Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsEphesians 4
English College of Douai–Rheims
Read Ephesians 4 in the BibleEphesians 4:11
Some Apostles.
[1] Many functions that were even in the Apostles' time, are not here named: which must be noted against the Adversaries that call here for Popes, as though the names of Bishops, Priests, or Deacons were not as well left out as Popes: whom yet they cannot deny to have been in use in S. Paul's days. And therefore they have no more reason, out of this place to dispute against the Pope, than against the rest of the Ecclesiastical functions. Neither is it necessary to reduce such as be not specified here, to these here named: though indeed both other Bishops and Prelates and specially Popes may be contained under the names of Apostles [2], Doctors, and Pastors. Certes the room and dignity of the Pope is a very continual Apostleship, and S. Bernard calleth it Apostolatum. Bernard. ad Eugen. li. 4. c. 4. & c. 6. in fine.
- 1 The heretics' foolish negative argument against the Pope, answered.
- 2 The Pope's office is called an Apostleship.
Ephesians 4:13
Until we meet.
[1] The Church of God shall never lack these spiritual functions, or such as be answerable to them, according to the time and state of the Church, till the world's end. Whereby you may prove, the Catholic Church, that is to say, that visible company of Christians which hath ever had, and by good records can prove they have had, a continual ordinary succession of Bishops, Pastors, and Doctors, to be the only true Church: and these other good fellows that for many worlds or ages together cannot shew that they had any one Bishop, or ordinary yea or extraordinary officer for them and their sect, to be an adulterous Heretical generation. And this place of the Apostle assuring to the true Church a perpetual visible continuance of Pastors and Apostles or their successors, [2] warranted the holy Fathers to try all Heretics by the most famous succession of the Popes of Rome. So did S. Irenæus, li. 3. c. 3. Tertullian, in præscript. Optatus, li. 2 cont. Parm. S. Augustine, in Ps. cont. part. Donat. et cont. ep. Manich. c. 4. et ep. 165. Epiph. hær. 27. and others.
- 1 Continual succession of Bishops, an evident argument of the true visible Church.
- 2 The fathers refuted heretics by the succession of the Bishops of Rome.
Ephesians 4:14
With every wind.
◦ The special use of the spiritual Governors is, to keep us in unity and constancy of the Catholic faith, that we be not carried away with the blast or wind of every heresy. Which is a very proper note of sects and new doctrines that trouble the infirm weaklings of the Church, by certain seasons of diverse ages: as sometime the Arians, then the Manichees, another time the Nestorians, then the Lutherans, Calvinists, and such like: who at diverse times in diverse places, have blown diverse blasts of false doctrine.
- ◦ Heretical blasts carry away the inconstant only.
Original Douay–Rheims Annotations — English College of Douai–Rheims. CC0 1.0
Ephesians 4:5
One faith.
[1] As rebellion is the bane of civil Commonwealths and kingdoms, and peace and concord, the preservation of the same: so is schism, division, and diversity of faith or fellowship in the service of God, the calamity of the Church: and peace, unity, uniformity, the special blessing of God therein, and in the Church above all Commonwealths, because it is in all points a Monarchy tending every way to unite. but one God, but one Christ, but one Church, but one hope, one faith, one baptism, one head, one body. Whereof S. Cyprian li. de unit. Ec. nu. 3. saith thus: One Church the Holy Ghost in the person of our Lord designeth & saith, One is my dove. This unity of the Church he that holdeth not, doth he think he holdeth the faith? He that withstandeth and resisteth the Church, he that forsaketh Peter's chair upon which the Church was built, doth he trust that he is in the Church? When the blessed Apostle S. Paul also sheweth this Sacrament of unity, saying, One body and one spirit &c. Which unity we Bishops specially that rule in the Church, ought to hold fast and maintain, that we may prove the Bishoply function also itself to be one and undivided, &c. And again, [2] There is one God, and one Christ, and one Church, and one Chair, by our Lord's voice founded upon Peter. Another altar to be set up, or a new Priesthood to be made, besides one altar, & one Priesthood, is impossible. [3] Whosoever gathereth else-where, scattereth. It is adulterous, it is impious, it is sacrilegious, whatsoever is instituted by man's fury to the breach of God's divine disposition. Get ye far from the contagion of such men, & flee from their speeches as a canker and pestilence, our Lord having premonished and warned before hand, They are blind, leaders of the blind, &c. Whereby we learn that this unity of the Church commended so much unto us, consisteth in the mutual fellowship of all Bishops with the See of Peter. S. Hilary also (li. ad Constantium Augustum) thus applieth this same place of the Apostle against the Arians, as we may do against the Calvinists. Perilous and miserable it is, saith he, [4] that there are now so many faiths as wills, and so many doctrines as manners, whiles either faiths are so written as we will, or as we will, so are understood: and whereas according to one God, and one Lord, and one Baptism, there is also one faith, we fall away from that which is the only faith, and whiles more faiths be made, they begin to come to that, that there is none at all.