IT

Customs, and

Forms, in the

Consecration of a Bishop.

CHAPTER XI.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED,

T is very frankly allowed by several medieval writers on Ordination, who are followed by Prayers, Rites, Martene and others, that according to the most ancient documents, the only essentials in the consecration of a bishop are the imposition of hands of a bishop with some form of words, which, taken in conjunction with the prayers which are said before and after the act, express office to which the person being consecrated is promoted.*

the

This will be seen from the following facts and considerations.

Since the visible separation which took place between the ancient Church of England and the rest of Western Christendom in the sixteenth century, several attempts have been made to promote a

A

* Vide (a) Ordo Observandus in Ordinatione Episcopi secundum Clementem Romanum. Morinus. Pars II. pp. 22, et seq. (8) MS. Ritus Ecclesiæ Parisiensis. (7) De Sacris consecrationis, ex operibus Dionysii Areopagitæ. Ibid. p. 52. (8) Ordinatio Episcopi, Codex Barberini. Latin transcript of this MS. given by Morinus stands as follows::"Post Trisagion, cum Psaltæ de Ambone descenderint, stat archiepiscopus in crepidine ante sanctam mensam, ipsique charta datur in qua scriptum est:-Divina gratia quæ semper infirma curat, et deficientia complet, promovet hunc N. Deo amabilem Presbyterum in Episcopum. Precemur, igitur, ut super ipsam veniat Spiritus Sancti gratia. Hanc chartam, sive decretum, omnibus audientibus legit, manum tenens super verticem capitis illius qui ordinatur." (e) Amalarius De Ecclesiasticis Officiis. Libri. IV., in loco. (8) Juenin G. Commentarius Historicus et Dogmaticus de Sacramentis, in loco. Lugduni, 1717.

better understanding between the authorities of both communions. One Roman Catholic author, Dr. John Scudamore, who died in 1635, especially

The author of the document given at pp. 84-87 was John Scudamore, D.D., alias John Jones. He was a member of the ancient family of Scudamore, of Kentchurch, in Herefordshire, was educated at Westminster (Antony à Wood writes Merchant Taylors'), and St. John's College, Oxford, intending to go to the bar. On the sudden death of his parents and brothers in London by the plague, he altered his plans, and resolved to dedicate himself to God in the ecclesiastical state. Accordingly, having graduated B.C.L. at Oxford, he proceeded to the college of St. Alban, at Valladolid, and went through a systematic course of theology. After his ordination he joined the Order of St. Benedict, at the Monastery of St. Martin, in Compostella, taking, in religion, the name of Leander. He was a distinguished scholar, and possessed a remarkable acquaintance with Oriental languages and the customs of the Eastern Church. Later in life he returned to England, where he was employed by the authorities at Rome to give a true and accurate report of the state of the ancient national Church, and if possible promote a Re-union. He was a warm friend, sincere admirer, and hearty ally of that distinguished prelate and statesman Archbishop Laud, both having been members of St. John's College at the same time. Father Leander's society was much sought after by literary men, both in London and Oxford, and he was constantly found and welcomed at the Court of Henrietta, Queen-Consort of Charles I. At the second general chapter of the congregation of English Benedictines (which congregation had been solemnly restored by Paul V., in a Breve dated 24 Dec., 1612,) holden at Douay, July 2nd, 1621, he was formally appointed Prior of St. Gregory, and re-elected at the fourth general chapter, held in 1629. He was also titular "Prior of the Catholic Church of Canterbury," spiritual director of the Benedictine nuns of Cambray, and abbot-designate of Cismar, in Germany. After discharging most efficiently the various duties of his sacred offices, and winning for himself, by the kindliness of his manner, the moderation of his policy, and the integrity of his character, the highest opinions both from prelates of the Church of England and Roman Catholic authorities, he died in London on the 27th of December, 1635, and was buried with great solemnity in the recently-consecrated chapel of Somerset House. Only a year previously he had sent to the Pope most favourable reports of the state of the ancient Church of this country; and in conjunction with Windebank, one of the Secretaries of State, had done much to promote a feeling of charity and a desire for Corporate Re-union between the several leading members of the separated communions.-Vide Preface to Harpsfield's Church History, Doway: 1622; Wood's Athenæ

deserves mention as having, in answer to a request from Windebank, Secretary of State in the reign of Charles I., given a very precise, formal, and explicit statement of what, according to the mind of the Roman Catholic Church, was held to be essential for the valid consecration of a bishop. This document, drawn up at a time when proposals for Reunion were under consideration, being of value and importance, is reprinted in its entirety :—

Right Honorable, I do answer the questions which your Honor propounded unto me, not without fear and trembling; since the first of them is a point that may give distaste, and I am wonderful loath to give any; yet because your Honor commandeth me, I will, having God and a good conscience before my eyes, answer directly what I know to be the certain and received doctrine of the Latin and Greek Churches; which are of most extent, and have been most careful in conserving their ancient traditions, the other Southern and Oriental Churches being, through tyrannical subjection and mere barbary of their inhabitants, subject to great defects and ignorance in their rites and ceremonies.

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'Quest. I. What is absolutely necessary to Bishopdom, or the ordination of a bishop: without which the ordination were frustrate, and with which it were substantially and essentially valid ?

"I. FIRST. That the party to be consecrated be a Christian man; for women are incapable of Holy Orders, and baptismus est janua Sacramentorum; so that whosoever is not baptised truly is incapable of any other sacrament, much more of this most excellent order. And I remember some

Oxoniensis, ed. Bliss, London: 1815, lib. ii. p. 603; Dodd's Church History, edited by M. A. Tierney, F.R.S., Appendix to vol. iv., London: 1841. Preface to Smyth's Catalogue of Sir Robert Cotton's Library, p. 28. Canterbury's Doom, by W. Prynne. Oliver's Collections, etc., London 1857, p. 476; On the Future Unity of Christendom, by A. L. P. de Lisle, London: 1857, p. 7.

forty years since, in Spain, I was credibly informed of a bishop newly consecrated, who, by an unexpected chance, came to know that he was baptised only in the name of God and Our Lady; whereupon he was baptised in the wonted necessary form, and consequently received confirmation and Orders, because what had before been conferred was invalid for want of baptism.

"Confirmation is necessary also necessitate præcepti, but not absolutely; so that one christened but never confirmed may be a valid bishop; but the defect being once known, he must receive confirmation from another bishop. The fall of Novatus in schism against St. Cornelius was by many attributed to this defect, that he was ordained bishop by his faction, before he was confirmed; yet he was a true bishop though unlawfully ordained.

"II. The consecrator must also be a true bishop and have intention to perform what Holy Church intendeth by this rite, and use the matter and form which is received in the Church; otherwise he conferreth nothing valid. This intention is to be conformable to the acception or signification of the name of Bishop received among Catholics: that is, he must intend to confer that power which the Catholic Church always understood to belong to the name and office of a bishop. If these three things be observed by the consecrator he conferreth validly the order of bishopdom, although himself, or the party to be consecrated, were an heretic, schismatic, or excommunicated person; for Sacramenta non pendent ex file ministri, nec suscipientis, so that both do intend to give and take what the Holy Church intendeth by the Sacrament.

"III. Both consecrator and he that is to be consecrated must first have received the power of the priesthood; that is, of sacrificing the sacrifice of the altar, and of absolving penitents from their sins. For in all the Church of God, and through all the world, Sacerdos and Presbyter, 'Iepeùs, principally signify a sacrificer; for which cause the Puritans refuse the name of Priest, because they acknowledge no sacrifice but the bloody sacrifice of the Cross, and consequently but one only priest, Christ Jesus. In my native language of Wales they

have no other name for a priest but 'Offeiriad,' which is an offerer or sacrificer. So that if this power of priesthood be not first given, the party is not capable of bishopdom, which differs from priesthood as continens a contento. Some think also that the party to be consecrated ought to have all the inferior orders first; but that is only de necessitate præcepti, and not de necessitate medii. Myself have seen in Spain, when a counterfeited Armenian bishop came by the Abbey of Montserret, of St. Bennet's order, and there at the abbot's entreaty had made two of his religious sub-deacons, and after deacons (who were by the diocesan Bishop afterwards ordained priests), that the said two religious were sent a hundred leagues off, to the place where I then lived, to be ordained again of the orders of sub-deacon and deacon: for the rule of the Church in such cases is, Ut cautè suppleatur, quod negligenter, vel ignoranter fuerit omissum: and in like case, but much more necessarily, if a bishop were ordered before he were made priest, he ought de necessitate sacramenti to be ordered priest, and the order of bishopdom ought to be given again, at least sub conditione, 'Si non accepisti consecrationem ego tibi confero'.

"IV. These above-mentioned things are required necessarily to the substance of this sacrament, because without them the essence of the sacrament cannot be validly introduced into the subject. Now the essence consisteth in the imposition of the hands of one or more bishops: (for one will serve in necessity, as when St. Augustin, our apostle and Archbishop of Canterbury, ordained St. Justus Bishop of Rochester, having no other bishop then to assist him; but out of case of necessity, there ought to be three bishops at least,* two to assist the consecrator:) which imposition of hands or xepoτovía is the material sign or ceremony, accompanied, for more expression, with other signs, traditio baculi pastoralis, mitræ, etc., and in the words wherewith the consecrator expresseth that

* With regard to the desirability of a bishop being consecrated by a metropolitan and at least two comprovincial bishops, vide Theodoret, Hist. Ecclesias. cap. 9. Evagrius, lib. iii. cap. 6. Eusebius, lib. vii. ; and Martene, lib. i. cap. viii. art. iii. sec. 5.