishops succeeding from St. Peter receives, in addition, the charism Christ bestowed uniquely on St. Peter, namely, stewardship of the Keys of the Kingdom. Only that line of bishops occupying the unique Cathedra established in Rome by St. Peter possesses this charism. And hence to set up another Cathedra in opposition to this unique Cathedra, is ipso facto to become a schismatic, because such an act takes to oneself an authority that none except the rightful occupant of that unique Cathedra possesses.

Having established the unique authority of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome, and its divinely established role as the visible principle of unity of the Catholic Church, St. Optatus then lays out the succession from St. Peter to the present pope in Rome (Pope St. Damasus [366-383] in the first edition, but Pope St. Siricius [384-399] in the second edition). He writes:

To Peter succeeded Linus, to Linus succeeded Clement, to Clement Anacletus, to Anacletus Evaristus, to Evaristus Sixtus, to Sixtus Telesphorus, to Telesphorus Hyginus, to Hyginus Anacetus, to Anacetus Pius, to Pius Soter, to Soter Alexander, to Alexander Victor, to Victor Zephyrinus, to Zephyrinus Calixtus, to Calixtus Urban, to Urban Pontianus, to Pontianus Anterus, to Anterus Fabian, to Fabian Cornelius, to Cornelius Lucius, to Lucius Stephen, to Stephen Sixtus; to Sixtus Dionysius, to Dionysius Felix, to Felix Marcellinus, to Marcellinus Eusebius, to Eusebius Miltiades, to Miltiades Silvester, to Silvester Marcus, to Marcus Julius, to Julius Liberius, to Liberius Damasus, to Damasus Siricius, who today is our colleague, with whom the whole world, through the intercourse of letters of peace, agrees with us in one bond of communion.

Now do you show the origins of your Cathedra, you who wish to claim the Holy Church for yourselves.²⁶

What is the significance of tracing the line of bishops in Rome from the Apostle Peter to the present pope? This tracing would have no purpose or significance if all bishops held equal stewardship of the Keys, or if St. Optatus believed that stewardship of the Keys ended with the death of St. Peter. Tracing the line of bishops in Rome from the time of St. Peter to St. Optatus’ own day has significance for his argument against the Donatists only if stewardship of the Keys belongs in a unique way to that line of bishops.²⁷ St. Optatus traces the line of bishops occupying the Cathedra in Rome from St. Peter down to his own time to explain why Pope St. Damasus is the present steward of those Keys, and that by setting up a Chair in opposition to Pope St. Damasus, the Donatists had put themselves in schism from the Church Christ founded, that is, from the Catholic Church.²⁸

What St. Optatus writes concerning the role of the successors of St. Peter with regard to the Keys of the Kingdom and the nature of schism from the Church, is re-affirmed by St. Augustine about twenty-seven years later, when he writes:

You know what the Catholic Church is, and what that is cut off from the Vine; if there are any among you cautious, let them come; let them find life in the Root. Come, brethren, if you wish to be engrafted in the Vine: a grief it is when we see you lying thus cut off. Number the Bishops even from the very seat of Peter: and see every succession in that line of Fathers: that is the Rock against which the proud Gates of Hell prevail not.”²⁹

Later in Against the Donatists St. Optatus continues to make theologically significant references to St. Peter. He refers again to having shown that the Catholics possess the first Endowment of the Church, namely, the unique and authoritative Cathedra upon which St. Peter first sat, and which continues in the succession of bishops in Rome. He writes:

So, of the above-mentioned Endowments, the Cathedra is, as we have said, the first, which we have proved to be ours, through Peter, and which draws to itself the ANGEL — unless, perchance, you claim him for yourselves, and have him shut up somewhere or other.³⁰

A few pages later he states this again:

For it has been proved that we are in the Holy Catholic Church, who have too the Creed of the Trinity; and it has been shown that, through the Chair of Peter which is ours — through it — the other Endowments also belong to us.³¹

To be in communion with the bishop occupying the Chair of St. Peter is to be in the Catholic Church, and thus to possess in some sense all the gifts Christ bestowed on His Church. In both quotations he shows that the answer to the question “Where is the Holy Catholic Church?” is this: All those in communion with the Chair of St. Peter constitute the Holy Catholic Church. In this way St. Optatus provides the divinely established means by which to determine where is the Church, who is in schism from the Church, and what the Church does and does not teach.

On that same page he writes:

So — to answer you — we have shown what is heresy, and what is schism, and which is the Holy Church, and that of this Holy Church there has been constituted a Representative, and that the Catholic Church is the Church which is scattered over the whole world (of which we amongst others are members) and that her Endowments are with her everywhere.³²

According to St. Optatus, God has established a Representative of His Holy Church. What St. Optatus means by this is clear from everything that he has said up to this point. Because the Pope functions as the principle of unity by which we can know where is the Church, and which groups are in schism from the Church, he likewise functions as the Representative of the Church.³³

Toward the end of Against the Donatists, St. Optatus mentions the role of St. Peter three more times. He writes:

[F]or the sake of unity, blessed Peter (for whom it would have been enough if after his denial he had obtained pardon only) both deserved to be placed over all the Apostles, and alone received the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, which he was to communicate to the rest.³⁴

Here St. Optatus first teaches that St. Peter was given the Keys of the Kingdom for the sake of preserving unity in the Church. In giving St. Peter the Keys, he was in that respect placed “over all the Apostles,” for he “alone received the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” But the other Apostles (and all other bishops) exercise the authority of the Keys through their communion with St. Peter and his successors. If they break communion with St. Peter and his successors, they forfeit their use of the authority of the Keys. This is why, according to St. Optatus, the Donatists do not have the keys of the Kingdom, because they have broken fellowship with the Catholic bishops, as shown by the fact that they have broken fellowship with the episcopal successor of St. Peter in Rome.

Next, St. Optatus writes:

Behold (as we have said above), when the others [i.e. the other Apostles] did not recognise he [i.e. St. Peter] alone recognised, when the others made no promises he alone promised, when the others did not deny once he alone denied and that three times, but yet, for the sake of unity, he was not to be separated from the number of the Apostles. From which we understand that all things were ordered by the Providence of the Saviour, that Peter should receive the Keys. The way of malice was stopped up, that the Apostles might not conceive in their minds that they were free to judge, and condemn with severity, him who had denied Christ. So many guiltless ones are standing upright, and the sinner receives the Keys, that the work of unity might receive its pattern. It was provided that the sinner should open for the guiltless, lest the guiltless might close [the gates] against sinners, and thus the unity which is necessary could not be.³⁵

St. Peter was uniquely chosen by God to recognize Christ as the divine Son. But St. Peter was also unique in that he denied Christ three times. Yet, for St. Optatus, this was according to God’s providence. By giving the Keys of the Kingdom to one who had denied Him three times, Christ “stopped up” the way of malice, by making it impossible for the Apostles to condemn severely a person who had denied Christ, since by divine institution they themselves were made subject to one who had denied Christ. In God’s providence, the sinner (i.e. St. Peter) “opens for the guiltless,” i.e. extends to the other Apostles who did not deny Christ the use of the Keys of the Kingdom, so that the guiltless (i.e. the Apostles who did not deny Christ) might not close the way of salvation against sinners, and thereby divide the unity of the Church.

In his final mention of St. Peter’s role, St. Optatus writes:

Now, to turn to the fact that you have thought fit to take upon yourself the character of Moses, who, as the Apostle Paul tells us, was opposed by Jamnes and
Mambres — if this be so, what is the truth, that may be found with you, which the Catholic Church opposes?

Or, what is there with us which you can prove to be a lie ? Is it that we are in one communion with the whole world ? Will you be able to prove that this is a lie? Is it that we keep and defend the true and one Creed ? Will you be able to prove that this is a lie? Will you be able to prove that the Chair of Peter is a lie and the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, which were granted him by Christ, with which we are in communion ?³⁶

In his argument against the Donatists, St. Optatus here responds to Parmenian’s claim that to him [i.e. Parmenian] belongs the role of Moses, contending against Jamnes and Mambres [or Jambres], whom Parmenian thinks apparently represent Catholics contending against him. St. Optatus, for the sake of argument, accepts the analogy, and turns the argument back on Parmenian. His argument here to Parmenian is of the following sort:

If you really are in the character of Moses, and I am in the character of Jamnes and Mambres, then let’s see you win the contention between us. Let’s see you falsify a single Catholic doctrine, or prove that we (Catholics) are not in communion with the whole world, such that the term ‘Catholic’ does not rightly belong to us, but belongs more appropriately to you Donatists. Let’s see you convict us of not keeping and defending the one true Creed. Let’s see you prove that the Chair of St. Peter is a lie, and that the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven, with which we Catholics (but not you Donatists) are in communion, are a lie. You may claim to be in the character of Moses, but you cannot refute the Catholic Church or defend your position against the evidence I have raised against you. Since you cannot concede that Jamnes and Mambres got the best of Moses in debate, therefore, your claim to possess his role is an empty one that must be retracted, lest Moses be shamed or maligned.

V. Conclusion

In the face of such evidence, the only recourse for the Protestant who wishes to remain Protestant is to propose that on account of ecclesial deism, at some point prior to the time of St. Optatus, men had wrongfully and universally imposed a visible hierarchy on the Church, treating what Christ had established to be something invisible, as though it were something visible and essentially unified in a visible hierarchical structure. The Protestant who seeks to remain Protestant must propose that the essential unity of the hierarchy of the Church and the role of the Chair of St. Peter in that hierarchical unity, to which St. Optatus refers in his writings against the Donatists, are man-made constructs that were universally imposed on the Church at some point after the death of the Apostles and prior to the time of St. Optatus.

But as explained in the ecclesial deism article, proposing that there were universal corruptions and accretions in the early Church undermines the Protestant’s ability to appeal to the Church Fathers or to the Councils as having any authority whatsoever. And the necessary implication of that effect is solo scriptura.

That St. Optatus was a Catholic is shown not only in his understanding of the unique role of St. Peter and his episcopal successors as stewards of the Keys of the Kingdom, but in many other ways as well. The translator, Fr. Vassall-Phillips, writes:

St. Optatus affirms explicitly the truth of Baptismal Regeneration; again and again makes reference to the Sacrifice of the Altar; states the doctrine of the Real Presence in words that are incapable of any misunderstanding; insists on the sacredness of Holy Chrism; writes of the adornment of altars for the offering of the Sacrifice; refers to the ceremony of Exorcism before Baptism; appeals to deutero-canonical Books as to authentic Scripture; takes the continuance of Miracles in the Church for granted; and is quite express in his references to cloistered Virginity and the difference between the Commandments of God and Counsels of Perfection.”³⁷

The Protestant who wishes to remain Protestant, can accommodate such evidence only by resorting to ecclesial deism and advancing the date of the [posited] ‘great apostasy’ to some time before St. Optatus. But if St. Optatus is right that the successors of St. Peter in Rome hold the Keys of the Kingdom, then by Christ’s infallible promise the gates of hell shall never prevail over that line of succession. In that case, there could not be, and has never been, an apostasy in that line. And all who cleave to that line in full communion, participate in that divine promise, for there is the Holy Catholic Church Christ founded. That is the alternative paradigm to ecclesial deism.

St. Optatus, please pray for all those Christians in schism from Christ’s Church, that they may be happily restored to full visible communion. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen..

1. All pagination is from the translation by the Rev. O.R. Vassall-Phillips, (Longmans, Green, and Co.: London, 1917). That translation can be found in its entirety here.
2. Against the Donatists, p. 4.
3. Ibid. p. 9.
4. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Donatists explains the meaning of this term: “This word traditor became a technical expression to designate those who had given up the Sacred Books, and also those who had committed the worse crimes of delivering up the sacred vessels and even their own brethren.” St. Optatus shows later in his work that there was never any evidence that Felix was a traditor.
5. Ibid. p. 27.
6. Ibid. p. 29.
7. Ibid. pp. 47-49.
8. Ibid. pp. 30-31.
9. Ibid. p. 30.
10. Ibid. p. 39.
11. Ibid. p. 23.
12. By the phrase “your father’s father,” St. Optatus means the bishop who ordained the bishop who ordained you.
13. Ibid. pp. 20-21.
14. Ibid. p. 20.
15. That the Donatists had not committed apostasy is shown by the fact that the Catholics, including St. Optatus, continued to call them “brothers,” even though the Donatists refused to refer to the Catholics as brothers. (cf. Ibid. pp. 5-6.)
16. Ibid. p. 58.
17. And likewise, in the third century, neither the Novatians nor the Catholics thought of it during the Novatian schism.
18. cf. Ibid. p. 58.
19. Ibid. pp. 24-25.
20. Ibid. p. 70.
21. Ibid. pp. 70-71.
22. Ibid. p. 71.
23. Ibid. pp. 71-73.
24. Ibid. pp. 18-19.
25. Ibid. pp. 66-68.
26. Ibid. pp. 68-69.
27. St. Augustine likewise, in the year AD 400, traces only the bishops of Rome from St. Peter down to St. Anastasius (399-401) when he writes:

    For if the lineal succession of bishops is to be taken into account, with how much more certainty and benefit to the Church do we reckon back till we reach Peter himself, to whom, as bearing in a figure the whole Church, the Lord said: Upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it! Matthew 16:18 The successor of Peter was Linus, and his successors in unbroken continuity were these:— Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus, Iginus, Anicetus, Pius, Soter, Eleutherius, Victor, Zephirinus, Calixtus, Urbanus, Pontianus, Antherus, Fabianus, Cornelius, Lucius, Stephanus, Xystus, Dionysius, Felix, Eutychianus, Gaius, Marcellinus, Marcellus, Eusebius, Miltiades, Sylvester, Marcus, Julius, Liberius, Damasus, and Siricius, whose successor is the present Bishop Anastasius. In this order of succession no Donatist bishop is found. But, reversing the natural course of things, the Donatists sent to Rome from Africa an ordained bishop, who, putting himself at the head of a few Africans in the great metropolis, gave some notoriety to the name of mountain men, or Cutzupits, by which they were known. (Letter 53, chapter 1)

    St. Irenaeus had done the same in the latter part of the second century, in his Against Heresies III.3.3.

28. In the last sentence of the quotation, he challenges the Donatists to show the origins of their Cathedra, if they wish to claim be the Holy Church. This is very like what St. Irenaeus says:

    But [it is also necessary] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever . . . . But those who cleave asunder, and separate the unity of the Church, [shall] receive from God the same punishment as Jeroboam did. (Against Heresies IV.26.2)

    It also corresponds to the same test of apostolic succession Tertullian provides:

    But if there be any (heresies) which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first bishop of theirs] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men,– a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit (their several worthies), whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics contrive something of the same kind. (Prescription Against Heretics, 32)

29. St. Augustine to the schismatic Donatists, A.D. 393, Patrologia Latina 43.30.
30. Against the Donatists p. 78.
31. Ibid. p. 86.
32. Ibid. p. 86.
33. Concerning this line, the translator writes,

    There can be no doubt that St. Optatus is here referring to St. Peter, or his successors in the See of Rome, as the Representative of the Church. This is made clear by the fact that he is giving a summary of the arguments which he has already brought forward in his book. Now amongst these arguments the representative character of St. Peter and of his Cathedra has, as we have just seen, taken a leading place. Again, no alternative explanation of Persona in this passage has ever been suggested. Further, it is well known that St. Augustine adopted this traditional view, and in several passages has written of St. Peter as representing the whole Catholic Church in his own person. ( Ibid. pp. 86-87.)

34. Ibid. p. 284.
35. Ibid. pp. 288-289.
36. Ibid. p. 294.
37. Ibid. pp. xi-xii.

“So we stand here and with open mouth stare heavenward and invent still other keys. Yet Christ says very clearly in Matthew 16:19 that He will give the keys to Peter. He does not say He has two kinds of keys, but He gives to Peter the keys He Himself has, and no others. It is as if He were saying: why are you staring heavenward in search of the keys? Do you not understand I gave them to Peter? They are indeed the keys of Heaven, but they are not found in Heaven. I left them on earth. Don’t look for them in Heaven or anywhere else except in Peter’s mouth where I have placed them. Peter’s mouth is My mouth, and his tongue is My key case. His office is My office, his binding and loosing are My binding and loosing.” – Martin Luther ¹

Last year on Reformation Day we posted a sermon by Stanley Hauerwas on that very subject. A short time later I was sitting in a living room, talking with a life-long Protestant about the Catholic Church. This gentleman was doing most of the talking, and I was mostly listening, trying to understand him and his point of view more accurately. At one point he said, “You know, I have a lot of respect for the Catholic Church, and for Catholics. They are good people, and they do a lot of good for our community. But the one thing that I find offensive about the Catholic Church is the arrogance of its claim to be the Church that Christ founded.”

The arrogance question aside, this gentleman was more informed about the Catholic Church’s claims about herself than are most people. In my experience most Protestants are unaware of the Catholic Church’s claim to be the Church that Christ founded, the very Church referred to in Matthew 16 where Jesus changed Simon’s name to ‘Peter,’ said to him, “Upon this rock I will build my Church,” and gave to him the keys of the Kingdom. From my experience, most Protestants suppose that the Catholic Church thinks of herself as just another Christian denomination. Upon learning that the Catholic Church claims to be the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that Christ founded, they are utterly surprised and in some cases offended.² For example, when Responsa ad quaestiones was released in the summer of 2007, some Protestants were surprised by its contents, and others were offended by it.³

One reason for their taking offense is that many do not know that the Catholic Church has always believed and professed that she is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that Christ founded, and that any church or denomination or individual who is not in full communion with her is to some degree separated from the Church that Christ founded. For them, this teaching seemingly implies that non-Catholics are ‘second-class citizens,’ when from their own point of view they are no less united to Christ’s Church than are Catholics. So their taking offense is understandable.

But typically those who find the Church’s claim offensive do so not because they have researched the history of the Catholic Church and concluded that it began at some point later than the events recorded in Acts 2, but because they have a qualitatively different conception of what the Church is. Theologically they oppose the very notion that some communion or institution is the one that Christ founded, referring to such a notion as ‘sectarian’ or ‘sectarianism.’ From their point of view, all those who love Jesus are equally members of the Church that Christ founded. They do not believe that Christ through His Apostles gave charge of His Church to an hierarchy of bishops in a perpetual line of succession having an essential unity that is essentially visible. In their view, the Church Christ founded is fundamentally an invisible union of all those who love Jesus, no matter what their denomination or tradition. From that point of view, the claim by one institution to be the Church that Christ founded can be offensive.⁴

Some Protestants who know of the Catholic Church’s claim to be the Church that Christ founded are not offended by this claim. They are not offended by it, because they remember Protestantism’s historical origin in the Catholic Church. They remember that in the minds of the first Protestants, the intention was not to separate from the Catholic Church, but to reform the Catholic Church. For these first Protestants, their resulting separation from the Catholic Church was a kind of ‘necessary evil,’ not intended to create one or many schisms from the Church, but to bring needed moral and doctrinal reform to the very same Church that Christ had founded. In the minds of those first Protestants, this separation was to persist only until the Catholic Church was sufficiently reformed, so that they could return to full communion with her. The present-day Protestants who remember this obviously do not believe that the Catholic Church is infallible; that is why they believe that they can justifiably be separated from her. But they do believe that the Catholic Church from which they are visibly separated is (or has the best claim to being the visible continuation of) the Church that Christ founded, and they look to be reunited to her as soon as she is sufficiently reformed.⁵

Carl Trueman

Carl Trueman is a Protestant of this sort. Carl is the Departmental Chair of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, a Protestant seminary in Philadelphia. Over the last few years Carl’s writing pertaining to the Catholic Church has been simultaneously charitable and critical, often presenting both what he appreciates and admires about the Catholic Church as well as his reasons for disagreeing with other Catholic doctrines and practices. But without fail his writing about the Catholic Church reflects the memory of Protestantism’s origin in the Catholic Church. He writes about the Catholic Church as someone who knows that in a certain sense, the Catholic Church is his Church; she belongs to him, and he belongs to her, even though he believes he must now remain separated from her. In that respect, he writes of the Catholic Church as one writes about a parent from whom one is estranged, waiting to be joyfully reconciled.

In November of 2005 he wrote a review of the book co-authored by Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom and titled “Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism” (Baker, 2005). The concluding paragraph of Carl’s review demonstrates this memory of Protestantism’s origin in the Catholic Church, and why Protestants should daily consider the return to full communion with her. He writes:

When I finished reading the book [i.e. Is the Reformation Over], I have to confess that I agreed with the authors, in that it does indeed seem that the Reformation is over for large tracts of evangelicalism; yet the authors themselves do not draw the obvious conclusion from their own arguments. Every year I tell my Reformation history class that Roman Catholicism is, at least in the West, the default position. Rome has a better claim to historical continuity and institutional unity than any Protestant denomination, let alone the strange hybrid that is evangelicalism; in the light of these facts, therefore, we need good, solid reasons for not being Catholic; not being a Catholic should, in others words, be a positive act of will and commitment, something we need to get out of bed determined to do each and every day. It would seem, however, that if Noll and Nystrom are correct, many who call themselves evangelical really lack any good reason for such an act of will; and the obvious conclusion, therefore, should be that they do the decent thing and rejoin the Roman Catholic Church. I cannot go down that path myself, primarily because of my view of justification by faith and because of my ecclesiology; but those who reject the former and lack the latter have no real basis upon which to perpetuate what is, in effect, an act of schism on their part. For such, the Reformation is over; for me, the fat lady has yet to sing; in fact, I am not sure at this time that she has even left her dressing room. (my emphasis)

Carl carries with him a memory that many if not most Protestants have forgotten, the old ancestral memory of having once been Catholic, before the events of the sixteenth century. He carries within himself this memory of Protestants’ true home and family, understanding that Protestants as such are in essence Catholics-in-exile whose Catholic ancestors in the sixteenth century made the painful decision to live in exile from the Catholic Church until she had sufficiently reformed, never intending to be or form a permanently separate body or group of bodies. This is what Protestant fathers used to teach to their children. But memories are feeble and naturally fade and grow dull with the passing of the centuries. Eventually Protestant fathers no longer taught this to their children, and these children grew up not even knowing that they were in exile. They came to think that schism from the Church was normal, because they no longer retained even the concept of schism from the Church.

They came to believe that the Church Christ founded was not a visible institution, was not even visible at all, even though some still used the term ‘visible Church.’⁶ For many, if not most, the Church is an entirely spiritual entity to which one is fully united by a merely spiritual act of faith, such as a sinner’s prayer. These descendants of the earlier Protestants have completely forgotten that they were separated from anything. And without this memory, there no longer stirs within them any longing for the conclusion of the Catholic Church’s reformation so that they can be reunited to her. Instead, understandably, their discovery of the Catholic Church’s claim to be the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church Christ founded arouses in them some degree of resentment and offense.

For them, the question “How would Protestants know when to return?” makes no sense, because they have forgotten that they were waiting to return to anything. They have forgotten from whence they came, as Protestants. Carl would have them remember. He would have every Protestant get out of bed each morning asking himself whether there remain any good reasons for not returning to full communion with the Catholic Church. Carl understands that those who have no such good reasons, but who remain Protestant, are perpetuating an “act of schism.”⁷ By his prescription, every Protestant should place the following question in a prominent place by his bed, and read it aloud every morning first thing when he gets out of bed, and teach his children to do the same:

Why have I not yet returned to full communion with the Catholic Church?

Not only would this daily practice help Protestants see the Catholic Church as their true home, and Catholics as their separated brothers and sisters, it would also encourage Protestants to pray for Catholics and the  Catholic Church from a perspective of love and affection and longing, as one would pray for an estranged sibling, spouse or parent. Before we can begin talking about whether the Reformation is over, and how Protestants would know when it is time to come back to the Catholic Church, Protestants (and Catholics) must first recover our collective memory of our former union in one and the same Church, and the fact of our having become separated in the sixteenth century. The “when should we return” question can make no sense to Protestants until they see themselves daily as Catholics-in-exile from the their own Catholic Church, waiting eagerly to return home and be reunited to the family from which they have been separated now for almost five hundred years.

Today, as many Protestants celebrate “Reformation Day,” and we Catholics reflect upon the events that separated millions of Christians from us, we would do well to remember that reforming and separation must never be ends in themselves, least of all to the point of becoming so comfortable with schism that we forget that it exists, or that we are in it. Today we ought to reflect on the schism that continues to divide Protestants and Catholics, and earnestly pray that God by His grace may reconcile us, in one family, at one table, so that the world may see our unity in love and know that this love is from Christ, and that Christ is from the Father.

Ostende nōbīs, Domine, misericordiam tuam. Amen.

1. Martin Luther, The Keys, in Conrad Bergendoff, ed. trans. Earl Beyer and Conrad Bergendoff, Luthers Works, vol 40, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1958, pp. 365-366.
2. For the Catholic Church’s claim about herself, see Mystici Corporis Christi (1943), Lumen Gentium (1964), Dominus Iesus (2000), and Responsa ad quaestiones (2007). This has always been the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the Church has no authority to remove or revoke this doctrine about herself.
3. See here for some examples.
4. See our article titled, “Christ Founded a Visible Church.” The notion that any institution’s claim to be the Church that Christ founded is sectarian is the ecclesial equivalent of the Christological claim that any man’s claim to be the Son of God is divisive and arrogantly exclusivist. See my post titled, “Among You Stands One Whom You Do Not Know.”
5. This stands in contrast with the branch theory of the Church with no visible principle of unity. According to such a theory, there is no such thing as schism from the Church; all ‘schisms’ are eo ipso branches of the Church, and there is no objective touchstone for distinguishing between schisms from the Church and branches within the Church. The criterion for determining whether some community of persons is a branch within or a schism from the Church is sufficient conformity to one’s own interpretation of Scripture. A Protestant holding to this branch theory does not view himself to be in any sense or degree separated from the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church Christ founded, but rather sees himself as a member of one of many legitimate branches of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church Christ founded. If the Church is conceived as a set of branches with no objective principle of unity, nothing requires that the branches be visibly, doctrinally, or sacramentally united, and so the perpetual separation of the branches is acceptable by default. In this way, the branch theory ‘defines schism down,’ making it seem to be something morally and theologically acceptable. With a simple semantic sleight of hand, schisms from the Church are defined away, wiped from the conceptual horizon and hence no longer perceived as something to be opposed and overcome by all those who love Christ and seek the full visible unity of all Christians. See my post titled, “Branches or Schisms?“
6. See my post titled, “Why Protestantism has no visible catholic Church.”
7. Those who believe they do have good reasons for not returning to the Catholic Church are also perpetuating an act of schism, but they, at least in their own mind, have some justifying reason for remaining in schism.

This paradoxical statement is not for shock purposes-it is wholly and entirely true. As one who is in communion with Rome via an Eastern Catholic Church, I find this to be an inevitable conclusion. Because my home parish has its origins in the Slavic people who lived around the Carpathian mountains, I appreciate the beauty of the East, for it is a beauty that I share in my daily prayer life on a personal level and at a Church level. A good portion of those who worship at my parish are ethnically descendants of the Orthodox who regained communion with Rome. This came after excommunications and ill will were put aside in the interest of unity and through an acknowledgment of the ministry of Peter that is given to the Pope of Rome. These dear people who were brave enough to put aside bitterness and seek to regain communion have a story and it must be told, never to be forgotten. There have been many historical tragedies of Churches ransacked and seized on both sides of the Catholic/Orthodox schism, and there has been much oppression of the Eastern Catholics by ungodly Communistic governments, but to recount these events with the purpose of stirring up anger would lose the vision of Our Lord’s. This vision has sought, is seeking, and shall ever seek oneness between His children. On the other hand, to recount the vision of union and a love that transcended the hatred and differences between East and West, this is a story that is ever upon my mind.

I have many friends and acquaintances who have seen the fractured world of Protestantism and have said, “Enough!” They have left their former Protestant abode for Eastern Orthodoxy, because it is a safe haven from the opinions of men each left to interpret the Bible on their own. But to many of us who are or were Protestants, we look on the outside and see that Catholics claim Tradition, Copts claim Tradition, Eastern Orthodox claim Tradition, Armenian Orthodox claim Tradition, et cetera et cetera. It is a fact that brings me to tears, that there are successors of the Apostles who are not in full communion with one another. And we as the faithful are suffering for this disunity. The crucial question to ask is-how should we view this disunion? Are we supposed to cast our lots with the most doctrinal bishops? And if so, who are they? If that were the case, how different would our adherence to Tradition really be, in contrast to Protestantism?

Let us consider the vision of the Catholic and compare it to those Eastern Brethren who share the same ultimate episcopacy but do not share the same chalice. We know that our Churches share the view that Christ left a visible Church, with Bishops leading the charge in the same vein as the Apostles. But we know that each group has an overall different view on the status of each other. It is never redundant to restate what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about the Churches with whom she is not in communion.

1399 The Eastern churches that are not in full communion with the Catholic Church celebrate the Eucharist with great love. “These Churches, although separated from us, yet possess true sacraments, above all – by apostolic succession – the priesthood and the Eucharist, whereby they are still joined to us in closest intimacy.” A certain communion in sacris, and so in the Eucharist, “given suitable circumstances and the approval of Church authority, is not merely possible but is encouraged.”238¹

One way of describing the Catholic view of holy orders is that it is an indelible mark, as Tim Troutman’s recent full length article stated. While the term “indelible” may sound medieval and mechanistic, there is a thread of understanding the sacraments in a similar way in the East as well as in the West. The Donatist controversy is one example, where the Church saw that the Donatists were too strict in demanding rebaptism of those who had fallen away. Other sources of patristic thought saw this to be the case. It evokes a stronger view of the sacraments that is ultimately objective. This objectivity is at the heart of the Christian sacramental practice, something that neither sin nor schism can erase. This view is so powerful (an atomic bomb, as my homage to Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove points out) that it transcends our lack of full communion with one another. The disagreements over primacy and jurisdictions did lead to schism, but they did not lead to a destruction of Holy Orders. This maintains the fullness of sacramental life with God in Orthodoxy, even though on a horizontal level we are fragmented from one another. It goes to the point of saying that if Church authorities were to approve of it, Orthodox could receive the Eucharist from Catholics and vice versa. Holy Orders is so powerful that it transcends the differing views on the papacy. It reminds me of a story that I was told by my godfather prior to my conversion. I quote one account of it from the New York Times:

During a frustrating argument with a Roman Catholic cardinal, Napoleon Bonaparte supposedly burst out: “Your eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church?” The cardinal, the anecdote goes, responded ruefully: “Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.”

Whether this is an apocryphal story or not, this understanding of Holy Orders permeates the Catholic view both of herself and of those Churches who have not maintained communion with the Pope. It is so powerful that even those bishops who do not esteem us can ultimately be bestowed with just as much majesty and honor as we would give to our own bishops who have communion with the Pope of Rome, the first among equals. I have had the pleasure to greet Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America with a kiss on the hand, and that kiss was given with just as much fervor as I would give to a bishop with whom I am in communion. That is because I love the Orthodox too much to be Orthodox. Orthodoxy’s opposition to communion with Rome comes from circumstances both tragic and sad. But the often untold story that brings the title of this article to mind is the fact that at many points in history, Orthodoxy’s opposition to Rome has brought her to turn in on Herself. When the various and complex tragedies that led to schism between East and West unfolded, the majority of Orthodox adopted the idea that the mystery of Holy Orders is not indelible. A door was thus opened up that led to not only less love for Rome, but many times less love for Orthodoxy itself. Orthodoxy ties valid holy orders to both Apostolic Succession and Orthodoxy. This does sound like a higher standard that should lead to more purity, but what does Orthodoxy mean exactly? As you may imagine, there are varying answers to this question of what it takes to be fully Orthodox. And so, in many senses this “higher” standard actually lowers the love that one can have for the servants of God, the Bishops and those faithful in communion with them. One can end up only esteeming those bishops who are pure in one’s estimation as having the fullness of sacramental life.

A clear example of this can be seen in the life of the priest Fr. Seraphim Rose, who has fallen asleep in the Lord and is receiving the sort of veneration that could lead to an eventual canonization. Even at his conversion, we read that there was a gaping sacramental question that is still in many respects unresolved today. That is, when one enters into Tradition via Orthodoxy, if one was formerly a Protestant who was baptized as a Protestant, is rebaptism necessary? It is interesting because Fr. Seraphim was himself not baptized, having converted via Protestantism; however, his own practice was to rebaptize those who were not baptized via an Orthodox Church.

Throughout his life, Fr. Seraphim fought for what he called “true Orthodoxy”, which was in contrast to other groups–some of which (in his opinion) were too zealous for Orthodoxy and others were not zealous enough. In the case of those groups who Fr. Seraphim had wished would be more open, there was given the term “super-correct”. From his biography we read about the “super-correct”–they went so far as to call for rebaptism of canonical Orthodox believers who wanted communion with his Orthodox Jurisdiction-the Russian Orthodox Church that was not in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate (most widely known as ROCOR). In thinking about this struggle, Fr. Seraphim wrote:

“I know for myself that if I would have to sit down and think out for myself exactly which shade of ‘zealotry’ is the ‘correct’ one today-I will lose all peace of mind and be constantly preoccupied with questions of breaking communion, of how this will seem to others, of ‘what will the Greeks think’ (and which Greeks?), and ‘what will the Metropolitan think?”²

The deep issue here is not the particulars of whether Orthodox who are rebaptizing other Christians (Orthodox or not) are right or wrong. And in point of fact, the Russian Orthodox Church is more united today than it was then-as of 2007, ROCOR is back under the Moscow Patriarchate. Instead, I would argue that the underlying issue is Holy Orders, and the principles that provide the Orthodox Churches with a sense of who is Orthodox.
Later in the biography, Fr. Seraphim is quoted further on the struggles that he faced in reflecting on the disunity that he faced as an Orthodox believer.

“Throughout the year”, he wrote, “we have heard news of disharmony in the Church. In one monastery (Jordanville) the monks say ‘we are sheep without a shepherd’-and yet what would they do if the Abbot suddenly became stern and demanding in order to produce oneness of soul? In another monastery (Boston) there seems to be oneness of soul, but the impression is that it is not too deep and it is too dependent on ‘opinions’-opinions of the holiness of the Abbot, or the rightness of the monastery’s theology (and the wrongness of everyone else’s), of the superiority of ‘Greek’ to ‘Russian,’ etc. And everywhere-in parishes, in families and small groups-there burst out animosities for no apparent reason, and the best and meekest people are subjected to persecutions.
“Where is the cause to be found of this universal phenomenon today? Are true leaders vanishing in the Church? Or are the followers refusing their trust to those who could become leaders? Both things, of course, are happening, and in general the love of many is growing cold, and both leadership and trust are collapsing in a world based on revolutionary brashness and self-centeredness.
“What is the answer? To gain a position of leadership and compel obedience?-Impossible in today’s world. To offer blind obedience to some leader, preferably a ‘charismatic’ one?-Extremely dangerous; many people follow Fr. Panteleimon of Boston in this way, and the end of it looks disastrous, producing disharmony and friction on the way.
“To practice love, trust and life according to the Holy Fathers in the small circle where one is-there seems to be no other way to solve the ‘spiritual crisis’ of today which expresses itself in the absence of oneness of soul and mind. If one finds the mind of the Fathers, then one will be at one with the others who find it also. This is much better than just following what so-and-so says, taking on faith that he is somehow infallible. But how difficult it seems to find the mind of the Fathers! How many disagreements there are with others equally sincere! Or is this because we have not searched long or deeply enough?
“May God give us the answer to this agonizing question!”³

When I read this part of the biography, I was moved to great sadness for what the Orthodox faithful have suffered in trying to find unity and purity. There are many issues surrounding these problems, but again in my mind a key one is the predominant Orthodox view of Holy Orders. When Holy Orders are not indelible, there is a shifting perspective as to who is holy and who is Orthodox, even to the point of judging within Orthodoxy, not to mention Catholicism. Fr. Seraphim’s emphasis on finding the “mind of the Fathers” sounds wonderful (and it is truly the ultimate answer to all problems in the world), but of course his opponents would have said that they were doing the same thing. This shifting perspective sadly shares the subjectivity and individualism of Protestantism, as individuals or groups end up making different conclusions about the source of the Church when the standards are anything but Apostolic Succession.

Flying in stark contrast to this view of the Church is the view offered by Catholicism. This view holds that despite the flaws in our ordained leaders and those in communion with them, there is a gift of grace that cannot be wiped away. It is so powerful that despite the fact that some Orthodox would not esteem a Catholic as living in grace (Fr. Seraphim Rose himself wrote much against Catholicism, for example), the Catholic can turn the other cheek and stand upon Holy Orders, thanking God for the grace that comes to the Orthodox Churches. Please note that I wrote “can”–tragic failures of Catholics to appreciate Orthodox do not speak to our principles, but because of those principles I will say it again: I love the Orthodox too much to be Orthodox.

And so, it is the Catholic vision of the Church that most fully preserves respect and love for all Apostolic Churches. It is a broader view that leaves the mandates of either/or, and is open to a more complex ecclesiology that at times will emphasize both/and, which is true of its views on other doctrines such as the teachings on the relationship between faith and works. The Catholic view holds Her own sacraments to be valid, but She also holds the various Orthodox Churches to have the full sacramental life. Thus, there is a principled sacramental basis for saying that the Catholic loves the Orthodox too much to be Orthodox. Again I stress that not all Catholics do this–but our catechisms and councils beg us to do so. I am also not saying that there are no Orthodox who share this vision-I am thankful for those Orthodox who have spoken out in support of this thinking such as Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of the Moscow Patriarchate. But in Catholicism there is an authoritative, principled basis for a mutual respect of the successors of the Apostles that springs from this view of Holy Orders. In relegating the Bishop of Rome and those in communion with him to something lower, there is a sense in which Orthodoxy has lowered Herself at the same time, tragically. May Our Lord raise us all through a growth in appreciation for His fellow children, each other. Through this appreciation, I pray that this fractionation would end and end soon, via a stronger love for Orthodoxy that comes from a stronger love of the mystery of Holy Orders. As for me, in my evaluation of Tradition, it is not that I did not see the Tradition in Orthodoxy. It was due to my love for the Orthodox that I entered into communion with the Popes throughout the ages through Catholicism. Our love for Orthodoxy provides a principled way for us to not only hear the call from above that is communion with God; it is a call that beseeches us to end the horizontal divisions amongst the Churches. May we all answer that call, to the best of our ability.

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church
2. Father Seraphim Rose-His Life and Works, Hieromonk Damascene
3. Father Seraphim Rose-His Life and Works, Hieromonk Damascene

Check out what Augustine has to say on this matter:

Those then who tell us: You are not our brothers, are saying that we are pagans. That is why they want to baptise us again, claiming that we do not have what they can give. Hence their error of denying that we are their brothers. Why then did the prophet tell us: Say to them: You are our brothers? It is because we acknowledge in them that which we do not repeat. By not recognising our baptism, they deny that we are their brothers; on the other hand, when we do not repeat their baptism but acknowledge it to be our own, we are saying to them: You are our brothers.

If they say, “Why do you seek us? What do you want of us?” we should reply: You are our brothers. They may say, “Leave us alone. We have nothing to do with you.” But we have everything to do with you, for we are one in our belief in Christ; and so we should be in one body, under one head.

And so, dear brothers, we entreat you on their behalf, in the name of the very source of our love, by whose milk we are nourished, and whose bread is our strength, in the name of Christ our Lord and his gentle love. For it is time now for us to show them great love and abundant compassion by praying to God for them. May he one day give them a clear mind to repent and to realise that they have nothing now but the sickness of their hatred, and the stronger they think they are, the weaker they become. We entreat you then to pray for them, for they are weak, given to the wisdom of the flesh, to fleshly and carnal things, but yet they are our brothers. They celebrate the same sacraments as we, not indeed with us, but still the same. They respond with the same Amen, not with us, but still the same. And so pour out your hearts for them in prayer to God.

Saint Augustine, Ex Enarratiónibus sancti Augustíni epíscopi in psalmos (Ps 32, 29: CCL 38, 272-273).

Let me stress here that Saint Augustine is NOT advocating a “visible church” contrary to an “invisible church.” The other difference is that Saint Augustine is here discussing the Donatist heresy – those ancient schismatics who in fact possessed all the sacraments validly. Since Martin Luther, John Calvin, et al. formally rejected transubstantiation, Eucharistic sacrifice, and the sacerdotal priesthood, Protestants do not possess a valid Eucharist since they have denied its essence and apostolic succession.

Regardless, Augustine’s words are helpful in that they show that baptism (even in the context of schism) creates a permanent bond of fraternity.

For more writings by Taylor Marshall about Catholicism and Reformed Theology, please visit here.

Few Reformed theologians have spoken as candidly about the tragedy of denominationalism as Reformed Theological Seminary Professor, Dr. John Frame. ¹ Throughout Dr. Frame’s prolific writing career he has consistently spoken of the splintering of Protestant churches as a devastating sin that harms nearly every aspect of the Christian life.  In 1991 he devoted an entire book, Evangelical Reunion, to the mission of restoring Christian unity. Rather than treating the subject as merely academic, Dr. Frame writes as a man personally grieved over the crisis of denominationalism, yet also hopeful in God’s sovereign plan. I strongly recommend the book to both Catholics and Protestants alike.

Dr. Frame’s clarity and honesty about the problem of denominationalism also provides common ground for Catholics and Reformed Christians to engage one another.  Both groups believe denominationalism is wrong.  Both groups believe Christ did not intend His Church to be splintered into countless sects.  Both groups believe Christ founded one Church.  Dr. Frame extends the common ground even further as he articulates the belief that Christ not only established one Church, but established one with visible and governmental unity. If we both believe that Christ established one Church and that denominationalism is false, we are left with the task of determining the error which has created denominationalism.

In Evangelical Reunion, and again in his more recent work, The Doctrine of the Christ Life, Dr. Frame puts the onus of guilt for beginning denominationalism on the Catholic Church.  At the same time, however, he articulates the position that neither corruption nor even false teaching justifies leaving a Church and starting a new one.² This raises an obvious question; how can Dr. Frame possibly justify the Reformers leaving the Catholic Church?  If neither sin nor false teaching is a reason for leaving any church, how can Protestants defend the actions of the men like John Calvin and Martin Luther?  Dr. Frame answers the question directly.  He writes:

The best justifications for starting a new Lutheran church, I think, were these: (1) the Roman Catholic Church was requiring, as a condition of membership in good standing, commission of sin, namely participation in what Luther came to regard as idolatry in the mass. (2) The church required as a qualification for teachers, subscription to a view of salvation which Luther believed was flawed at its very core.³

Based on Dr. Frame’s own teaching in The Doctrine of the Christian Life, his second reason must be dismissed, as he maintains that not even false teaching justifies leaving a Church.  We’re left with his first justification, that to be a member in good standing in the Catholic Church required “commission of sin.”

When I read this, that the Catholic Church required her members to sin, I was unsure of what sin Dr. Frame was referring to.  I emailed him for clarification and he kindly responded.  He wrote, “What was the sinful practice required by the Catholic Church? Violation of the second commandment in worshiping the host. The church had always required its members to attend mass. Luther could not attend in good conscience.”⁴ Ironically, this practice, normally referred to as Eucharistic adoration, was recently affirmed by the Lutheran Bishops in the Lutheran/Roman Catholic Joint Commission.⁵ Yet, Dr. Frame maintains that this practice is sin and thus justifies the Reformers in leaving the Church.

In taking this position, Dr. Frame sets himself against the great Doctors of the Faith. For example, in his commentary on the Psalms, St. Augustine writes:

It was in His flesh that Christ walked among us and it is His flesh that He has given us to eat for our salvation; but no one eats of this flesh without having first adored it . . . and not only do we not sin in thus adoring it, but we would be sinning if we did not do so.⁶

More importantly, however, Dr. Frame’s rejection of this practice forces him to reject the most natural reading of the Eucharistic passages in Holy Scripture. In each of the synoptic gospels, Jesus, holding the bread says, “This is my body.”⁷ In the gospel of John, Jesus commands his disciples to “eat his flesh and drink his blood.”⁸ Nothing, in any of these passages suggests that Jesus was speaking symbolically.  The Protestant interpretation, though not put this way, begins with the belief that Jesus couldn’t possibly have meant what it sounds like He meant.  In fact, the Protestant rejection of the true presence of Christ (the rationale for Eucharistic Adoration) isn’t exegetical at all; it’s simply rational.  As one of my friends, a PCA Pastor put it, “the Catholic belief that the bread and wine really become the body and blood of Jesus is insane!” True…it’s pretty wild, but it’s true to the text.  More importantly, the body and blood of our Savior are our only hope in life, as St. Augustine said; it would be sin not to worship the sacred Host.

Reformed Christians generally love St. Augustine. They also love John Frame.  Yet, one says we sin if we do not worship the Eucharist, the other says we sin if we do.  Who should be trusted?  The difference between these two beliefs is that one has been affirmed by the Catholic Church and the other has been rejected as heretical. ⁹ This is the same Catholic Church that rejected Arianism to the glory of Christ’s deity. The same Church that affirmed the reality of Christ’s humanity in the face of heretical docetism. The same Church that rejected the man-centered soteriology of Pelagius for the grace-centered theology of St. Augustine.  This Church maintains and safeguards the Apostolic deposit of faith. This is the goodness of Christ manifested in the world — the offer of being incorporated into His bride, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

1. In the Preface of Evanglical Reunion, Frame writes, “By ‘denominationalism,’ I mean, sometimes (1) the very fact that the Christian church is split into many denominations, sometimes (2) the sinful attitudes and mentalities that lead to such splits and perpetuate them.”
2. He writes, “Remarkably, Scripture itself never says that believers should leave a church organization and form a new one because of false teaching. … But nowhere in the Old Testament, nor in Jesus’ teaching, does God command believers to abandon Israel and to form a new nation, church, or denomination. … As we have seen, there is doctrinal and practical corruption in the New Testament church as well. But again, the apostles do not call on believers to leave their churches and form new ones because of corruption.” (The Doctrine of the Christian Life. Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Pub., 2008. Print. Page, 431.)
3. “Evangelical Reunion – Preface.” The Works of John Frame and Vern Poythress. Web. 04 Apr. 2010. http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_books/Evangelical_Reunion/Preface.html. Chapter 2.
4. Used with permission.
5. “Pro Unione Web Site – Full Text L-RC Eucharist.” Centro Pro Unione, Christian Unity and Ecumenical Research. Web. 08 Apr. 2010. <http://www.pro.urbe.it/dia-int/l-rc/doc/e_l-rc_eucharist.html>.
6. St. Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 98.
7. Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19.
8. John 6:52.
9. Cf. Council of Trent Session XIII.5, Can. 6.

In my “Ecclesial Deism” article I referred to the common Protestant ecclesiology in which the Church Christ founded is itself invisible, though certain members of the Church are visible, namely, embodied believers and their children, as well as local congregations and denominations. In Protestant ecclesiology, there is no universal visible Church; there are local and regional churches which are visible members of the universal invisible Church. I pointed out in that article that conceiving of the Body of Christ as something that is in itself invisible, having no essentially unified visible hierarchy, is both an ecclesial Gnosticism that denies the material principle of the Church as sacrament, and an ecclesial Docetism that implicitly denies Christ’s incarnation.² This conception of the Church eliminates unity as one of the four essential marks of the Church specified in the Nicene Creed, either by treating unity as only a ‘contingent mark of the Church,’ or by treating unity as a ‘necessary but invisible mark of an invisible Church.’³

Last year I came across a diagram that is based on this conception of the Church as invisible. I found the diagram on the web site request.org, which describes itself as “A free website for teaching about Christianity in Religious Education.” The diagram can be found on request.org’s page explaining denominations, and it portrays the various Christian traditions as branches of a tree. I have copied the diagram below and labeled it “Diagram 1.”

Diagram 1

Notice two things about Diagram 1. First, notice that the ‘trunk’ of this ‘tree’ takes an unexplained bend to the right, in the lower-middle part of the diagram. The person who made the diagram determined that there must be no ‘branch’ that is the continuation of the ‘trunk.’ He or she thus assumed that the Church has no principium unitatis (i.e. principle of unity) such that the Church necessarily retains her unity through every possible schism. The assumption that the Church has no principium unitatis is itself based on the more fundamental assumption that the Church itself is not a visible hierarchically unified Body, and therefore that the Church’s essential unity is only at an invisible, spiritual level, not at the visible level.

The person who made Diagram 1 assumed that the Church’s visible unity is not essential to her being. No one would claim that the integrity of a living body is not essential to its being, as though a living body’s being disintegrated by a bomb, for example, does not detract from the existence of that body. So treating the Church as something for which visible unity is optional presupposes a dematerialized (i.e. Gnostic) conception of the Church. Only if the Church is itself invisible (i.e. spiritual, immaterial) could the Church continue to exist after the disintegration of her visible unity. Hence Diagram 1 carries with it the implicit assumption that the Body of Christ is invisible, not a visible hierarchically ordered Body. But for that reason Diagram 1 is in conflict with the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ and with St. Paul’s description of the Church as a Body.⁴

The second thing to notice about Diagram 1 is that it shows there to be a single ‘trunk’ at least up to AD 1054 — I say “at least” because it is drawn such that the ‘trunk’ appears to continue into the sixteenth century. But Diagram 1 does not show what the ‘tree’ looks like through the first millennium. And that hides the challenge to the Gnostic assumption that went into the making of Diagram 1. During the first millennium, the ‘tree’ looks something like this:

Diagram 2

This raises serious questions about the veracity of Diagram 1. If all those sects of the first millennium were not branches but separations from the Church (and Diagram 1 clearly assumes that to be the case, since it shows the Church to be visibly one just prior to AD 1054), then why should we think that at some point, either following AD 1054 or during the sixteenth century, there is no continuing ‘trunk,’ and that therefore these divisions in the second half of the second millennium are all equally authentic ‘branchings within‘ the Church? What is it that makes separations of the first millennium schisms and heresies, but makes separations of the second millennium mere branchings within the Church? Whose determination about whether something is a mere “branch of the Church” or a “schism from the Church” is authoritative? Is it for each person to decide for himself? If so, then if the Ebionites were to construct a diagram of the Church, they could begin the branching in AD 63, and call themselves an authentic branch of the Church.

It seems as though the person who made Diagram 1 simply decided that all the divisions of the first millennium were “separations from the Church,” while the divisions of the second millennium were “separations within the Church.” But on what basis did he or she make this decision? On the basis of some shared ‘mere Christianity’ of the second millennium? Why then couldn’t the extension of ‘mere Christianity’ include all these sects of the first millennium? Who gets to determine or set the extension of ‘mere Christianity’? How is it not arbitrary that, for example, the Baptists, are thought to be included within ‘mere Christianity’ while the monophysites are not? The Pentecostals are, but the Montanists are not? And so on. The answer cannot be “Well the Baptists and Pentecostals share my general interpretation of Scripture,” because any monophysite could say the same thing about fellow monophysites. It is naïve to assume that heretics and schismatics do not appeal to Scripture to justify their positions.⁵

What counts as mere Christianity therefore cannot be based on what people defend using Scripture. Unless the Protestant wishes to allow mere Christianity to extend to all these divisions of the first millennium, he will need some non-arbitrary, non-stipulative way of limiting the extension of mere Christianity to what Protestants have in common with Catholics and Orthodox. But that is precisely what he does not have.

Both Catholics and Orthodox agree that the trunk of this ‘tree’ did not end in AD 1054. The Catholic Church claims it continues with her; the Orthodox claim it continues with them. So the Protestant must either claim:

(1) That the separation of the Catholics and the Orthodox was the first ‘branching within‘ the Church, OR

(2) In the Orthodox-Catholic schism, the Church continued with the Orthodox, the Pope being in schism from the Church, OR

(3) In the Orthodox-Catholic schism, the Church continued with the Pope, the Orthodox being in schism from the Church.

If the Protestant claims that (1) is true, then he must explain why the Catholic-Orthodox schism is a mere “branching within” (i.e.does not involve a schism from the Church) when every other schism in the prior history of the Church involved a ‘schism from‘ the Church and the preservation of the unity of the Church. He will need to show the principled difference between a ‘branching within‘ and a ‘schism from,’ and the basis for determining, in any division, whether it is a ‘branching within‘ or a ‘schism from,’ and, if it is a ‘schism from,’ which of the separating groups is the continuation of the Church Christ founded, and why. Keep in mind that both Orthodox and Catholics reject (1) — accepting (1) is a modern Protestant notion. But the Protestant cannot (while remaining Protestant) accept (2), because (2) implies that Protestantism is no better than a “branching within a schism from” the Church, and therefore that Protestants should become Orthodox in order to be reconciled to the Church. But if the Protestant accepts (3), then if the diagram does not include the Protestant Reformation it looks something like this:

Diagram 3

But if the Protestant accepts Diagram 3, he is going to have a very difficult time justifying Diagram 1 over something like Diagram 4:

Diagram 4

Nor will he likely wish to claim that some particular Protestant denomination is ‘the trunk,’ i.e. the institution Christ founded and from which all other denominations have separated, because there is no principled reason to pick one Protestant denomination over another in this respect.⁶ So there seem to be three choices for the Protestant: (1) an ecclesiology that treats the Church itself as invisible, and thus allows all the divisions of the first two millennia (or any arbitrary subset of them) to be “branches within” the Church, even to the degree that any individual could be his or her own branch, always without any ‘trunk,’ or (2) Orthodoxy, or (3) Catholicism. Why are these the only options? Because there is no middle position between apostolic succession and “private judgment.”

So when is a branch not a schism? A branch is not a schism only when the three bonds of unity are preserved: unity of faith, unity of sacraments, and unity of government.⁷ In the Catechism schism is defined as “the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”⁸ Schism always reduces to ‘schism from,’ because with a principium unitatis, ‘schism within’ can only continue as ‘schism from.’

1. See section II.B of “Christ Founded a Visible Church.”
2. See also Christ founded a visible Church.”
3. There are two different ecclesial positions in which schism does not detract from unity: (1) an ecclesial position in which there is a visible princium unitatis so that every schism is a schism from, not a schism within, and (2) an invisible Church ecclesiology, such that no matter how many ‘schisms within‘ there are at the visible level, the unity of the Church remains entirely intact, because this essential unity is on a spiritual, invisible level.
4. See “Christ Founded a Visible Church.”
5. St. Vincent of Lerins (AD 434) writes:

   And if one should ask one of the heretics who gives this advice, How do you prove [your assertion]? What ground have you, for saying, that I ought to cast away the universal and ancient faith of the Catholic Church? he has the answer ready, “For it is written;” and forthwith he produces a thousand testimonies, a thousand examples, a thousand authorities from the Law, from the Psalms, from the apostles, from the Prophets, by means of which, interpreted on a new and wrong principle, the unhappy soul may be precipitated from the height of Catholic truth to the lowest abyss of heresy…. Do heretics also appeal to Scripture? They do indeed, and with a vengeance; for you may see them scamper through every single book of Holy Scripture…. Whether among their own people, or among strangers, in private or in public, in speaking or in writing, at convivial meetings, or in the streets, hardly ever do they bring forward anything of their own which they do not endeavour to shelter under words of Scripture. Read the works of Paul of Samosata, of Priscillian, of Eunomius, of Jovinian, and the rest of those pests, and you will see an infinite heap of instances, hardly a single page, which does not bristle with plausible quotations from the New Testament or the Old. (Commonitory, 25)

6. See, for example, this diagram of the Presbyterian denominations in the US.
7. CCC, 815
8. CCC, 2089