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and the history of the Old and New Testaments as expounded by
the Fathers in the second noctum of the divine office. This four­
fold application St. Anthony calls the “four wheels of the chariot
of Elias” (quatuor rotae quadrigae Eliae) which carried the prophet
up to Heaven.1·
Raphael M. Huber, O.F.M. Conv.
The Catholic University of America,
Washington, D.C.

“ Scaramuzzi, op. tit., p. 38.
The Misuse of Scripture at the Hands of Heretics

When we correctly derive conclusions about the Scriptures from the
Scriptures themselves, we base our conclusions scientifically on faith.
Though it be true that heretics have the effrontery to use the prophetic
Scriptures, yet, in the first place they do not use them all, and in the
second place they do not use them in their wholeness, nor as the body
and the context of the Prophecy demand. Actually they select ambiguous
phrases and turn these to their own opinions, picking out a few scattered
utterances without considering what is intended in them, but perverting
the bare letter as it stands. For in almost all the passages they employ,
you will find how they pay attention to the words alone, while they
change their meaning. They do not even understand the words as they
are spoken, nor do they use in their natural sense such citations as
they adduce. Truth, however, is discovered, not by altering the meaning
of words (for in doing this they will overthrow all true teaching),
but by considering what is perfectly fitting and appropriate to the Lord
and God Omnipotent, and by confirming each thing proved according
to the Scriptures from similar passages in the Scriptures themselves.
Neither, then, do they desire to turn to the truth, since they are ashamed
to abandon the claims of self-love; nor are they able to support their
opinion by doing violence to the Scriptures. But having first promulgated
false dogmas to men, plainly contradicting almost the entire Scripture
and constantly confuted by us who contradict them, even now they partly
hold out against admitting the prophetic Scriptures, and partly pretend
that we are of a different nature and that we are incapable of under­
standing what they alone set forth. And sometimes they even deny their
own dogmas when these have been refuted, being ashamed to ac­
knowledge openly what they glory in teaching privately. For this may
be seen in all the heresies, when you examine the iniquities of their
dogmas.
—Clement of Alexandria, in the Stromata, VII, 16.

THE, FELLOWSHIP OF THE DIOCESAN
PRIESTHOOD
Essential for any adequate theological understanding of the
secular priesthood is the recognition of the presbyterium as a
brotherhood that imposes a special obligation of mutual Christian
fraternal charity upon its members. Obviously this does not
mean in any way that the diocesan presbyterium is the only kind of
community whose members are bound to love one another with
the love of the brotherhood. Such an obligation is in no way
distinctive of the diocesan priestly fraternity, because Christ Our
Lord has given this command to all His disciples and has made
His Church a brotherhood of love. For this reason, within the
universal Church itself, and within every legitimate social unit of
the Church, Christ’s disciples are bound to love each other with
the true and sincere affection of charity.
There are, however, special reasons that demand a particularly
powerful and intimate fraternal charity on the part of a secular
priest for his fellow priests, and particularly for the members of
his own presbyterium. Every priest, religious or secular, by the
very fact of his position and function in the Eucharistic sacrifice,
has motives for fraternal charity stronger and more exacting
than those which govern the conduct of Catholics not in sacerdotal
orders. Every diocesan priest, by reason of his association with
his bishop and with the other members of his own presbyterium
in the Eucharistic leadership of a local Church, is bound to the
perfection of mutual charity by ties that affect only his own
brotherhood.
In order to realize the special position of mutual fraternal
charity in the diocesan priesthood, we must first understand the
urgency with which Our Lord laid the command for the love of
the brotherhood on all his disciples so as to make it a real bond
of unity in His Church. The order to love one another was the
"new commandment” He gave to His disciples.

A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another,
as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
By this shall all men know that you are ray disdples, if you have
love one for another.1
’Join 13:34-35.

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Our Lord returned again and again to this basic commandment
during the course of His instruction after the Last Supper. “This
is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved
you,”2 He told the disciples, and “These things I command you,
that you love one another.”3 As a matter of fact St. John, the
inspired author of the Fourth Gospel, explains Christ’s own
teaching about spiritual light and darkness in terms of this love
of the brotherhood.
Again a new commandment I write unto you: which thing is true
both in him and in you, because the darkness is passed and the true
light now shineth.
He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness
even until now.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light: and there is no
scandal in him.
But he that hateth his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness
and knoweth not whither he goeth : because the darkness hath blinded
his eyes.4

This passage from St. John’s First Epistle contains an obvious
reference to Our Lord’s own statement: “I am the light of the
world. He that followeth me walketh not in darkness, but shall
have the light of life,”5 and to the warning He gave the multitude
that questioned and opposed Him after His triumph of Palm
Sunday.

Jesus therefore said to them: Yet a little while, the light is among
you. Walk whilst you have the light, and the darkness overtaketh you
not. And he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.·
Our Lord taught that the very purpose of His coming into the
world was to give men, through faith in Him, that light of life
with which the love of the brotherhood is inseparably connected.
“I am come,” He said, “a light into the world, that whosoever
believeth in me may not remain in darkness.”7

Thus the love of the individual Catholic for the Church and
for his brothers in the company of the disciples is something most
clearly and forcefully commanded by Our Lord. The charity’ of
the brotherhood, or the true and sincere affection for the Church
* John 15:12.
•John 15:17.

‘ I John 2:8-11.
* John 8:12.

•John 12:35.
7 John 12:46.

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as the supernatural house or family of God and for its members,
is a matter of the most stringent and fundamental obligation for
all Catholics without exception. To classify this love of the
brotherhood as something to be achieved only in the higher stages
of perfection, or to think of it as merely something counselled by
Our Lord is to misconstrue the very purpose and the nature of
the Catholic Church. “We know,” St. John tells us, “that we
have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He
that loveth not abideth in death.”8
It is impossible to love God with the love of charity without
loving our brethren in the Church.

If any man say: I love God, and hateth his brother; he is a liar.
For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love
God whom he seeth not?
And this commandment we have from God, that he who loveth God
love also his brother.®

As a matter of fact, the great Douai theologian, Francis Sylvius
(t1649), spoke of the amor fraternitatis apart from which true
charity cannot exist as a requisite for membership in the Church
of Jesus Christ in this world. Sylvius taught that this “love of
brotherhood” could and did exist in persons not in the state of
grace even though only those who possessed the amor fraternitatis
could have the virtue of charity. Thus he held the Catholic truth
that men not in the state of grace can be truly members of the
one company described by St. Paul as the body of Christ.10
Sylvius defended strenuously and, it would seem, successfully
his contention that the Second Epistle of St. Peter gave evidence
of divinely inspired teaching that there is such a thing as a “love
of brotherhood” distinct from the theological virtue of charity.
He pointed to the passage in which St. Peter warns his readers to
minister “in godliness, love of brotherhood : and in love of brother­
hood, charity.”u The Greek text has φιλαδελφία for amor fra­
ternitatis and άγάττη for caritas.
* I John 3:14.
’ I John 4:20-21.
" Ci. De praecipuis fidei nostrae orthodoxae controversiis cum nostris haereticis.
Lib. III, ait. 2, in the Opera omnia (Antwerp, 1698), V, 237.
*11 Pet. 1:7.

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In common with many of his contemporary theologians, Sylvius
refused to accept the teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine (t 1621),
that a man could be counted as a member of the true Church by
the possession of only the external bond of unity within this
society.11* St. Robert held that a man could and must be reck­
oned as a Christian, as a member of the one true Church of
Jesus Christ in the world, if he had the profession of the true
faith, if he was admitted to the communication of the sacraments,
and if he held himself subject to his legitimate ecclesiastical
pastors, and ultimately, of course, to the Roman Pontiff, even
though he did not possess any of the virtues pertinent to the
Christian life of grace. Sylvius was one of those who taught that
the possession of some virtues was requisite for membership in
the Church. He admitted, of course, that a man could be a
Christian, a member of Christ’s company, without having true
charity. He would not admit, however, that anyone “could be
constituted as a part or member of the Church” without the amor
fraternitatis which he described as the virtue “by which a Chris­
tian wishes to live and to die in the communion of the Church and
has a horror and hatred of attacks against it and divisions within
it.”u It is interesting to note that another of the classical ecclesologists, William Herincx (J1677), the Franciscan Bishop of
Ypres, agreed in great measure with Sylvius about the function
of the amor fraternitatis in the Church of God.1*
Sylvius and Herincx cannot, of course, be followed today in
their opinion that an inward bond of union is requisite for mem­
bership in the Church. The teaching of St. Robert Bellarmine,
with which they disagreed, has long been the common doctnne
of the schools. The present Holy Father’s encyclical, the Myslià
corporis, gave official standing to this teaching when it enumer­
ated only the external bonds of unity in speaking of requisites for
membership in the true Church.15 Sylvius and Herincx were,
however, perfectly correct in counting this amor fraternitatis
among the real elements of the inward bond of unity within the
11 Cf. De ecdesia militante, cap. 2, in De controversiis chrisiianae fidei adversus
huius temporis haereticos (Ingolstadt, 1586), I, 1264.
“ Cf. Sylvius, loc. di.
’* Cf. Theologia dogmatica, moralis et scholastica (Cologne, 1718), I, 71.
« Cf. Ada Afiostolicae Sedis, XXXV (1943), 202.

j

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Church. The love of the brotherhood is actually a force drawing
the people of God into that unity that Christ prayed they might
retain.
Furthermore Sylvius did an extraordinary service to Catholic
theology when he described the amor fraternitatis as involving an
intention to live and die within the Church and as including a
hatred and horror of attacks against the Church as well as of
divisions within it. The desire to live within the Church is, in the
last analysis, a wish to take part in the corporate and organized
work of charity for God in this world. The man who wills to die
in the Church intends, objectively at least, to make the purpose
of the Church the purpose of his own life. The man who really
possesses the love of brotherhood in the Church appreciates this
society for what it is, the true family or household of God. His
appreciation is sincere and his love is real to the extent that he
reacts toward the Church as a good man does towards his own
family in this world. He faithfully opposes attacks made against
it He sets out to remedy and if possible to prevent any division
within it, in so far as he is able to do so.
Because of the fact that the priests of a diocese actually form
a distinct brotherhood under the rule of their bishop, the divinely
imposed obligation of mutual Christian fraternal charity applies
to them with particular urgency. The teaching on the ordo cari­
tatis is an integral part of the Catholic truth about the life of
divine grace. According to St. Thomas Aquinas16 the affection of
charity is stronger or more intense in proportion to the closeness
of our associations with those whom God commands us to love.
His bishop and the fellow members of his own presbyterium are
joined to any diocesan priest in the most intimate supernatural
brotherhood. The individual secular priest is essentially a member
of a group, working together under the paternal direction of the
diocesan bishop for God’s glory, through the corporate exercise
of the life of grace in a local Church. To this work each member
of the presbyterium is privileged and commissioned to devote all
his activity. Since the participation of the individual member of
the presbyterium in this corporate salvific task involves an es­
pecially intimate association with the diocesan bishop and with
the others of this sacerdotal company, the individual diocesan
"Cf. Sum. iheol., Π-Π, q. 26, a. 7.

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priest is, by reason of his very position in the Church, obliged to
have and to show a particularly powerful and intense charity
for his bishop and for his brother priests. It would follow that the
individual member of a presbyterium can rightly have no associ­
ation more vital and important than that which binds him to
those with whom he is called to perform the sacerdotal ministry
in the Church.
Moreover, the very nature of the work that constitutes the
central and essential element of the priestly ministry is such as to
demand the perfection of fraternal charity from those who take
part in it. The Eucharist is, in a special and profound sense, the
act of Our Lord’s Mystical Body.17 All that the Catholic Church
does and wishes to do is summarized and expressed in the Euchar­
istic sacrifice. Indeed, the Church militant might well be defined
as the society Our Lord has organized around Himself to glorify
God in the salvation and sanctification of men through the
Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacramental system built around the
Eucharist. The Eucharist is at once the sign and the cause oi
charity. Because the basic function of the bishop and the priestly
company over which he presides is that of offering the Mass with
and for the people of the Church, the mutual charity of Christian
brotherhood must abound within the presbyterium. The men whom
God has empowered and commanded to offer the Eucharistic
sacrifice must have for one another that true charity of which the
Eucharist is the sign.
A passage in the famous Didache shows how clearly the early
Christians understood the incompatibility of mutual animosity
among members of a Catholic community with the Eucharistic
prayer and sacrifice to which that community was dedicated.

On the Lord’s day of the Lord, gather together, break bread, and
celebrate the Eucharist, after confessing your sins, that your sacrifice
may be pure. But let no one who has a quarrel with his comrade join
with you until they are reconciled, in order that your sacrifice may
not be defiled.18

This teaching is only an expression of that which Our Lord
11 Cf. the article “The Act of the Mystical Body,” The American Ecclesiastical
Review, C, 5 (May, 1939), 397 ff., and the discussion about this article, 4ΕΛ,
CII, 4 (April, 1940), 306 ff.
« Didache, XIV, 1, 2.

FELLOWSHIP OF DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

383

gave to His disciples. According to His doctrine, the members of
the Catholic Church are people absolutely forbidden to be hostile
and antagonistic to one another because they are the men and
women of his own household, His brothers and sisters, privileged
by God to take part in His sacrifice of love.
Our Lord Himself had commanded that this Eucharistic charity
among His disciples should be really effective. Uncharitable dis­
coid among those who were to take part in His sacrifice was so
abominable in His eyes, and so manifestly counter to the meaning
of the sacrifice itself that He ordered those who had sinned against
their fellow members of the “royal priesthood” to go and be
reconciled with those they had wronged before offering their
gifts at the altar.
If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember
that thy brother hath any thing against thee;
Leave there thy offering before the altar and go first to be reconciled
to thy brother ; and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift.19
The disciple who had been injured or treated unjustly by
another was, according to Our Lord’s specific injunction, obliged
to forgive his enemy always.
Then came Peter unto him and said: Lord, how often shall my
brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?
Jesus saith to him : I say not to thee till seven times, but till seventy
times seven times.20

I;

Furthermore, according to Our Lord’s express teaching, the
offended party is bound to take the initiative, if necessary, to
bring about the renewal of charity within the society of the dis­
ciples. The passage in which Our Lord brought out this command
is best known in theology because of the fact that it places the
word ίκκλησία on the lips of Christ and because it indicates the
visibility, the organized social structure on earth of the company
within which He has promised to dwell forever. Nevertheless,
the truth upon which Our Lord insisted immediately and pri­
marily in this passage is that of the absolute necessity for fra­
ternal charity in His company.
” Matt. 5:25-24.

»« Matt. 18:21-22-

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But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go and rebuke him
between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thon shalt gain thy
brother.
And if he will not hear thee: take with thee one or two more, that
in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand.
And if he will not hear them : tell the church. And if he will not hear
the church: let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican.21
St. Luke’s Gospel contains a passage which insists powerfully
upon the obligation of the disciple in the line of fraternal charity.

Take heed to yourselves. If thy brother sin against thee, reprove him:
and if he do penance, forgive him.
And if he sin against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a
day be converted unto thee, saying: I repent: forgive him.22

It is perfectly true that Our Lord has commanded all of His
disciples, all the members of His Church, to love each other with
the love of the brotherhood, to let nothing stand in the way of
this fraternal affection, and utterly to wipe out any antipathy or
animosity inconsistent with the charity of the kingdom. Yet it
remains true also that the diocesan priest has certain special in­
centives and motives that impel him more urgently than others
in the house of God to . the practice of brotherly charity in his
own sacerdotal company. As a priest he is empowered to off»
the Eucharistic sacrifice, the ultimate social expression of divine
charity in the Church of Christ. As a diocesan priest, a member
of his bishop’s presbyterium, he works as his bishop’s instrument
in encouraging and in fostering the life of Eucharistic charity in
the local Church.
Thus the diocesan presbyterium is a brotherhood so constituted
that any lack of sincere mutual charity among its members in­
volves a direct and immediate affront to the spirit of the Euchar­
istic agape. The function of aiding the bishop in the cause of
Christ within the local Church is a corporate task, something
which cannot be done successfully except by a group of priests
loving their work and loving each other for the sake of God. The
work of the bishop is to bring about and to increase the union of
charity within his own diocese. That work demands the co­
operation of a presbyterium which is itself united in the charity
of brotherhood. Indeed, by reason of their exalted position in the
® Μαβ. 18:15-17.

“ Luke 17:3-4.

FELLOWSHIP OF DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

385

Eucharistic family which is the local Church, any diocesan priests
who withhold the charity of brotherhood from one another will
almost inevitably be guilty of scandal.

We would totally misconstrue the nature of Christ’s true
Church were we to forget that the primary and fundamental
social obligation incumbent upon the members of this organiza­
tion is that of loving one another. The Church is truly the house
or the family of God. The disciples of Christ, those who belong
to this household, are the men and women whom Our Lord has
designated as His brothers and His sisters. The profound and
guiding influence in the life of this society is the love of God, a
love which carries with it and which is impossible without a
sincere mutual fraternal affection among the members of the
brotherhood.
Although the love of the brotherhood extends itself to all the
members of the Christian fraternity, it manifests itself primarily
within the individual community, the local Church. It was not
without reason that St. Ignatius spoke of the Christians subject
to one bishop as “the agape of the brethren in Troas,” and de­
scribed “the agape of the Smyrneans and the Ephesians.” If
there be a lack of sincere mutual love within the membership of
an individual Christian community or diocese, then its very
Christian life is diminished. There can be no real love of God
apart from the amor fraternitatis, and there is no such thing as a
love of the brotherhood within the Church universal which does
not manifest itself in the unity of charitable affection within the
local Church.

It is the office of the diocesan bishop to nurture and to increase
this solidarity of Eucharistic charity within his Church. In this
salviflc work the presbyterium, the brotherhood of his own priests,
acts as bis instrument. This task of fostering the amor fraternitalis within the Church of God has taken on a new difficulty in
our own day when, for one reason or another, the love of charity
which we as Catholics owe to all men is considered by some to be,
for all practical purposes at least, incompatible with the special
affection of charity God has commanded us to have for one an­
other within His ecclesia. Certainly that work will never be ac­
complished fully and properly in the individual Church unless
the members of the diocesan presbyterium co-operate with the

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Eucharistic grace that is given to them and take the lead in their
own community, loving one another without exception in the
love of the brotherhood, for the presbyterium is essentially a
fellowship in the Eucharistic charity of Christ.
It is absolutely essential that the diocesan priest realize that
the love of the brotherhood which, according to the divine com­
mand, must exist within the presbyterium, is necessarily some­
thing practical and visible and supernatural. No secular priest
has the amor fraternitatis that God demands of him unless he
brings himself to love and to enjoy the company of his fellow
priests. From the friendly gatherings of his own priestly brother­
hood the individual member of the diocesan presbyterium can and
should derive consolation, edification, and strength for the work
of the ministry. It is important to note that the priestly and
supernatural advantages which can be attained in and through
association with the other members of a priest’s own presbyterium
can be gained in no other way. The priest whose affection for his
fellows is other than practical thus deprives himself of helps and
comforts that he needs in his service of the people of God.

In his association with his fellow priests, the diocesan priest
who has the true and supernatural love of the brotherhood which
Christ demands must inevitably seek to aid them in their salvific
work within the true Church of God. Such a manifestation of
the amor fraternitatis involves a special and continuing effort to
encourage and to stimulate the proper performance of sacerdotal
work and the increment of personal perfection within the priestly
brotherhood. Those who have lived any length of time in the
diocesan priesthood know well the immense good done by those
men who have manifested their effective supernatural love for
their brother priests through a real, though generally quite un­
obtrusive, sanctification of sacerdotal gatherings. Through the
action of such priests, the amor fraternitatis within the priestly
brotherhood manifests itself to all men in a true and supernatural
esprit de corps, whereby diocesan priests give visible expression
to their realization that the work of the presbyterium is the work
of Christ.

Joseph Cufford Fentox
The Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

Answers to Questions
RELATIVE POSITIONS OF BODIES OF
HUSBAND AND WIFE IN THE TOMB
Question: Is there any law of the Church which prescribes the
relative positions of the bodies of husband and wife in the tomb?
Should the wife be placed on the right or on the left of her
husband?
Answer:'So far as we know, there is no definite legislation of
Canon Law determining the relative positions of husband and
wife in the tomb. The correct thing would seem to be to place
the body of the husband on the right hand of that of the wife.
This is his position when the sponsi stand before the altar for
the marriage ceremony and in medieval tombs which are sur­
mounted by recumbent figures of husband and wife, the former
has the position of honor, on the right side of his wife.
SOME QUESTIONS OF OCCURRENCE
AND CONCURRENCE

Question 1: In churches dedicated to St. Agnes, will the Mass
and Office of the Octave Day, Jan. 28, be of St. Agnes secundo?

Question 2: In churches dedicated to St. Paul, the patronal
feast being that of June 30, should we say, as Second Vespers,
those of St. Paul, with a commemoration of the following day’s
feast, that of the Precious Blood? And, on June 29, should we
say the First Vespers of St. Paul?
Answer 1: The feast of the Titular of a church ranks as a
duplex I dassis cum octava communi. The octave day itself is
rated as duplex majus. In the regular calendar, St. Agnes secundo
is simplex in rank. Where it is the octave day of the feast of the
Titular, it is celebrated ritu duplici (cf. Octavarium Romanum)
and takes precedence over the duplex feast of St. Peter Nolascus,
now fixed to Jan. 28.
Answer 2: In accordance with the rules of concurrence, in casu,
the Vespers on June 29 will be the First Vespers of St. Paul and
on June 30 the Second Vespers of St. Paul with commemoration
of the feast of the Precious Blood. This is also the provision of
the Breviary for the dates in question.
387