#64 | Papal Snapshot: St. Boniface’s Oath to Obey the Popes, Letter 8 (722)

Related Resources

• #63 | Papal Snapshot: St. Pope Gregory II Appoints St. Boniface Apostle to the Germans, Letter 4 (719)

Roadmap

This “Papal Snapshot” will examine the oath of obedience taken by St. Boniface (c. 675-754), Apostle to the Germans, to the Pope (beginning with St. Pope Gregory II). Our Roadmap is as follows:

• Our thesis is that St. Boniface’s oath of obedience to the Popes exemplifies a very Catholic understanding of the papacy. We will show this by:
• Quoting and analyzing the words of the oath; and
• Summarizing the conclusions we believe can be reached.

For more historical background on St. Boniface and his evangelistic mission to the Germans, check out #63 | Papal Snapshot: St. Pope Gregory II Appoints St. Boniface Apostle to the Germans, Letter 4 (719).

St. Boniface, Oath of Bishop Boniface (November 30, 722)

Let us examine the oath of obedience sworn by St. Boniface to the Popes, which he offers in both the name of the Holy Trinity and the Eucharist¹:

I, Boniface, by the grace of God bishop, promise to you, O blessed Peter, chief of the Apostles, and to your vicar, the blessed Pope Gregory [II] and to his successors, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the indivisible Trinity, and of this, thy most sacred body [the Eucharist], that I will show entire faith and sincerity toward the holy Catholic doctrine and will persist in the unity of the same, so God help me–that faith in which, beyond a doubt, the whole salvation of Christians consist. I will in no wise agree to anything which is opposed to the unity of the Church Universal, no matter who shall try to persuade me; but I will, as I have said, show in all things a perfect loyalty to you [the Pope] and to the welfare of your Church, to which the power to bind and loose is given by God, and to your vicar and his successors.

This rather explicit paragraph reveals St. Boniface believed the following about the papacy:

1. The Pope’s authority derived directly from St. Peter, who was “chief of the Apostles” by Christ’s appointment (per his words about his power of “binding and loosing” being “given by God” at the end).
2. St. Peter’s authority was transmitted by apostolic succession through the bishops of Rome, and St. Boniface believed the authority of these successors bound him as if by St. Peter himself.
3. Obedience to the Pope is essential to maintaining Catholic doctrine and unity.
4. The Pope possesses the authority to bind and loose–which was given to St. Peter directly by Christ (Matt. 16:19)–and he does so in a preeminent manner over all other bishops (since Christ likewise gave this authority to the other Apostles in Matthew 18, while He gave the keys themselves to St. Peter directly).
5. Though St. Boniface does not explain the precise relationship between the Catholic Church as a whole, and the Pope, it is at least implicit from the foregoing premises that he believed the papacy possessed the highest degree of authority in the Church, and thus part of the essential constitution of the Church to which he was willing to bind himself. This undoubtedly signals at the very least an inchoate belief in the infallibility of the Pope, since Christ has established his authority in perpetuity, and that authority includes the power to “bind and loose,” in which Christ said Heaven would stand behind whatever was bound and loosed on earth–and Heaven cannot bind a lie.

St. Boniface continued²:

But, if I shall discover any bishops who are opponents of the ancient institutions of the holy Fathers, I will have no part nor lot with them, but so far as I can will restrain them or, if that is impossible, will make a true report to my apostolic master [the Pope]. But if (which God forbid!) I should be tempted into any action contrary to this my promise in any way or by any device or pretext whatsoever, may I be found guilty at the last judgment and suffer the punishment of Ananias and Sapphira, who dared to defraud you by making a false declaration of their property.

In this paragraph, we see that St. Boniface sees the Pope as the guarantor of the “ancient institutions of the holy Fathers,” any violation of which St. Boniface pledges to report to him. He also once more connects the Pope’s authority with St. Peter’s by his reference to the story of Ananias and Sapphira, who lied to St. Peter about the value of their property, and were punished with execution as a result (Acts 5:1-11). Implicit in St. Boniface’s assertions are that the “institutions of the holy Fathers” are in some sense divinely established (i.e. infallible), since if he violates them, he declares himself guilty in advance before both the Pope (drawing on the story of St. Peter, Ananias, and Sapphira), and God (referring to the Day of Judgment). By citing the story of St. Peter punishing Ananias and Sapphira, St. Boniface at least implies he believes the Pope has a similar authority against like offenders. He likewise clearly believes that the Pope, as St. Peter’s successor, is the chief shepherd of the Church.

The oath concluded by once more affirming that he took it in the presence of the Eucharist³:

This text of my oath, I, Boniface, a humble bishop, have written with my own hand and laid above thy most sacred body [the Eucharist]. I have taken this oath as is prescribed, in the presence of God, my witness and my judge, and I pledge myself to observe it.

Conclusion

From his oath of obedience to the Popes, we can see that St. Boniface believed the following about the papacy:

1. Christ Himself established the papacy in His appointment of St. Peter as the chief of the Apostles, with the singular authority to “bind and loose.”
2. St. Peter’s authority is transmitted by apostolic succession through the bishops of Rome, who exercise it over the whole Catholic Church.
3. Obeying the Pope is an essential part of maintaining Catholic doctrine and unity.
4. The Pope has some sort of authority to exercise coercive punishment over Christians (per St. Peter having done precisely this to Ananias and Sapphira).
5. While he is not explicit, all of St. Boniface’s premises and assertions logically tend toward a belief in papal infallibility of one kind or another.

We thus see that St. Boniface, Apostle to the Germans, had a profoundly Catholic view of the papacy.

Footnotes

1. St. Boniface, Ephraim Emerton, trans., The Letters of Saint Boniface (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 19. ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎