ST. PETER'S PRIMACY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 954, 22 November 1957, Page 11

ST. PETER'S PRIMACY

Sir-Your reviewer G.D. is surely asking too much when he asks us to believe that Dean Lowe, of Christ Church, examines the question of St. Peter’s primacy with "scholarly impartiality." As an Anglican, the Dean is committed to the view that Christ did not confer a primacy of jurisdiction on St. Peter. Consequently, he can no more be impartial in his treatment of this question than could a Catholic, who holds the opposite view. Of the numerous passages in the Gospel that refer to St. Peter, G.D. men-

tions only one, the well-known "Thou art Peter," of Matthew xvi. There are some, he says, who for reasons of psychology or Biblical exegesis hesitate to accept the view of Dean Lowe that it certainly refers. to Peter personally. It is hard to see what psychology has to do with the question, which is one of Biblical exegesis; and Biblical exegesis is necessarily coloured by the theological views of the exegete. So the question always, in the end, resolves itself into a theological debate between Catholic. and non-Catholic. For the Catholic, Journet writes: "The Gospel texts are clear, but they teach too great a mystery to allow us to hope that they will ever cease to be contested. Men will quarrel over the primacy of Peter, as they quarrel over the divinity of Jesus and the existence of God." ; Was St. Peter the first Pope? To this question put by G.D. the Catholic answer is a qualified yes. Qualified, because the Apostles had certain special prerogatives which did not descend to their successors, so that Peter’s relationship to the other Apostles is not quite the same as that which exists between Pope and bishops in later times. That suffices, I think, to answer G.D.’s questions regarding James, and the silence of Romans and Acts xvi-xxviii. It is surprising to find G.D. maintaining that there is only meagre evidence for St. Peter’s connection with Rome, for there is ample historical evidence, going back to the year 95, and the archaeological evidence is equally striking. Lietzmann, dedicating his Petrus

und Paulus in Rom to the Faeulty of Protestant Theology in Bonn, wrote: "All the most ancient sources clearly indicate that St. Peter sojourned in Rome and suffered martyrdom there. . . The contrary hypotheses pile up difficulty on difficulty, and can offer no positive argument in their favour. . . Consequently, I do not see even the possibilitv of a

doubt"

G.H.

D.

( Christchurch).