In Augustine’s pastoral opposition to the Donatists, he made it clear that the very nature of the Gospel was at stake and he used Paul’s letter to the Galatians to prove it. He wrote to his friend Generosus:
Since you were pleased to acquaint us with the letter sent to you by a Donatist presbyter, although, with the spirit of a true Catholic, you regarded it with contempt, nevertheless, to aid you in seeking his welfare if his folly be not incurable, we beg you to forward to him the following reply. He wrote that an angel had enjoined him to declare to you the episcopal succession of the Christianity of your town; to you, forsooth, who hold the Christianity not of your own town only, nor of Africa only, but of the whole world, the Christianity which has been published, and is now published to all nations. This proves that they think it a small matter that they themselves are not ashamed of being cut off, and are taking no measures, while they may, to be engrafted anew; they are not content unless they do their utmost to cut others off, and bring them to share their own fate, as withered branches fit for the flames. Wherefore, even if you had yourself been visited by that angel whom he affirms to have appeared to him — a statement which we regard as a cunning fiction; and if the angel had said to you the very words which he, on the warrant of the alleged command, repeated to you — even in that case it would have been your duty to remember the words of the apostle: “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” For to you it was proclaimed by the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, that His “gospel shall be preached unto all nations, and then shall the end come.” To you it has moreover been proclaimed by the writings of the prophets and of the apostles, that the promises were given to Abraham and to his seed, which is Christ? when God said unto him: “In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed.” Having then such promises, if an angel from heaven were to say to thee, “Let go the Christianity of the whole earth, and cling to the faction of Donatus, the episcopal succession of which is set forth in a letter of their bishop in your town,” he ought to be accursed in your estimation; because he would be endeavouring to cut you off from the whole Church, and thrust you into a small party, and make you forfeit your interest in the promises of God.
While Augustine directly quotes Galatians 1.8 and 3.16, the quotation of Genesis 15 is also anchored in Galatians as well: And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” As Augustine understands it, reducing the Church to a small sect within it is a different Gospel because the content of the Gospel preached to Abraham was a promise of redemption to all nations. The Gospel, in a significant sense, simply is the declaration that all nations are to be blessed in Christ.
Defining the Gospel as the blessing going to all nations alike without any nation having a special covenantal privilege corresponds rather precisely to Paul’s statements in Ephesians and Colossians.
This is in fact precisely Paul’s point in Galatians in his contrast between the promise to Abraham versus the Mosaic Law (3.15-18). The promise to Abraham was for a single seed, a single family (c.f. 3.29). But the Law, while necessary because of trangressions, did not allow a single family, but created divisions. The fact that God is one proved that the Law had to be temporary until the one seed could be found in Christ (v. 20; compare Romans 3.29, 30).
Luther, we should note, held to the same ground against Eck in their debate.
As for the article of Hus that “it is not necessary for salvation to believe the Roman Church superior to all others” I do not care whether this comes fro Wyclif or from Hus. I know that innumerable Greeks have been saved though they never heard this article. It is not in the power of the Roman pontiff or of the Inquisition to construct new articles of faith. No believing Christian can be coerced beyond holy writ.
(Roland Baintan, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther [Nashville: Abingdon Press] p. 89).
For a more comprehensive look at Galatians, Derrick Olliff’s excellent essay (though you may want to read his essay on the Gospel, first). For a brief overview of why attempts to make Galatians support a different sort of Law-Gospel distinction fail to deal with what the letter actually says, take a look at Tim Gallant’s “What Saint Paul Should Have Said.”
Mark,
I mostly agree, but I’d like to add one thing, related to the Bainton quotation. Visibility and catholicity need not be pitted against each other, as if one is incompatible with the other. What you are saying about catholicity is exactly right. But St. Augustine did not see catholicity as incompatible with a supremacy of authority located in the Apostolic See. Hence he attests that “the primacy of the Apostolic chair always existed in the Roman Church” (Ep. xliii., n. 7); and he denies that anyone who dissents from the Roman faith can be a Catholic. “You are not to be looked upon as holding the true Catholic faith if you do not teach that the faith of Rome is to be held” (Sermo cxx., n. 13). And elsewhere he says [to the Donatists], “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.”
Hence St. Augustine, contra Luther, did not see the Church being Roman (in the sense of being defined in terms of its relation to the Apostolic See) as in any way incompatible with its being catholic. And that has to true, because Christ the Head of the Body is incarnate. Since particularity of the Head is fully compatible with the catholicity of the Body, therefore, the particularity of a divinely appointed steward must also be compatible with the catholicity of the Body. The giving of the keys of the Kingdom to Peter, a particular man, is part of the universal gospel. That’s why the conclusion that the Church at Rome cannot have superior authority does not follow from the universality (i.e. the catholicity) of the gospel. Otherwise, even the superior authority of Christ would be incompatible with the universality of the gospel.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Bryan, I’m reading your post fast late at night and so I reserve the right to alter this response…
But the argument between Eck and Luther was over whether one had to believe in the supremacy of the Pope as a condition of eternal salvation. It was not over whether the Pope was indeed supreme (at the time, I think, Luther would still affirm this doctrine, albeit in a *jus humana* way). So just like I believe in Presbyterianism and yet wouldn’t make belief in that form of government a condition of salvation, both Luther and Eck agreed (to some extent) on the supremacy of the Pope at the time that they argued, but Luther did not want to require the affirmation of such as a condition of salvation.
Mark,
My point was that St. Augustine didn’t see the necessity of union with the Church at Rome (on account of Christ’s having given to St. Peter the keys of the Kingdom) as incompatible with the catholicity of the gospel. Luther thought the supreme ecclesial authority of the episcopal successor of St. Peter was not by divine right, hence about this doctrine he says, “No believing Christian can be coerced beyond holy writ,” because he didn’t see papal authority laid out in Scripture. But by that criterion, no one could be required to believe that Christ was homoousious with the Father, because Scripture does not use the term. Yet that was not St. Augustine’s view. That is, St. Augustine believed that the Church had the authority to define articles of faith according to the received Tradition, and not just restate Scripture. And it is by Tradition-informing-the-interpretation-of-Scripture that St. Augustine can say what he says about the authority of the “Apostolic See,” because he knows not only that Christ gave the keys to St. Peter, but also how that authority was handed down at Rome to St. Peter’s episcopal successors. Luther’s rejection of the authority of Tradition and the magisterium, led him to perceive as a “new article of faith” what for St. Augustine was part of the faith. Luther apparently didn’t realize that papal primacy (by divine right) was something the Eastern Fathers knew during the first millennium, but later rejected:
http://www.davidmacd.com/catholic/orthodox/pope_orthodox_church_fathers.htm
Also, from the Catholic point of view, the nature of the necessity of believing this dogma of the Church is not a necessity of means, but a necessity of precept. (See the last paragraph of the Catholic Encyclopedia article on ‘Necessity’.) By such necessity, only culpable omission can absolutely prevent attaining the end.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi
Well, right. Augustine saw Rome in a church that was universal. “Roman Catholic” made sense. I think he was mistaken to some extent… though I’d have to do more to know his views more precisely. But he saw no conflict. As I said, I don’t think Luther did either in his day.
And I think if Rome had decided with Pelagius we might have sheet music from Augustine to a very different tune.