# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1858_S358
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

358 Kraußold and the Doctrine of the Ministry.

the Romanists too can say that the Church in its totality (that is, the Pope and the faithful) possesses the keys or the office directly, since the Pope does indeed belong to the totality of the Church. When Kraußold defines the Church "in its totality" as "in its combination of congregation and office" and thereupon willingly concedes that the Church has the office directly, he does exactly the same thing that the Romanists do, except that he gets there first with a definition of the Church into which he has already built the concept of the office. So while in fact he ascribes the direct, original possession of the office solely to the pastors, just as the Romanists ascribe it to the Pope, he has already, through his definition of the Church, made sure that he can nevertheless say, with the symbols, that the Church (meaning: the pastors, who together with the congregation make up the totum of the Church) has the keys or the office directly. The whole matter thus amounts to nothing but a sheer illusion. One could just as well say that every beggar possesses a thousand thalers, if one had included the thousand thalers in the definition of "beggar."*)

But how does Kr. come to interpret the passage of the symbol in this way? Simply by the fact that he has overlooked and left out the words which would have compelled him to recognize his error. For after the words: "Just as the promise of the Gospel surely and without intermediary belongs to the whole Church, so also do the keys belong without intermediary to the whole Church, since the keys are nothing other than the office by which such promise is imparted to everyone who desires it," — it then continues further: "As indeed it is evident in fact that the Church has power to ordain church servants. And Christ says: Whatsoever ye shall bind, etc., and indicates to whom he gave the keys, namely to the Church: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, etc. Likewise, Christ gives the highest and final judgment to the Church, when he says: Tell it unto the Church. From this it follows that in such sayings not Peter alone is meant, but the whole company of the apostles; therefore one can in no way, etc." From this addition, left out of the context by Kr., it is perfectly clear that the tract, by "the whole Church," understands not the Church as a whole, but the Church in each of its members — not totum ecclesiæ, but tota ecclesia; for deciding in what sense the "whole" Church is spoken of here is not left to the reader, nor even to Dr. Kraußold, but is expressly determined by the tract itself through the sentence: "And Christ says regarding these words: Whatsoever ye shall bind, etc., and indicates to whom he gave the keys, namely to the Church: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, etc."

*) Consider that Kr. always speaks of the office in concreto, that is, of the persons who bear the public office; hence wherever he finds the word "office" he draws from it his conclusions for the office in concreto, for the pastoral office.