Saepius Officio

Saepius Officio is the 1897 formal answer of the Archbishops of England^[1] to Pope Leo XIII's apostolic letter Apostolicae Curae, which had declared Anglican orders "absolutely null and utterly void." Issued by Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William Dalrymple Maclagan, Archbishop of York, and addressed "to the whole body of Bishops of the Catholic Church," it remains the classic Anglican defense of the validity of Anglican holy orders.

Summary

Saepius Officio was published in Latin and English in 1897^[2] as the official reply of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to Apostolicae Curae (13 September 1896), in which Pope Leo XIII pronounced ordinations conferred with the Anglican Ordinal invalid on the grounds of defect of form and defect of intention. The archbishops answer both charges directly. They argue that Anglican ordinations preserve the apostolic ministry through prayer and the laying on of hands; that the Anglican Ordinal sufficiently expresses the order being conferred; and that the intention of the Church of England is publicly manifested in her rites, prefaces, and formularies, and cannot rightly be judged by conjecture about the private opinions of the sixteenth-century reformers.

Beyond the defensive argument, the document mounts a counter-argument of lasting significance: the criteria by which Pope Leo condemned Anglican orders, if applied consistently, would invalidate ancient Roman ordination rites, cast doubt on Eastern orders, and unsettle the sacramental practice of the Roman communion itself. The archbishops conclude with an appeal for peace and for patient common consideration of what Christ intended in establishing the ministry of the Gospel.

Historical Background

The controversy over Anglican orders arose from the English Reformation's revision of the ordination rites. The Edwardian Ordinal of 1550, lightly revised in 1552 and attached to the Book of Common Prayer, replaced the medieval Pontifical with a simplified vernacular rite centered on public examination, prayer, and the laying on of hands. The 1550 rite retained a modified delivery of instruments (the chalice with bread for presbyters, the pastoral staff for bishops, the Bible for both); the 1552 rite retained only the delivery of the Bible.

Under Queen Mary (1553–1558) England was reconciled to Roman obedience. Cardinal Reginald Pole served as papal legate and, after Cranmer's execution, as Archbishop of Canterbury. The treatment of clergy ordained under the Edwardian Ordinal during the Marian restoration became a central historical question in the later controversy: Rome would eventually claim that Marian practice presupposed the invalidity of Edwardian orders, while Anglican historians pointed out that Edwardian clergy were deprived for marriage and other causes but not, so far as the registers show, for defect of order.

From the reign of Elizabeth onward, Roman polemic against Anglican orders was persistent but inconsistent, ranging from legends such as the "Nag's Head fable" concerning Archbishop Parker's consecration to arguments about defective form and intention. Roman practice generally reordained convert Anglican clergy, though not without exception, and no reasoned papal decision on the question had ever been issued.

The nineteenth century transformed the question. The Oxford Movement revived Anglican emphasis on apostolic succession and the catholic character of the English Church, and by the 1890s figures such as Lord Halifax and the Abbé Fernand Portal had raised hopes of a Roman re-examination of Anglican orders as a step toward reunion. Leo XIII appointed a commission to study the question; its outcome was Apostolicae Curae, which condemned Anglican orders definitively.

Archbishop Edward White Benson of Canterbury was preparing a response when he died suddenly on 11 October 1896. His successor, Frederick Temple, together with Archbishop Maclagan of York, took up the task. The result, Saepius Officio, appeared in February 1897. It is not an emotional protest but a detailed theological, historical, and liturgical reply, drafted with the assistance of some of the ablest liturgical scholars of the day (John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury, is generally credited with a principal role in its composition).

Name and Meaning

The document takes its name, according to the convention for papal and archiepiscopal letters, from the opening words of its Latin text: Saepius officio ("It is the fortune of our office that often..."). It is normally cited simply as Saepius Officio or as the Responsio of the Archbishops of England, and stands as the Anglican answer to Apostolicae Curae. The English version was published simultaneously with the Latin as a translation of it; the prefatory note to the 1897 edition directs scholars to read the English in connection with the Latin, which is authoritative where precision is required. The note also explains a deliberate translational discipline: presbyter/presbyteratus are rendered "Presbyter"/"presbyterate," and sacerdos/sacerdotium "Priest"/"priesthood," so that the sacerdotal vocabulary of the argument can be followed exactly.

Authorship and Publication

Saepius Officio was issued in the names of the two Archbishops of England — Frederick Temple of Canterbury and William Dalrymple Maclagan of York — and is dated 19 February 1897, subscribed "F. Cantuar:" and "Willelm: Ebor:". It is addressed not to the Pope alone but "to the whole body of Bishops of the Catholic Church," a deliberate framing that treats the question of Anglican orders as a matter for the whole episcopate of Christendom rather than a private quarrel with Rome. The letter was published by Longmans, Green, and Co. of London.^[2] The Project Canterbury edition (2002) preserves the 1897 English text in accessible form and is the text cited in this article.

Main Argument

The argument of Saepius Officio may be summarized in seven claims:

Anglican ordinations preserve the apostolic ministry through the scriptural and primitive essentials of ordination: public prayer with the laying on of hands, performed by bishops in historic succession (III, VIII, XVII).
The Anglican Ordinal sufficiently expresses the order being conferred, whether the whole rite is considered as a morally united action or the imperative formulas are taken with their immediate context (XIV, XV).
The intention of the Church of England is to be judged "in so far as it is manifested externally" — from the Preface to the Ordinal and the public formularies — not from conjectures about the private theology of the reformers (VIII, XVII).
The Roman arguments about defective form rest on unstable standards: Rome's own doctrine and practice concerning the matter and form of order have varied widely, from Eugenius IV's decree on the delivery of instruments to Leo XIII's silent abandonment of it (III, VI, IX, X).
The ceremonies removed by the English reformers — the porrection of instruments, the anointings, and certain later prayers — were medieval and largely Gallican additions, not essential to ordination; their removal proves nothing against the sacrament of order (XVI, XVIII).
The reformers' governing principle was a return to the practice of Christ, the Apostles, and the ancient Church, not a rejection of the historic ministry (XVIII, XIX).
Pope Leo's criteria, consistently applied, would invalidate the most ancient Roman ordination forms, condemn the Eastern churches for defective intention, and thus overthrow the orders of Rome's own communion (XII, XX).

Contents and Argument by Section

The letter is divided into twenty numbered sections and an appendix. The following account explains the argument of each.

I. Occasion of the Controversy

"There suddenly arrived in this country from Rome a letter... which aimed at overthrowing our whole position as a Church."^[1]

Section I identifies Apostolicae Curae as the immediate occasion of the reply. The archbishops record that in September 1896 a letter arrived from Rome, already printed and published, "which aimed at overthrowing our whole position as a Church." Archbishop Benson was engaged with the question when he died suddenly; in his last written words he bequeathed its treatment to his colleagues. The remaining archbishops therefore answer, so that the truth might be made known both to Pope Leo and to all the bishops of the Christian Church throughout the world.

II. Purpose of the Reply

"We have been truly ordained by the Chief Shepherd to bear a part of His tremendous office in the Catholic Church."^[1]

Section II states the object of the letter. The archbishops declare themselves undisturbed by the papal judgment, since they firmly believe themselves "truly ordained by the Chief Shepherd" to bear part of His office in the Catholic Church. They write "in the spirit of meekness," and count it of greater importance to make plain for all time the Anglican doctrine of holy orders than to win a controversy over "a sister Church of Christ." Yet the answer must take controversial form, lest anyone say the archbishops shrank from the force of the arguments urged against them. The section thus sets the document's characteristic tone: charitable in address, unyielding in substance.

III. Earlier Controversies on Matter, Form, and Anglican Ordinations

"It is impossible to find any tradition on the subject coming from our Lord or His Apostles, except the well-known example of prayer with laying on of hands."^[1]

Section III argues that dispute about the matter and form of holy orders is old, and arises from the nature of the case: no tradition on the subject comes from the Lord or His Apostles "except the well-known example of prayer with laying on of hands." Councils, including Trent, give nothing certain or decisive; the archbishops even note that Trent's remarks on the laying on of hands and on the words "Receive the Holy Ghost" are "satisfactory enough to us." They then survey the confusion on the Roman side — the Formosan troubles, the vacillations over heretical and simoniacal ordinations, Eugenius IV's Decree for the Armenians, the confusedly arranged Pontifical — and conclude that from documents "so obviously discordant and indefinite," no one could extract with certainty what Rome herself held to be truly essential to holy orders. This establishes the recurring theme of the whole letter: Rome condemns Anglican rites by a standard she has never consistently maintained.

IV. Pope Leo's Elimination of Certain Arguments

"He has consulted the interests of the Church and of truth in throwing over the very vain opinion about the necessity of the delivery of the 'instruments.'"^[1]

Section IV credits Leo XIII with clearing the ground. He has "consulted the interests of the Church and of truth" in throwing over "the very vain opinion" that the delivery of the instruments is necessary to ordination — an opinion nevertheless widely held by scholastic theologians from Aquinas to Benedict XIV and beyond. This concession matters greatly to the Anglican case: it is a papal admission that theories of ordination once treated as certain within the Roman communion were not, in fact, universal apostolic requirements. The archbishops express the hope that Roman theologians will likewise abandon the other discredited arguments for the future.

V. The Two Main Roman Arguments

"His whole judgment therefore hinges on two points, namely, on the practice of the Court of Rome and the form of the Anglican rite."^[1]

Section V identifies the two pillars on which Leo's judgment rests: (1) the practice of the Court of Rome toward Anglican clergy, and (2) the form of the Anglican rite, to which is attached a third question, "not easy to separate from the second," concerning the intention of the Anglican Church. This section supplies the structure of the rest of the reply: sections VI–VII answer the argument from Roman practice, and sections VIII–XIX the arguments from form and intention.

VI. Cardinal Pole and Marian Practice

"As regards the practice of the Roman Court and Legate in the XVIth century... he is really as uncertain as ourselves."^[1]

Section VI examines the Marian restoration. The archbishops contend that the reconciliation of the realm was in very great measure finished, under royal and episcopal authority, before Pole's arrival in November 1554; that while many Edwardian priests were deprived — particularly for marriage — none, so far as the records show, were deprived for defect of order; that some were voluntarily reordained or received supplementary anointing, while the majority remained in their benefices and some were even promoted. Only one man, perhaps two, is known to have received new orders under Pole. The section then turns the argument: Pole reissued the Decree of Eugenius IV for the Armenians, which locates the matter of the presbyterate in the porrection of the chalice and paten and its form in the words "Receive the power of offering sacrifice" — a doctrine Leo XIII has silently discarded. Pole's practice, moreover, scarcely agreed with his own stated principles, since by Eugenius's standard all Edwardian clergy (and indeed clergy ordained without instruments anywhere) should have been reordained. The episode shows, in the archbishops' words, "how slippery and weak the judgment of the Church of Rome has been in this matter."

VII. The Case of John Gordon

"The second, but scarcely stronger, foundation of the papal judgment, is to be found in the case of John Gordon."^[1]

Section VII answers the precedent of John Gordon, sometime Bishop of Galloway, whose reordination case Clement XI decided in 1704 and on which Leo leaned heavily. The archbishops give four reasons why the case is "a weak and unstable foundation": (1) Gordon himself petitioned for Roman orders, so the case was never heard on the other side; (2) his petition rested on the "Tavern fable" (the Nag's Head legend) and contained falsehoods about the Anglican rite; (3) the "new documents of incontestable authenticity" cited by Leo remain unpublished and obscure, and the Pope argues about them as if uncertain of their meaning; (4) the decree can scarcely be reconciled with the holy Office's reply on Abyssinian ordinations, given about a week earlier. They add that Gordon never proceeded beyond minor orders in the Roman Church, doing only enough to receive a pension. The demand that the relevant documents be published for open examination runs through both this section and the Appendix.

VIII. Matter, Form, and Intention

"Nor do we part company with the Pope when he suggests that it is right to investigate the intention of a Church... 'in so far as it is manifested externally.'"^[1]

Section VIII is one of the two hinges of the whole document. The archbishops state their substantial agreement with Leo on the essentials: the laying on of hands is rightly called the matter of ordination; the form is prayer or benediction appropriate to the ministry conferred; and it is right to investigate the intention of a Church "in so far as it is manifested externally." But they press the qualification with full force. Since no man can know the inner mind of a priest, the validity of a sacrament cannot depend on it; the will of the Church is what matters, and that will is ascertained from her public formularies and definite pronouncements — not from her omissions and reforms, which belong to the lawful liberty of every province and nation, unless something is omitted that is ordered in the Word of God or the certain statutes of the universal Church. To take medieval and recent custom as the standard of judgment, they warn, is to act "against the liberty of the Gospel and the true character of Christendom" — and would throw doubt on every sacrament except Baptism. This distinction between externally manifested ecclesial intention and conjecturally reconstructed private intention is the theological center of the Anglican defense.

IX. Limits of Scholastic Categories

"Baptism stands alone as a Sacrament in being quite certain both in its form and its matter."^[1]

Section IX develops the warning against over-precision. The archbishops decline to attach great weight to the scholastic doctrine, current since William of Auxerre (c. 1215), that every sacrament must have a single exactly defined matter and form — nor do they suppose Rome holds it as a matter of faith. Such a doctrine invites grave danger: any influential pope or doctor might persuade the Church to treat as necessary a form or matter defined neither in the Word of God nor by the Catholic Fathers and Councils. Baptism alone, they argue, is wholly fixed in matter and form, fittingly so since it is the entrance into the Church and may be ministered by any Christian at need. The Eucharist has a sufficiently certain matter but a still-debated essential form; Confirmation is uncertain in both.

X. Confirmation as an Example

"This topic of Confirmation requires to be treated rather more at large: for it throws much light on the question proposed by the Pope."^[1]

Section X presses the point through the test case of Confirmation. Leo himself writes that the laying on of hands is a matter "equally used for Confirmation." But the Roman Church has for centuries substituted an extension of hands over a crowd of candidates for the individual laying on of hands, while the Eastern churches (with Eugenius IV) hold the matter to be chrism and use no laying on of hands at all. If the doctrine of fixed matter and form were admitted, then Rome has ministered Confirmation imperfectly for centuries and the Greeks have none — a conclusion no one will accept. The argument is ad hominem in the strict sense: whatever answer Rome gives to save her own practice of Confirmation is available to Anglicans to defend their Ordinal. Sacramental rites other than Baptism have varied in history, and the Church has not required one unchanging formula.

XI. Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Anglican Liturgy

"We truly teach the doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice and do not believe it to be a 'nude commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross.'"^[1]

Section XI confronts the doctrinal heart of the Roman objection: that the Anglican rite excludes the sacrificing priesthood. The archbishops observe that the only authority Leo produces for a definite form of holy orders is two passages of the Council of Trent — a council promulgated after the Ordinal was composed and never received in England. They then make a striking positive statement: the Church of England commits the consecration of the Eucharist only to properly ordained priests, and "we truly teach the doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice," which is no "nude commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross." They describe the Anglican Eucharistic sacrifice in three moments: the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; the pleading and representing before the Father of the sacrifice of the cross, by which remission of sins and all benefits of the Passion are entreated for the whole Church; and the offering of ourselves to the Creator, already signified in the oblation of His creatures. This whole action, shared by priest and people, "we are accustomed to call the Eucharistic sacrifice."

The section then turns Leo's appeal to lex orandi, lex credendi against him. A careful reading of the Roman Canon of the Mass, the archbishops argue, agrees sufficiently with the Anglican formularies but "scarcely or not at all" with the determinations of Trent; the Council's law of believing has gone beyond the boundaries of the Roman law of praying. They analyze the four ways the Canon describes its sacrifice and conclude with a characteristically Anglican counsel: because the mystery ought to be a bond of charity rather than an occasion for subtle disputation, "too precise definitions of the manner of the sacrifice" ought to be avoided rather than pressed. This section must be read carefully, since the meaning of Eucharistic sacrifice remains one of the principal disputes between the communions; the archbishops neither concede the Tridentine account nor deny a true sacrificial dimension to the Anglican rite.

XII. Ancient Roman Forms for Presbyters and Bishops

"What therefore is the reason for impugning our form and intention in ordaining Presbyters and Bishops?"^[1]

Section XII tests Leo's requirements against the oldest Roman evidence. Leo demands that the form of priestly ordination express the order "or its grace and power," especially the power of consecrating and offering the Body and Blood of the Lord. But in the most ancient Roman formulary — the Canons of Hippolytus, from about the beginning of the third century — exactly the same form serves for bishop and presbyter except for the name, and nothing whatever is said of high priesthood, priesthood, or the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ. In the old Roman Sacramentary of perhaps the sixth century, three prayers make up the entire rite for ordaining a presbyter; in the central Benediction "priesthood" is not attributed to presbyters, and nothing is said of the power of sacrificing or of remitting sins — "yet this form is undoubtedly valid." Similar things hold for the old episcopal forms. The conclusion is pointed: "the Pope who appeals to the Council of Trent must submit to be judged by it. Either then these Roman formulas were valueless... or else the authority of that Council is of no value in settling this question about the necessary form of Order."

XIII. Whether Bishops Must Be Called "High Priests"

"The name of high Priest is in no way necessary to describe this office in the form of consecration."^[1]

Section XIII answers the suggestion that the episcopal form must attribute "high priesthood" to the bishop. The title is in no way necessary: the Third Council of Carthage (397) openly forbade even primates to be styled high priest or chief of the priests. Bishops are of course priests, as presbyters are; but since the ancient practice of consecrating deacons to the episcopate per saltum — without passing through the presbyterate — has long since died out, every bishop is already a priest at his consecration, and it is neither necessary nor, in the archbishops' candid opinion, "a particularly good and regular proceeding" to confer priesthood afresh. They add that while the Ordinal itself does not use the terms, Anglican public documents do not avoid sacerdotal and pontifical language, citing the Latin Prayer Book of 1560, the bishops' letter on behalf of Archbishop Grindal (1580), and Archbishop Whitgift's commission of 1583.

XIV. The 1550 Form for Consecrating Bishops

"We say that the words 'Receive the Holy Ghost' are sufficient, not that they are essential."^[1]

Section XIV takes up the first of the two arguments Leo most favors: that the words added in 1662 ("for the Office and Work of a Bishop...") prove the insufficiency of the earlier form. The archbishops reply that in the Roman Pontifical itself, the only words spoken at the actual laying on of hands in an episcopal consecration are "Receive the Holy Ghost" — precisely the words of 1550. The name "Bishop" or "Episcopate" appears in no prayer of the Pontifical before the consecration is complete; if the English fathers erred by omitting the title, "they must have gone wrong in company with the modern Roman Church." Moreover, the 1550 rite immediately joined to those words the charge from 2 Timothy 1:6–7 concerning the stirring up of the grace given by the laying on of hands — the very text, the archbishops note, that Trent quotes to prove that order confers grace. The form is "amply sufficient to create a Bishop," provided the true intention is openly declared, as it is in the surrounding prayers, suffrages, and examination, all of which plainly refer to the office and work of a bishop. The words "Receive the Holy Ghost" are sufficient, not essential: they occur in no ancient Pontifical, Roman or English, nor in any Eastern rite.

XV. The 1550 Form for Ordaining Presbyters

"This form is suitable to no other ministry of the Church but that of a Priest."^[1]

Section XV makes the parallel case for the priesthood. In the 1550 rite, after the long "Eucharistic" prayer, the bishop and assisting priests lay on hands with the words "Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained; and be thou a faithful Dispenser of the word of God and of His holy Sacraments." This form, the archbishops argue, "is suitable to no other ministry of the Church but that of a Priest," who holds the power of the keys and dispenses the word and mysteries of God. The delivery of the Bible with its accompanying formula then confers the commission to exercise the ministry publicly; the two commissions together "include everything essential to the Christian priesthood" and exhibit it more clearly than the Sacramentaries and Pontificals do. Nor does the Church of England avoid sacerdos and its correlatives in her Latin documents, and her Bibles render hiereus as "Priest" while translating presbyteros as "Elder" — evidence of deliberate sacerdotal intent in the Ordinal's consistent use of "Priest."

The 1662 additions, they argue, were directed not against Rome but against the Presbyterians, who were seeking support for their polity in the Prayer Book; the object was to declare the difference of the orders, as other additions of the period (the litany suffrages against rebellion and schism, the Ember collects) confirm. The section closes by noting Leo's own hesitation: he concedes the 1662 form might have sufficed had it come a century earlier, and appears to accept, with Cardinal de Lugo, that the parts of an ordination rite form one morally united action — a principle that, once granted, vindicates the Anglican rite, since the collect "Almighty God, giver of all good things," which expressly names "the Office of Priesthood," stood in the rite before the examination in 1550 and 1552.

XVI. Removed Ceremonies and Prayers

"The liberty of national Churches to reform their own rites may not thus be removed at the pleasure of Rome."^[1]

Section XVI answers the argument Leo appears to consider strongest: that the reformers deliberately removed from the rite "whatever sets forth the dignity and offices of the priesthood in the Catholic rite," so that the form cannot signify what it ought essentially to signify. The archbishops call the papal words "harsh and inconsiderate" and in part untrue. To interpret the acts of a Church by mere conjecture, and to condemn the sixteenth-century bishops by a standard they never knew, is "a slippery and dangerous path"; the liberty of national churches to reform their own rites "may not thus be removed at the pleasure of Rome." There is, moreover, no single "catholic rite" of ordination: even the forms approved within the Roman communion vary greatly among themselves. Above all, they observe, Leo says nothing of the well-known intention of the Church of England set forth in the Preface to the Ordinal — the subject of the next section.

XVII. The Intention of the Church of England

"The intention of our Church... is quite clearly set forth in the title and preface of the Ordinal."^[1]

Section XVII is the second hinge of the document. The intention of the Church of England — "not merely of a newly formed party in it," a rebuke to Leo's dismissal of the defenders of the Ordinal as a small recent school — is set forth in the Ordinal's own title and Preface. The archbishops quote the 1552 Preface at length: it is evident to all men reading Holy Scripture and ancient authors that from the Apostles' time there have been these orders of ministers in Christ's Church — bishops, priests, and deacons — admitted by public prayer with imposition of hands; and the Preface declares the intent "that these orders shoulde bee continued, and reuerentlye used and estemed, in this Church of England." The rite repeatedly calls the making of a bishop his "consecration," and the succession of these offices from the Lord through the Apostles is implied in the "Eucharistical" prayers preceding the imposition of hands. The intention of the English fathers was therefore to keep and continue the offices received from the Apostles, in the sense in which they had always been used — "a point," the archbishops remark, "on which the Pope is unduly silent." On the principle already established in Section VIII, this publicly manifested intention settles the question.

XVIII. Return to the Lord and the Apostles

"Our Fathers' fundamental principle was to refer everything to the authority of the Lord, revealed in the Holy Scriptures."^[1]

Section XVIII explains the character of the English reforms against Leo's charge that the offices had become "names without the reality instituted by Christ." The fundamental principle of the reformers was "to refer everything to the authority of the Lord, revealed in the Holy Scriptures." They retained one matter for imprinting the character — the laying on of hands — and one for the public commission — the delivery of the Bible. What they removed, the archbishops show in detail, were later and largely non-Roman accretions: the porrection of the instruments, unknown to any Pontifical before the eleventh century and derived from the minor orders; the anointing of hands and head, a Gallican and British custom absent from the old Roman books, which Pope Nicholas I expressly denied to be Roman practice; and the Gallican benediction Deus sanctificationum omnium auctor, an interpolated prayer that seemed to favor transubstantiation and was in any case scarcely intelligible — "singularly inappropriate to a liturgy to be said in the vulgar tongue for the edification of our own people." The removed ceremonies were of recent origin, or not necessary, or not suitable for a public vernacular liturgy; their omission proves nothing against the intention or validity of the rite.

XIX. Comparison of the Anglican Ordinal and Roman Pontifical

"Our Fathers, wishing to return to the simplicity of the Gospel, eliminated these prayers from a liturgy which was to be read publicly in a modern language."^[1]

Section XIX argues that "the Lord and His Apostles are the safest guides" in questions of the ministry, and undertakes a direct comparison of the Ordinal with the Pontifical. In the Roman rite the laying on of hands is performed without any words; the ancient Benediction that follows, regarded by weighty authorities since Morinus as the true form of Roman ordination, completes the ordination — from which it follows that everything added afterward, including the explicit grant of power to offer sacrifice, is "simply not necessary," just as the Anglican words added in 1662 are not necessary. The English fathers, seeing that popular feeling connected the later ceremonies with transubstantiation and the repetition of the sacrifice of the cross, aimed at simplicity and concentrated the rite on one prominent point, so that no one could doubt at what moment the grace and power of the priesthood was given.

The archbishops then advance their boldest claim: the Ordinal is in various ways "superior to the Roman Pontifical," because it expresses more clearly and faithfully what by Christ's institution belongs to the nature of the priesthood. Where the Pontifical says almost nothing of the pastoral office, the Ordinal sets before the priest his calling as Messenger, Watchman, and Steward of the Lord, in the bishop's address and the searching examination; and it commits to him all the mysteries of the sacraments, not exalting one aspect of one of them while neglecting the rest. This, they argue from the Gospels, from 1 Peter 5 and Acts 20, and from Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care — a book almost entirely silent on the offering of sacrifice, yet delivered to bishops at their ordination in the ninth century — is the emphasis of Christ, the Apostles, and the ancient Church itself. The Pope, who derives the honor of his own office from Christ's threefold commendation of the flock to Peter, can hardly deny that the pastoral commission belongs to the dignity and offices of the priesthood.

XX. Consequences of Pope Leo's Argument and Appeal for Peace

"Beware lest in expressing this judgment he do injustice not only to us but to other Christians also, and among them to his own predecessors."^[1]

Section XX draws out the consequences. If defect of intention as Leo defines it invalidates orders, then the Eastern churches stand condemned with the Anglicans: the "Orthodox Confession" of about 1640 names only absolution and preaching as functions of the sacramental priesthood, and the Longer Russian Catechism of 1839 teaches nothing of the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ in its account of the ministry, describing the orders instead by the ministry of the sacraments and the feeding of the flock. If the forms of 1550 and 1552 were null and incapable of repair in 1662, then by the same law the ancient Roman forms of Hippolytus, Leo, Gelasius, and Gregory — which say as little or less of priesthood and sacrifice — were null, the medieval reformers of the Sacramentaries could not repair them, and "in overthrowing our orders, he overthrows all his own, and pronounces sentence on his own Church." Eugenius IV, who taught a new matter and form of order and omitted the laying on of hands entirely, brought the Roman Church into "great peril of nullity" on Leo's own principles.

The letter closes with a deliberate turn from controversy to peace. The archbishops declare themselves "at least equally zealous" for the peace and unity of the Church, acknowledge that much in Leo's other letters is true and well-intentioned and much in his person worthy of love and reverence, but identify the "inveterate" Roman error of "substituting the visible head for the invisible Christ" as the obstacle that robs his good words of the fruit of peace. They entreat the bishops of the Catholic Church to join them in "weighing patiently what Christ intended when He established the ministry of His Gospel," and pray that from the controversy itself may grow fuller knowledge of the truth, greater patience, and a broader desire for peace.

Appendix: John Gordon and Related Roman Evidence

"He takes no account of the truer matter and form employed among us, namely, the laying on of hands and the words 'Receive the Holy Ghost.'"^[1]

The Appendix returns to the Gordon case with documentary detail. Gordon was consecrated Bishop of Galloway in Glasgow Cathedral in 1688, followed James II into exile, was received into the Roman Church and conditionally rebaptized, and petitioned Clement XI to receive Roman orders. His extant petition rests on the Nag's Head fable and misstates the Anglican rite, alleging that Anglicans use no matter but the delivery of the Bible and a form conveying only the power of preaching and ministering the sacraments — taking no account of the laying on of hands and the words "Receive the Holy Ghost."

The archbishops then dissect the Statement prefixed to the holy Office's decree (printed by Estcourt in 1873), showing that the comparison of the Anglican Ordinal it records was "most careless": it quotes only the episcopal form though Gordon's petition concerned the presbyteral; it cites the 1550/1552 form rather than the 1662 form actually in use in 1688; it misquotes the scriptural words; it describes a laying on of hands on the "shoulders" ordered in no Anglican book; it omits the delivery of the Bible and its formula; and its account of the conclusion of the rite "is simply untrue." They further question Leo's claim, drawn from unpublished archives, that the decision rested solely on defect of form and intention, and show that the Roman custom of conditional reordination for omission of the instruments — which Leo's argument presupposes as "established" in 1704 — was still being debated by the Congregation of the Council around 1740, as Benedict XIV records.

Finally, the Appendix sets the Gordon decree beside the holy Office consultors' reply on Abyssinian ordinations, given on 9 or 10 April 1704 — days before the Gordon decision — and published as authoritative by Roman theologians until 1893. That reply approved ordinations effected by a touch of the hand and the words "Receive the Holy Ghost," with no other matter or form except a prayer entirely silent about the priesthood. If the reply is genuine, the holy Office approved in the Abyssinians what it condemned in the Anglicans; if it is forged, the holy Office cannot be trusted as a witness even to its own documents. Either way, the archbishops conclude, the documents remain locked in the archives of the holy Office and "ought to be published if the interest of historical truth is to be consulted."

Theological Themes

Apostolic Succession

Saepius Officio defends the Anglican claim to apostolic succession on the primitive essentials: episcopal ordination by public prayer with the laying on of hands, in an unbroken succession of bishops, with the declared intention of continuing the offices that have existed "from the Apostles' time" (XVII). The archbishops open the letter by affirming that they have been "truly ordained by the Chief Shepherd" to bear part of His office in the Catholic Church (II), and the whole argument presupposes that succession in the historic ministry is a matter of genuine theological weight, not indifference. The document is therefore a witness against the notion that classical Anglicanism regarded episcopal order as a merely political arrangement.

Matter and Form

The letter accepts the traditional categories while refusing their scholastic hardening. Laying on of hands is the matter of ordination; the form is prayer or benediction appropriate to the ministry conferred (VIII, IX). But the essential matter and form of ordination cannot be defined more narrowly than Scripture, antiquity, and the practice of the universal Church allow: only Baptism has a wholly fixed matter and form, and the attempt to impose a single exactly defined formula on the other sacraments would render them all uncertain (IX, X) and would condemn ancient and Eastern rites along with the Anglican (XII, XX).

Intention

The document's most influential theological contribution is its doctrine of intention: the intention of a Church in ordaining is to be judged by what is externally manifested in her public rites and formularies, not by speculative reconstruction of the private beliefs of those who framed them (VIII). Since the Preface to the Ordinal declares the intent to continue the three orders received from the Apostles' time, the intention of the Church of England is to do what the Church does (XVII). This standard — accepted in principle by Leo himself in the phrase "in so far as it is manifested externally" — remains the standard Anglican answer to every argument from the supposed heterodoxy of the reformers.

Sacrifice and Priesthood

On the disputed question of the sacrificing priesthood, Saepius Officio takes a carefully defined position. The Church of England rejected medieval abuses and certain scholastic explanations — the popular doctrine of a repeated immolation, the connection of transubstantiation with the ordination ceremonies — but not the catholic ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, and not the doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice rightly understood (XI, XVIII). The archbishops affirm a threefold Eucharistic sacrifice of praise, of the pleading of the cross, and of the offering of the Church herself, and argue that the pastoral and sacramental description of the priesthood in the Ordinal is more faithful to Christ, the Apostles, and the ancient Church than an ordination rite "entirely taken up with the offering of sacrifice" (XIX). Readers should note that the document's statements on sacrifice have been read variously within Anglicanism; the text itself deliberately declines "too precise definitions" (XI).

Reform and Continuity

The letter interprets the Reformation of the Ordinal as purification and return, not rupture. The English fathers went back "almost to the Roman starting-point," removing recent, unnecessary, or unsuitable accretions in order to recover the simplicity of the Gospel and the ancient Church (XVIII, XIX). Reform exercised the lawful liberty of a national church (VIII, XVI); continuity was secured by retaining the scriptural essentials and declaring the intention to continue the apostolic orders (XVII). This account of the English Reformation — catholic in substance, reformed in accidents — is among the classic statements of the Anglican self-understanding.

Ecumenical Consequences

Finally, the document argues that Rome's reasoning is not containable: applied consistently, Leo's criteria would unchurch the East for defective intention and invalidate Rome's own ancient forms for defective expression of the sacrificing priesthood (XII, XX). The argument is not a mere debating point; it reflects the letter's governing conviction that the standards for valid orders belong to the whole Church and her Lord, not to the custom of one see, and it explains why the letter is addressed to the whole episcopate of the Catholic Church.

Importance for Anglican Theology

Saepius Officio remains important for several reasons. It is the classic and official Anglican reply to Apostolicae Curae, carrying the authority of both English metropolitans. It articulates the standing Anglican defense of holy orders on scriptural, patristic, and liturgical grounds, and its doctrine of externally manifested intention has become the settled Anglican answer to arguments from the reformers' private opinions. Its appeal is consistently to Scripture, antiquity, liturgical history, and catholic order rather than to mere establishment or national feeling, which is why it has been valued by Anglo-Catholics and high churchmen as a vindication of the catholic character of Anglican orders.

It matters equally, though differently, to Reformed and evangelical Anglicans, including readers in the Reformed Episcopal Church and the wider ACNA: the document defends the ordained ministry of the English Church without conceding that later Roman scholastic categories — fixed instrumental matter, explicitly sacrificial forms, Tridentine definitions — are necessary to a valid ministry, and it grounds the priesthood in the ministry of word, sacraments, and pastoral care as set forth in Scripture. It also remains a reference point in Anglican–Roman Catholic dialogue, since any Roman reconsideration of Anglican orders must reckon with the arguments it advances.

Relationship to Apostolicae Curae

The two documents are best read together, as argument and answer.

Apostolicae Curae argues that Anglican orders are invalid because of defect of form — the Ordinal's formulas do not signify the sacrificing priesthood — and defect of intention, since the deliberate removal of sacrificial language manifests an intention not to do what the Church does. Saepius Officio answers that the Anglican rite sufficiently indicates the order conferred, by formulas as full as or fuller than the ancient Roman ones, and that the intention of the Church of England is shown by her public formularies, above all the Preface to the Ordinal, which declares the purpose of continuing the apostolic orders.

Apostolicae Curae reads the Anglican revisions of 1550–1552 as signs of rejection of the catholic priesthood. Saepius Officio interprets the same revisions as a return to primitive and apostolic practice, the removal of medieval and largely Gallican accretions that were never essential to ordination. And where Apostolicae Curae treats the practice of the Roman court since Mary's reign as a settled judgment, Saepius Officio shows that practice to have been uneven, poorly documented, and resting at key points (Pole's legatine principles, the Gordon case) on standards Rome herself has abandoned.

Reception and Legacy

Saepius Officio was widely regarded, even by some Roman critics, as a learned and formidable reply, and it has held a permanent place in Anglican theology. Among Anglo-Catholics it became a charter document: an official assertion, by the two English primates, of apostolic succession, true priesthood, and Eucharistic sacrifice. Its liturgical scholarship — particularly its use of the Canons of Hippolytus, the old Roman Sacramentaries, and the history of the porrection of instruments — anticipated the direction of twentieth-century scholarship, which increasingly confirmed that the ancient ordination rites center on prayer with the laying on of hands rather than on the ceremonies Rome had treated as essential (a development reflected in Pius XII's Sacramentum Ordinis of 1947, which defined the imposition of hands and the preface as the essential matter and form of Roman ordination).

The Anglican concern to remove all doubt also shaped subsequent practice: from the 1930s, Old Catholic bishops of the Union of Utrecht, whose orders Rome acknowledges, participated as co-consecrators in Anglican episcopal consecrations (the so-called "Dutch Touch"), so that the historic succession in Anglicanism now flows through lines Rome herself recognizes. The document remains a fixed reference point in ecumenical discussion of Anglican orders, in the work of ARCIC, and in every proposal — periodically renewed — that Apostolicae Curae be revisited. For Continuing Anglicans and for the ACNA jurisdictions it retains full force as the standing defense of the orders they have received.

Common Misunderstandings

Several misreadings of Saepius Officio recur and should be corrected:

It is not merely a political or national protest; it is a closely argued theological, historical, and liturgical treatise addressed to the whole episcopate.
It does not deny the importance of apostolic succession; it asserts and defends Anglican succession in the historic ministry.
It does not claim that rites and doctrine are irrelevant to valid orders; it argues that the Anglican rites, rightly read, express the catholic doctrine of the ministry.
It does not argue that Anglican orders are valid simply because Anglicans affirm them; every major claim is argued from Scripture, ancient rites, and Rome's own documents and practice.
It does argue that Rome applied to the Anglican Ordinal standards that are historically narrow, internally inconsistent, and never consistently maintained in Rome's own tradition.

References

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