Letter of Pope Leo XIII on the Unity of the Church: 6. Church as Teacher

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6—Does the Church Teach?
THERE is no assumption more widely accepted, not only by Rome but throughout Christendom, than the teaching-authority or magisterium of the church. Nor is it easy to conceive a claim more opposed to every fact and principle of revelation, or more derogatory to the rights of God. Yet it prevails wherever the Catholic idea governs the imagination. That the church teaches this, and denies that, sounds grand and imposing; but all is vague, where we need certainty; and if sifted, it ends in the authority of clergy or the infallibility of the Pope.
God has revealed His mind conclusively on this in 1 Cor. 3 “What then is Paul, and what Apollos? Ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to each; I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one thing; and each shall receive reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow-laborers: God's husbandry, God's building ye are” (vers. 5-9). What can be clearer? God employs gifted men as joint-servants, His journeymen; but the church is the object of their labors. They teach from Him; the church is taught. The apostle not only contrasts the church with the fellow-workmen, but he claims the magisterium for God, Who employed the apostles and all others of His servants for the church's good.
It is nothing at all to the purpose, to cite John 10:37, 38; 15:2437If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 38But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. (John 10:37‑38)
24If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. (John 15:24)
, or Matt. 28:18-2018And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:18‑20), Mark 16:1616He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. (Mark 16:16) any more than John 14:16-17; 15:26, 27; 16:7-1316And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (John 14:16‑17)
26But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: 27And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. (John 15:26‑27)
7Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. 8And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9Of sin, because they believe not on me; 10Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; 11Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. 12I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. 13Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. (John 16:7‑13)
, or Luke 10:1616He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me. (Luke 10:16) and John 20:2121Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. (John 20:21). No Christian doubts that Christ's words carry divine authority, or that what the apostles taught and wrote is no less authoritative (Mark 16:2020And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen. (Mark 16:20), Rom. 1:55By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: (Romans 1:5)). But how is it that darkness so veiled the Encyclical that not one scripture referred to means that the church teaches? that every one means that the church is taught by Him or His servants? The Pope deceived himself. He undertook to prove that the church teaches, which is not even touched by one of his quotations of scripture; all of which at most show that Christ teaches the church, either by His Spirit or through servants sent and qualified of Him to that end. Timothy's committing what he had heard from Paul to faithful men (2 Tim. 2:1, 21Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. (2 Timothy 2:1‑2)) was ministry to teach the church, the reverse of the church teaching.
Thus then the true magisterium is of the Lord Jesus, Who is not dead but risen and ascended.
Only thus and then indeed was He given as Head over all things to the church; and from the right hand of God He continues such gifts as are for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to stature-measure of the fullness of the Christ. The Head continues His functions without fail, and cares not only for duly giving “joints and bands” (Col. 2), but that “all the body,” ministered to and united by their means, shall increase with the increase of God. His love can no more cease than His power: one moment's breach would be as fatal to the church, as the severance of the head from the natural body.
Unbelief as to the Lord's present and continual guardianship of the flock of God as the Great and Chief Shepherd is the root of this presumptuous usurpation. If it be replied that such a heavenly Head can only be apprehended by faith, and that the church, while on earth, needs an earthly supreme ruler, we answer that the reply betrays the enemy's deceit. For we are expressly called to walk by faith, not by sight; and as the heavenly Head makes the church a divine institution, so an earthly head makes the body as earthly as itself. To say that we have two heads, one heavenly and another earthly, is not only a baseless fable added to the truth of scripture, but an elevation of a mortal to share His glory Who is Lord of lords and King of kings, and an impiety on which God will not fail to take vengeance when His day comes.
Is it not strange to hear the champion of church tradition saying, that “every revealed truth without exception must be accepted?” (p. xxiv.) Had he forgotten the Judge of quick and dead ruling that the Jews who set up their authoritative magisterium in His day (and it still abides, much older than Rome's) “made void the word of God on account of their tradition” (Matt. 15:66And honor not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. (Matthew 15:6))? They charged His disciples with transgressing the tradition of the elders; whereas He acquitted His followers of all sin in the matter, and convicted the Jewish leaders of transgressing the commandment of God because of their tradition. Such is the inevitable hypocrisy of those Jews or Christians, who teach as doctrines men's precepts. Assuming God's place, they really fall into the devil's snare.
It is in vain then, as we agree, to speak of zeal to keep the unity of the Spirit, unless we hold “one faith.” How far Romanism is true to “the faith” has been shown in §4. Nor is their flagrant departure surprising; for they have overlaid the holy deposit by their superstitions and profanely fabulous supplements. The true rule of faith is thus hidden from them. God has not left the faithful without the certainty of His mind. As the Lord laid down so solemnly (in the Rich man and Lazarus), “They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them “; so we can say, We have Christ and the apostles. There is the Christian magisterium. It is not gifts or ministry, however real and precious in their place, but the teaching of the Lord Jesus and of those He inspired to give by the Holy Spirit what they could not bear before redemption.
Hence says an inspired man behind none, If any one think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write to you are the Lord's commandment (1 Cor. 14:3737If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 14:37)); and another later says for all, We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error (1 John 4:66We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:6)). None but the inspired are entitled so to speak. They therefore to us speak permanently in what the Holy Spirit empowered them to write. If we hear them, we are blessed. Woe to all that hear not them Such are of the world and not of God.
What says Popery here? That Christ and the apostles could not safely give God's mind and will, without a living judge of controversy now to make their sense clear! Did God and His servants need the Pope and his vassals to do what they failed to do? Such is the arrogance of Romanist unbelief that confronts us habitually. Therefore do they enlarge, like Donatists and other heretics of old, on the obscurity of scripture. Do they not show their hostility to it by forbidding a Romanist to read even their own version without a permission in writing from his parish priest or his confessor on pain of being refused absolution? So any one can see in the last Session of the Council of Trent (rule iv).
But their irreverent enmity to scripture goes farther still. For to embarrass the Protestant and to exalt what they call the church (in reality their own Romish sect), they take infidel ground and deny the authority of the scriptures without the sanction of the church. You cannot, say they, know them to be God's word unless the church declares them so. But this, far from being true, is blasphemous. The O.T. derived no authority from Israel, but gave divine authority to all their institutions, rites, and statutes; while it convicted them of continual transgression in violating the law. Just so it is the N.T. which reveals the Lord's building His church, His order, gifts of ministry, worship, and will generally. In both Testaments it is God's word, which will judge man, instead of sanctioning Christendom's sin in pretending to judge what is of God. Israel transmitted the O.T., as Christendom the New as well as Old. And the Jew, of the two, was more faithful than Romanism and other sects; for they dared to add books, which their own favorite father, St. Jerome, confessed to be uncanonical, the Apocrypha, which books are not in Hebrew.
On their own showing Romanists are thereby seduced from God's authority to man's. They believe not God but the church; their principle makes the church's word surer than God's. Now our Lord and Savior took all pains to teach that faith is in God's word because He communicates it; those only believing in His name when they saw signs, He did not trust (John 2). To receive His testimony is to set to one's seal that God is true. This alone is divine faith, and has His authority commanding the soul. To believe His word because of the church is to believe the church, not God. So the Lord said, Verily, verily, he that heareth My word and believeth Him that sent Me hath life eternal (John 5). Thus it is the saints agree in the faith. They each and all believe God's word. Nowhere in scripture is there such a human faith as believing what the church believes.
On the face of the N.T. neither Jews nor Gentiles believed in the authority of the church. The Jews of Beræa, were even commended for searching the O.T. scriptures when the apostle Paul preached the gospel. The heathen heard what was no less inspired in the gospel; so that Dr. Milner in his End of Controversy had to own exceptional grace on their part who could know nothing of the church. But this lets out the real ignorance of the Romanists generally: they rest on saving ordinances administered by their priests, and not on that grace which alone saves any soul through the faith of Christ.
Further, it is plain to all that the great bulk of the N.T. Epistles is expressly addressed to all the faithful (in one case, with the bishops and deacons). The Holy Spirit therefore confided in the spiritual capacity of every believer, in open contrast with Romanism. In his first Epistle Paul adjured them that this letter of his be read to all the holy brethren. In his last he, in view of the perilous times of the last days, directed to scripture as the main safeguard, and to every scripture as God-inspired and profitable. Doubtless we need the Holy Spirit's grace against our own thoughts; but this gift every true Christian has. Error too has come far more from the clever and learned than from the simple believer. Rome's antagonism to God at all points is too evident.
Before the church began, the Lord in John 5 laid down in order the various testimonies which made the Jews inexcusable: (1) John the Baptist's witness, (2) the Son's works, (3) the Father's voice, and (4) the scriptures. Beyond dispute the Lord attaches the utmost weight to what was written. “For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” Scripture has the character of a standard beyond all that was unwritten. It is only in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians that we hear of doctrines that were taught, not written. No such thought appears in the later Epistles. God took care to give His mind in a sure and permanent form. To impress into service such a text as this shows the lack even of appearances. The church does not teach, but is taught. The Lord's servants teach. Theirs is the ministerium, His the Magisterium.