ON THE ROMAN CHAIR OF S. PETER.
Year of Christ XLIII.
PrefacePeter the Apostle, Roman Chair (S.)
From various sources.
[1] It has been the custom of Christian bishops to celebrate the anniversary of the day on which they assumed the episcopate with public rejoicing and more elaborate sacred ceremony -- a praiseworthy rite consonant with the things once divinely ordained for the Hebrews. The anniversary of assuming the episcopate. This may be observed everywhere in the Acts of the Saints, and it is not our purpose to pursue the matter at greater length here. A few examples from the most weighty Fathers will suffice (most of which, however, Baronius briefly indicated in his Notes on the Martyrology).
[2] For S. Ambrose, in letter 60 (which is the first of book 8), to S. Felix of Como, celebrated among the Latins, of whom we shall treat on 8 October, writes thus: "At the same time, because you have announced that a day festive for both of us is approaching, on which you assumed the governance of the supreme priesthood." And a little later: "Then I wove into our conversations the day of your birthday." And finally: "We shall attend your birthday with prayers, and may you not forget us in your supplications." S. Augustine, in sermon 32 on the words of the Lord, announces the birthday of Aurelius, Bishop of Hippo, to be celebrated thus: "The anniversary day of the ordination of the Lord elder Aurelius dawns tomorrow; he asks and admonishes, through my humble self, your charity, that you deign to come most devoutly to the basilica of Faustus." The same Augustine, on the anniversary of his own episcopate, delivered homilies 24 and 25 on the seasons; and in the former he makes mention of the day itself thus: "Yet when the anniversary day of our ordination arises, then especially the honor of this office is considered as though it were being imposed for the first time." And then: "Therefore on this solemn day of my episcopate," etc. In the latter: "This present day, brethren, admonishes me to consider more attentively my burden. And although I must think of its weight day and night, nevertheless this anniversary in some way presses it upon my senses," etc.
[3] And among the Greeks: That the same custom flourished among the Easterners is indicated both by other evidence and by the fact that an annual celebration was appointed for posterity on the day when certain more illustrious bishops first attained the episcopate. Thus in the Menaea on 15 December the memory of S. John Chrysostom's consecration is observed, and the ordination of S. Basil is celebrated on 14 June by the Latins, which was undoubtedly also practiced by the older Greeks, although the moderns do not mention it. Inscribed in the calendars. The ordinations of many among the Latins are inscribed in the calendars and honored with sacred ceremonies: that of S. Ambrose on 7 December, of S. Zeno on the 8th of the same month, etc.
[4] Nor did the Roman Church itself, parent and teacher of all the rest, reject this custom; also at Rome; in its Martyrology under the third day of September we read the following: "At Rome, the ordination of the incomparable man S. Gregory the Great as Supreme Pontiff, who, compelled to undertake that burden, shone forth from his more exalted throne with the more brilliant rays of holiness throughout the world." For the Roman Pontiffs were especially accustomed to celebrate their own birthdays, that is, the anniversaries of their consecration, as may be seen from the sermons of S. Leo and others. Indeed, many other bishops from all Italy then used to come together at Rome. Pope Hilarus attests this in letter 2 to Ascanius and the other bishops of the province of Tarragona: "Having read therefore," where celebrated with an assembly of bishops; he says, "at the assembly of brethren whom the festivity of my birthday had gathered together, your letters," etc. And before Hilarus, Sixtus III, in his letter to Cyril of Alexandria: "At the church of the blessed Apostle Peter the entire brotherhood has assembled: behold a congregation befitting its members, a fitting audience for what must be heard. Our fellow bishops had as witness of their rejoicing the very one whom we acknowledge as the beginning of our honor. For the holy and venerable synod, which the day of my birthday had gathered together with the Lord's favor -- for so it must be believed -- he himself presided." The same to John of Antioch: "The entire brotherhood, which had assembled for the day of my birthday, has heard how they rejoice for the good of the human race under me as head of the Apostolic See." And S. Paulinus, in letter 16 to Delphinus (not to Severus, as Baronius cites it), speaking of Pope Anastasius: "Subsequently also, after an interval of time, he deigned to invite me even to his own birthday, an honor he is accustomed to bestow only upon his fellow priests." Our Rosweyde cites many more testimonies of the Fathers in his Notes on that letter, where from Anastasius Bibliothecarius in the life of Adrian I he shows how solemn that celebration was: "Finally," says Anastasius, "his blessedness made a great chandelier in the same church of B. Peter in the shape of a Cross, which hangs before the sanctuary, having one thousand three hundred and seventy candles. And he decreed that they should light the same chandelier four times a year, equal to the greatest feasts, namely, at the Nativity of the Lord, at Easter, on the Birthday of the Apostles, and on the Birthday of the Pontiff."
[5] But above all others, the birthday, or chair, of the Apostle Peter was held in veneration, Hence the Feast of the Chair of S. Peter, both the one called Antiochene, when he first established his pontifical see at Antioch, and the Roman, when he arrived there to found the majesty of the eternal priesthood. S. Augustine treats of one or the other chair in sermon 15 on the Saints: "The institution of today's solemnity received from our elders the name of 'the Chair,' for the reason that the first of the Apostles, Peter, is reported to have received the chair of the episcopate on this day." Rightly therefore do the churches celebrate the birthday of that See which the Apostle undertook for the salvation of the churches. Moreover, the Roman Chair is inscribed in all Martyrologies: the Roman, the common Bede, Usuardus, Ado, Rabanus, Notkerus, Bellinus, and the most ancient one of S. Jerome, and other very old manuscripts.
[6] That solemnity had fallen out of observance at Rome (for uncertain reasons); but it was restored by Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff, whose Bull on the matter we shall append below. Restored by Paul IV. Not correctly therefore does Maurolycus write: "The Chair of S. Peter, on which he first sat at Rome in the fourth year of the Emperor Claudius, when he confuted Simon Magus; which Paul IV ordered to be celebrated." More accurately Galesinius: "At Rome, the Chair of S. Peter the Apostle. In the tenth year after the death of Christ our Lord, which falls at the end of the second year in which Claudius Caesar held the empire, having completed his year of preaching, which after being freed from chains he undertook by traveling, he first entered the city of Rome on this very day: which day was therefore established by the ancient institution and custom of the Church for the celebration of the Roman Chair of B. Peter, and after having been intermitted for some time, was piously restored to its use and ancient rite by the decree of Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff."
[7] Concerning the arrival of S. Peter at Rome, Baronius treats at length in the Annals at the year of Christ 44. That certain fanatical men have attempted to call into question whether Peter was ever at Rome does not even deserve to be refuted. When that See was established at Rome. Optatus of Milevis thus addresses the Donatist Parmenian, book 2, near the beginning: "Therefore you cannot deny that you know that in the city of Rome an episcopal Chair was conferred upon Peter first; in which sat Peter, the head of all the Apostles." The beginning of his See falls in the year 43 of the common era, in the consulship of Tiberius Claudius Augustus for the third time and L. Vitellius for the second time, in which the second year of the same Augustus's reign expired on the Kalends of February.
[8] Baronius testifies in his Notes on the Martyrology that in very ancient Breviaries there is found an ecclesiastical office for the celebration of the Roman Chair, The office of that day, and this prayer in it: "Almighty and eternal God, who by an ineffable mystery bestowed upon your Apostle Peter the primacy of the city of Rome, whence the evangelical truth might spread throughout all the kingdoms of the world; grant, we beseech you, that what has spread through the world by his preaching, the universality of Christian devotion may follow." The rite of this feast's office was established as Double by Paul IV. Clement VIII added Major Double, as Gavanto attests in his Commentary on the Rubrics of the Breviary, section 7, chapter 3.
[9] There is preserved to this day in the Vatican basilica the very wooden chair in which Peter is said to have once sat at Rome, The wooden Chair itself preserved, and, as Baronius writes in his Notes on the Martyrology, "it proclaims by the power of miracles who sat upon it, having obtained in dry wood the living grace of healings, since through it God does not cease to bestow benefits upon those who implore divine aid." We shall treat elsewhere of the chair of S. James the Apostle and of S. Mark the Evangelist. Concerning the celebration of this day, there exists an excellent treatise written by our Peter Ribadeneira in the Flower of the Saints, and others by ancient and modern writers.
ON THE FEAST OF THE CHAIR OF S. PETER.
Bull of Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff.
Peter the Apostle, Roman Chair (S.)
[1] Paul, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, for the perpetual record of the matter.
The ineffable height of divine providence, which, enclosed by no limits, disposes heavenly and earthly things alike by the standard of its just judgment, willed that B. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, to whom the Savior our Lord Jesus Christ had previously said: Matt. 16:18 "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church"; after having resided for some time at Antioch, should come to Rome and establish there an episcopal Chair, The Chair established at Rome by divine will, and govern it for twenty-five years: and finally, after the deceits of Simon Magus were exposed and his impostures eluded, and Simon Magus himself was overcome, the same Peter, together with his glorious fellow Apostle, that vessel of election, should plant the Roman Church and consecrate it with their blood: and that where the head of superstition had been, there the head of holiness should exist; and where the princes of the gentiles had dwelt, the princes of the churches should reside: and that which had formerly been the teacher of error should become the teacher of truth; and there should be a holy nation, a chosen people, a priestly and royal city, and that through the sacred Chair of B. Peter the City itself, made the head of the world, should preside more widely by divine religion than it had previously presided by earthly dominion.
[2] Its ancient feast, But although the City itself owes far more to the same Peter, who founded it through the episcopal Chair established there to be enrolled among the heavenly kingdoms, than to those by whose effort the first foundations of its walls were laid, of whom the one who gave it its name defiled it with fratricidal bloodshed; nevertheless, the City does not observe at all the festivity of the Chair itself, which, according to the testimony of the most ancient holy Fathers, always observed elsewhere, fell on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of February, and is solemnly celebrated on that day in various parts of the Christian world, and especially in Gaul and Spain; but it celebrates only the festivity of the Antiochene Chair, which fell on the eighth day before the Kalends of March, not at Rome: according to the testimony of the same Fathers, as though our Savior himself, who often chose the weak to confound the strong, not regarding our weakness, had reserved for our times the celebration, or rather the restoration to its ancient observance, of the festivity of the Chair on which the Apostle Peter himself first sat at Rome.
[3] There restored. Wherefore, considering that if in this City we piously and solemnly venerate the Chair of the Church of Antioch, it is just and fitting that we should celebrate the festivity of the Chair on which the aforesaid Apostle first sat at Rome all the more solemnly and piously, inasmuch as the City itself is the more bound and indebted to him; not disdaining in this matter to imitate even lesser churches, we will, decree, and command that the festivity of the Chair on which the same B. Peter sat at Rome on the same day, the fifteenth before the Kalends of February, be solemnly celebrated each year in perpetuity hereafter, not only in this nurturing City, but also in all the churches of the world, even in those where it is presently celebrated, under a double office: in no way detracting thereby from the festivity of the other Chair which is celebrated on the said eighth day before the Kalends of March, but decreeing that it should continue to be celebrated according to the praiseworthy custom hitherto observed.
[4] Let no man whatsoever, therefore, be permitted to infringe this document of our will, decree, mandate, and order, or to oppose it with rash boldness. But if anyone shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome, at S. Peter's, in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-eight, on the Ides of January, in the third year of our pontificate.