THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1903. BISHOP NEVILL AND ST. PETER

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 31, 30 July 1903, Page 17

THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1903. BISHOP NEVILL AND ST. PETER

YEN Homer nodded', al. times'. '.Bayard was not always on horseback. ApS *t>r. $evill the Anglican Bishop, of Duaedin. has so far lapsed from his usual digftifiefl-iittdrtespect-able calm as to. make., the, de'^K' W thp good old Pope the occasion -fps ;srapkjflg,some historical and theoiogieal' pulpit' jests about St. Peter's primacy" 'and 1 tiis'fcbimectlon wj^th the See of Rome. The occasion, .vpg .certain!^' rifft well chosen. Worse still, the Right Rev. Prelate (if the clearly authoritative report furnished to the press is correct) falls into a misrepresentation of the Catholic position, which, to use his own word, is nothing less than ' astounding.' He is there credited with asserting that a residence in Rome by St. Pejter. ' for thirty-rfour or thirty-five years ' is ' indispensable as the basis of the whole Roman scheme ' of Priu\acy in the Church of God ! Klsewhere in the discourse 'he' 'tetls us that the 'religious influence ' of the Holy S,ee depends upon ' the figment ' of St. Peter having- been < l ,the 4 .#xst-.-^>sh.op of Home ' And then he proceeds to argue on lines tending to show that the Fisherman Apo&t lei never set foot within the Imperial City, much less ihat he ever was bishop 01 that historic see. „ . The pressure upon oiir 1 Space prevents us dealing in anything but the briefest and most -summary— way with the points raised in such, apn .inppportune time and way by Dr. Nevill. (1) The' Primary of the Holy See does not in any way depend"' upon ~the~ number of years, or even of days, that St. Peter trod the soj,l v qfußoflie^ A year, a day, even an hour of residence, would^haye., equally sufficed ; and, although it is certain thai> v gt.' ( Peter' spent a considerable period in the Pt.er.nal City, it is jjo part of the Catholic position, it is no cerite^lbri^O^Catholic historians and archaeologists, 'that "this extended to 4 thirty-four or thirty-five years.? ,'A&d>. the ,Prtß^icy of St. Peter depended on the. , -fact - <o,f- iiis - being ths rockfoundation on which the .Saviour b.uilt, ,His Chii^eft, the holder of ' the keys of the iJCingdom oJL, Heaven^' the feeder of the lambs and sheep (that is, "of the*' whole floek 1 )' of Cbtist, the 'Apostle whose faith should not fail, and wbose duty it was ta strengthen tha^ ,-oJ'-his^Breth-ren. Rome, - and, Rome alone, frona- the\ , earliest^ days, gloried in holding his sacr.ed, remains ;t; t she. claj^ed him

as her first bishop ; and the Church whose centre was in the city of the Caesars, and that Church alone, claimed, and (as St. Clement's writings show) exercised even at the very verge uf the Apostolic days a true primacy of jurisdiction. (2) There is no contention, however indefensible, in history and in science but will find supporters. Witness, for instance, the body of eccentric literature that has sprung up in connection with perpetual motion, and the labored pamphlets that have appeared during the past few years in demonstration of the flatness of the earth. The denial of St. Peter's residence in Rome is dictated by the exigencies of controversy, not by a calm and unprejudiced survey of the facts of history and Christian archaeology. St. Peter's stay in Rome has long passed beyond the realm of sober dispute. It is" asserted by all Catholic authorities and by the overwhelming body of Protestant and rationalistic testimony as well. Dr. Ellicott, an Anglican Bishop, has, for instance, studied this subject far more deeply than the Right Rev. Dr. Nevill. And this is what Dr. Ellicott says : ' Nothing but Protestant prejudice could stand against the historical evidence that St. Peter sojourned and died in Rome. Whatever theological consequences may follow from it, it is as certain that St. Peter was at Rome as that St John was at Ephesus.' A little further on, he adds that it is as certain as the evidence 'on which we believe that Hannibal invaded Italy.' Whiston, the translator of Josephus, averred that ' it is a shame for any Protestant to confess that any Protestant ever denied it ' (that St. Peter was in Rome). Other learned, Protestants could be quoted by dozens to the same effect. And a perusal by Dr. Nevill of the recent works of the noted Roman archaeologist,' Orazio Marucchi, would give the coup de grace to his Lordship's last lingering attachment to a historical figment that was never heard of in the Christian world till the fourteenth century.

The Roman episcopate of St. Peter is likewise one of the accepted and settled facts not merely of Catholic, but of the foremost non-Catholic, scholarship Among many others that might be quoted, it is affirmed by non-Catholic writers of such eminence as Lipsius, Pearson, Palmer, Schaff, Zahn, Harnack, and Dr Lightfoot, and is proved by archaeological and other evidence (such as that of Caius, Tertulhan, eftc ) far back past the days of St. Jerome. Moreover, we find that the Primacy of the Bishop (or Pope) of the See of Rome was in active exercise in the days of Pius, who reigned from A.D 142 to 157, and as far back as about the year 95 by St. Clement in the famous Epistle to the Corinthians which Dr. Lightfoot (a co-religionist ot Dr. Nevill) describes as ' the first step towards Papal domination.' Such, in the most general and summary terms, are the title-deeds of the supremacy of the See of Rome. They are based on the Word of God. They are borne out by the lessons of history. We might, in the circumstances, legitimately ask his Lordship the Anglican Bishop of Dunedin to produce the title-deeds of the Royal Supremacy which, at the Reformation, was substituted in England for a form of Church government which had in its favor the long prescription of fifteen hundred years. Let him produce one text of Scripture, one phrase from the writings of the early Fathers or the decrees of the Councils of the Church that will justify the sweeping changes which in the sixteenth century (to use the words of the Anglican Bishop Andrews) ' transubstantiated Henry VIII. into the Pope ' and (as the great Anglican historian, Dr. Brewer puts it) ' converted the Church from an independent rival into a ready and submissive dependent on the State ' We pause for a reply.