ST, PETER, BISHOP OF ROME

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 33, 13 August 1903, Page 2

ST, PETER, BISHOP OF ROME

REPLY TO BISHOP NEVILL

I. To Catholics in Australasia one of the most consoling features in connection with the death of the lavte venerated Pontiff was the kindly eulogy of the Grand Old Man by the secular press and the non-Catholic pulpit, and the sympathetic messages which our prelates throughout the seven colonies received from the heads or local representatives of the Jewish and various Protestant creeds. In New Zealand at least, this generous and kindly appreciation of a great and good Pontiffone who was e\er a friend of the human kind— was marred by only one jarring note : it was the untimely clang of controversy which the Right Rev. Dr. Ne\ill, Anglican Bishop of Dunedin, raised, so to speak, over the bielr around which his Catholic fellow-citizens knelt in sorrow. To Catholics, and (as we personally know) to many Protestants as well, the publication of the apparently official, though condensed, report of Dr Nevill's controversial sermon on the Papacy came as a painful surprise—all the more painful because of the good-will and mutual esteem which have become somewhat of a settled tradition between the Catholic and the Anglican bodies in Dunedin.

The position taken up by Bishop Nevill, so far as it may be gathered from the report— over half a column long— supplied to the ' Otago Daily Times ' was as follows : (1) He appeared to gravely question or altogether deny the fact that St. Peter was ever m Rome ; (2) he characterised as a ' figment ' the statement that St. Peter was ever Bishop of Rome.

Catholics, on the contrary, maintain : (1) that St. Peter received from the Savior a primacy oi jurisdiction over the whole Church ; (2) that St Peter finally fixod his See in Rome; and (3) that the Roman Pontiffs ate the successors of St. Peter in the See of Rome (1) T>>e first of these points has not, so far as we can \udcc ly the newspaper report, been raised by Bishop Nevill At a later stage, however, we may, in oidcr to round off this controversy, deal with the position of St Peter as the divinely appointed head of the Apostles— the rockfoundation on which the Savior built His Church, the holder of ' the keys of the kingdom of hea\en,' the feeder of the lambs and sheep (that is, of the "whole flock) of Christ, the Apostle who was fiist in all things, whose faith should not fail, and whose duty it was to strengthen that of his brethren

(2) The second point— the episcopate of St Peter— is the one on which Dr Nevill focussed all or most of his attention in his ill-timed controversial disjoin se, the utterance of which, we trust, his Lordship's later thought and more deliberate judgment have a'lcadv viewed with much regret. The three points enumerated above are intimately bound together Briefly stated, they together form what Protestant writers commonly call the ' papal claims ' But, each can be taken sepaiately. The question of St Peter's episcopate, laij-ed by the Right Rev. Anglican Prelate of Dunedin, is a question of history. To history he has professed to dppial, and to history we, therefore, go. ir. In dealing with non-Catholic theological writers, we must ever bear in mind that the primacy of the Holy See is the cardinal point of modern controversy , that the accumulated religious preiudices of three and a half centuries have circled around it; that St Peters Roman episcopate is the pariing of the ways Hence it is that some Protestant writers have denied St Peter's residence in Rome, not for teatons based on history, but because it leads to his Roman episcopate, and his Roman episcopate leads at la^t to the Roman priniacv Lipsius was apparently one of thesn Yet, wntii'g in 1876, he granted that, if 'ever the Prince of th • Apostles set foot m the Eternal Ci f y, he ceitainly di,l not go as a simple traveller, but in virtue of his anostolic power.' Then he adds : ' And if, as many Protes-

St! , ld| the episcopate is of divine institution, then the claims of the Roman Church to trace her episcopal succession back to Peter is, after all not so very absurd' (• Zeitschrift fur Prot. Theol • J876 p 560? As reported in the < Otago Daily Times,' Dr. Nevill doubted or denied that St. Peter ever was in Rome It IVCm'rt JT°£ th T at the re P°rt-authoritative though Ln f S?"w£ V s ,, LL ° rdshi P an "justice, for we learn from his letter to last weiek's ' N.Z. Tablet' that he asserted a coming of St. Peter to Rome some time durL"i rpl earS .63. 63 " 67 and nis martyrdom there under n££'a t VISI< U° f St - Peter tO ROm * iS D 0 Ion B er a « open question. It is one of the settled facts of history, and, in the words of the Anglican writer Whiston (the translator of Josephus— quoted by Livius), < this is so clear in Christian antiquity that it is a shame for any Protestant to confess that any Protestant ever denied n. in view of his public contentions, Bishop Nevill can have no controversy with us on the divine institution of the episcopate. On Lipsius's principle, therefore his admission of St. Peter's residence in Rome is tantamount to a statement of St. Peter's Roman episcopate. He has, however, elefcted to fly in the face of historic evidence and the testimony of foremost Protestant writers by describing St. Peter's Roman episcopate as a ' figment.' r +i c * mv , st here deal with an absurd misconception of tne catholic position which appears in the report of Hishop Nevill's discourse that , was supplied to the ' Otago Daily limes. It contains this amazing statement : that it is indispensable as the basis of the whole Roman scheme that St. Peter should have been Bishop of Romri °/o 5? or 35 years ' ! Of course (!) no Catholic out ?<L o? am ever dream ed of making such a statement. (4) St. Jerome and other writers state that St. Peter was Bishop of Rome for 25 years. But Catholics are under no obligation to accept St. Jerome's or any other writer s chronology. Even assuming the 25 years' bishopric, no Catholic writer maintains that St Peter remained the whole period m the Eternal City. He had the care of all the Churches, and we know from the Acts of the Apostles (ix., 32) that he had visited some of them before he came to Rome. For the rest, a glance at Livius's ' St. Peter Bishop of Rome ' (pp. 46 sqq.) and (among other works) at Marucchi's S. Pietro c S. Paolo in Roma ' (pp. 27 sqq.) would probably make Bishop Nevill hesitate seriously before dismissing the statement of the 25 years' episcopate as unworthy of credit We shall probably recur to this subject in a later issue (3) A very brief residence would be sufficient to venfy the constant tradition of the Church, the voice of history, and the testimony of eminent Protestant writers as to St. Peter having been bishop in the Eternal City , for, as Lipsius .(already quoted above) candidly admits, if he went to Rome at all, he went there as Prince of the Apostles. (1) So far as the Catholic position is concerned, 'it was not,' says the learned historian and theologian Archbishop Carr, ' necessaiy for St. Peter to have gone to Rome at all to be its bishop and to make its future bishops his successors ; it was sufficient that he should fix upon Rome as his own See ' (' The Primacy,' p 1(51). Thus, in the penal days in Ireland, several bishops were consecrated in France or Rome and were never able to reach their Sees But, directly through writing, or indirectly through their accredited representatives, they ruled then several Sees and received the willing obedience of both priests and people. (5) There aic thousands of facts in sacred and profane history ulii'Ji are indisputable, although their chronology is un(erlain or confused (6) The able theologian and writer, Aiehbishop Carr, points out (' Primacy,' p. 164) that ' it uas not neccssaiy for St Peter to have gone to Rome at all to be its bishop and to make its future bishops Ins successors , it was sufficient that he should fix upon Home as his own See.' During the penal days in Ireland, several bishops weie consecrated for that afflicted country in France and Rome ; but, owing to the rigorous n.easuies taken airain.st them, they were unable to reach their dioceses Hut they governed their Sees nevertheless, cither directly by writing or verbal messages, or indirectly through their accredited representatives. But St Peter's sojourn in Rmic is so far outside the reach of doubt or discussion that it us asserted even in the ' Speaker's Commentary ' (Anglican) and in the Chronolcgnal Table appended to the Teacher's Edition of the \u(horised Version of the Protestant Bible. 111. If we are to nidge from the apparently authoritative leport of the ' Otago Daily Times,' Dr. Nevill not alone conveyed a senous and complete misconception of the Catholic position as to the episcopate of St. Peter, l)in he shut on! from his hearers, as well, all, or practicolly all, of the vast mass of evidence which makes this <>s vvp'l established as any other accepted fact of early Christian history ' There is no scriptural evidence,' said be, ' as to the episcopate of St. Peter, but the strongest

presumption against it. Yet on this fahric such a structure had been reared.' This is the last sentence but one of his report. The last concludes with the amazing assertion that ' the first to mention the alleged episcopate of St. Peter was St. Jerome, about three and a half centuries later ' !

We ask his Lordship : Does it contribute to the ends of legitimate controversy to ignore or suppress the great body of evidence that was absolutely required to enable his hearers to form a fair and intelligent view of the subject ? In exploring the dark periods of Church history, one cannot afford to shut out the light, from whatever side it comes. But Bishop Nevill has not yet repudiated the report of his discourse that appeared in the public press. And unless that report does him a monstrous wrong, he has (to use the words of his fellowchurchman, Dr. Salmon) followed the ' process of shutting out the light,' which • is just what one does when one wants to exhibit fancy pictures with a magic lantern.'

Catholics prove the primacy of St. Peter and its perpetuity in the Church from a large body of luminous texts of the Sacred Scriptures. The question as to whether St. Peter was Bishop of Rome has nothing to do with[ fchose texts. It is a historical fact, for the evidence of which we must have recourse to the records of history. It is established by (1) the testimonies of the Fathers and other writers of the first four centuries of the Church's history, and (2) by eariy Christian archaeological monuments in Rome, and especially those in the catacombs. We cannot for a moment suppose that the Anglican Bishop of Dunedin is ignorant of the great mass of material bearing upon the present question, that exists under these two heads. Yet, so far as we can judge fiom his reported utterances, he did not make the remotest allusion to it, and, by so doing, suggested the inference that no such evidence exists, and that the whole question is to be settled by a fallacious resort to the dangerous argument from the alleged silence of the Scriptures. If he had placed before his hearers a fair and faithful summary of the evidence bearing on this controversy, his statement of the case would have run substantially as follows : (a) That thet belief in St. Peter's Roman episcopate has been from time immemorial to the present hour —outside the Protestant creeds— the unbroken possession of Christendom, even of the schismatical Churches of the East ; (b) that no period in Christian history, subsequent to the times immediately following those of St. Peter, can be pointed out at which it can be shown, with the smallest pretence of probability or plausibility, that this belief first began ; (c) that the Ine of argumetnt used all along in support of it has been positive, uncontroversial, and based on history ; (d) that, among Christians, Protestants alone deny it ; (c) that many learned Protestants, and even some rationalists, join with us in affirming the Roman bishopric of St Peter ; (f) that its opponents' contentions against it are exclusively of a negative kind ; that they base their objections ultimately on polemical or controversial grounds, arising from the necessity of justifying their rejection of Catholic faith and authority; that they ignore, as though of no account, the immemorial belief of Christendom ; and that the principles of unhistorical criticism which they adopt in this connection are those which German rationalistic writers employ in their efforts to disprove the supernatural origin and attributes of the Christian faith. IV.

It has taken some time and space to clear this question of the tangle of misconception and misrepresentation which surrounded it and to set it forth in its proper light. The historical fact of St. Peter's Roman episcopate is, as stated above, in possession. And in possession it must remain until set aside by solid "and convincing reasons based, not upon the needs of defending points of doctrine, but upon the merits of the case. Belief in the Roman episcopate of St. Peter held sole possession in Christendom till the thirteenth century. It was then for the first time denied by the Waldenses on the fallacious argument adopted by Bishop Nevill— the alleged silence of the New Testament in reference thereto. It was first opposed in writing, on the same illogical grounds, by the depraved anti-papal Paduan, Marsilius, in a book of his entitled « Defensor Pacis.' From Luther to the present day this denial has become an article of belief with many Protestant authors. They have won ready aid from German rationalists, such as Baur and Weiner, who, employing the same unphilosophical methods, endeavor to relegate St. Peter and the* whole Gospel story to the realm of myths and legends. We shall briefly trace the evidence of St. Peter's Roman episcopate back step by step from the date of its acknowledged universal acceptance to the sub-apostolic and apostolic days. Such a universal persuasion of East and West must have a proportionate cause, and we shall see that it is founded in the objective reality of the fact itself.

The noted Anglican historian, Dean Milman, says in his « History of Latin Christianity ' (3rd. cd., vol. i., book ii., p. 106) that ' at the commencement of the fifth century, the lineal descent of the Pope from St. Peter was an accredited tenet of Christianity.' Protestant authorities are so much agreed on this point that it is quite superfluous for us to adduce proofs in support of our thesis from writers of the fifth century (A.D. 401500). For a like reason it is unnecessary to give more than the most summary statement of the mass of documentary evidence of the fourth century (A.D. 301-400) and of the third century (A.D. 201-300), which is simply overwhelming in the multiplicity, strength, and clearness of its testimony to the episcopate and primacy of St. Peter. It will suffice for us to give brief references to a few distinguished names that represent both the East and West. Fourth Century. St. Jerome, one of the most learned men of antiquity, resided long in the East and likewise in Rome, where he was secretary of Pope Damasus. His voluminous writings bear abundant witness to the Roman episcopate of St. Peter. In one of his letters, for instance, he styles Pope Damasus ' the successor of the Fisherman' (that is, of St. Peter). In his ' Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers ' he describes St. Peter as ' Prince of the Apostles,' and, on the authority of antiquity, records his journey to Rome, where he ' held for twenty-five years the sacerdotal See,' was crucified in the fourteenth year of Nero and ' buried at Rome in the Vatican.' St. John Chrysostom was an Eastern, a native of Antioch, and Patriarch of Constantinople. In his second homily on the inscription of the Acts of the Apostles, deliverer at Antioch, he referred to St. Peter as the rock on which Christ built His Church, ' the Chief of the Apostles/ who had been ' shepherd ' in the ' chair ' of Antioch, which See had surrendered him to Imperial Rome.' St. Ambrose, the great Bishop of Milan, refers to the Holy See as • Peter's Chair.' He is the author of the saying: ' Where Peter is, there is the Church.' Eusebius, according to Lipsius (quoted by Rivington) ' expressly asserted ' the Roman episcopate of St. Peter. In the Armenian version of his ' History ' (ii., 150) he says that ' the Apostle Peter, having first founded the Church at Antioch, goes to the city of the Romans, and there preaches the Gospel, and remains Bishop of the Church there twenty years.' A similar statement as to St. Peter's bishopric of Rome is made in St. Jerome's Latin version, and in the Syriac version of his ' Chronicle.' The renowned Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, constantly refers to Rome as ' the Apostolic See,' ' the See* of the Apostle St. Peter, to whom, after His resurrection, the Lord entrusted His sheep to be fed ' (Contra Ep. Manich., n. 5). We might also quote the testimony of St. Epiphanius, St. Optatus, of Milevis, St. Peter of Alexandria, St. Athanasius, and other erudite men of the first note, both of East and West, in the fourth century. Their evidence may be consulted in any edition of the Fathers, or (by those of our readers to whom the Fathers are not available) in able treatises such as those of Sanguinetti and Foggini (Italian), Jungmann (Latin), and Allies, Livius, Rivington, and Archbishop Carr (in English). In the fourth, as in the third, century the Popes claimed to be successors of St. Peter in the See of Rome, and to hold the primacy of jurisdiction in the Church by virtue of that succession. And this was admitited without dispute and as a matter of course. We are here, h.owevcr, discussing the question of St. Peter's episcopate only. At the first General Council of Constantinople, the papal delegate, who presided, spoke of St. Peter as ' the Prince and Head of the Apostles,' of Pope Celestine as ' his successor in order and holder of his place,' and of Rome as ' the Apostolic See.' And there was not a whisper of dissent from any quarter. The Fathers of the Council of Sardica (A.D. 342) declared Rome to be ' the head, namely, the Chair of Peter. 1 And the Council of Aries, in its letter to Pope Sylvester, styles Rome ' the greater dioceses ' and ' the places where the Apostles constantly preside, and where their blood continually gives glory to God.' Third Century. Equally clear and compelling is the testimony of the third century (A.D. 201-300) that', St. Peter was Bishop of the See of Rome. In his ' History of Early Christianity ' (vol. iii., p. 370, cd. 1840) the noted Anglican writer, Dean Milman, says : ' Before the end of the third century, the lineal descent of Rome's bishops from S. Peter was unhesitatingly claimed and obsequiously admitted by the Christian world.' The same eminent writer, in his ' History of Latin Christianity ' (3rd. cd., vol. i., p. 66) writes thus regarding the middle of the same century : ' The succession of the Bishop of Rome from St. Peter was now, nearly 200 years after his death, an accredited tradition.' Among the third century witnesses for St. Peter's Roman episcopate, we may briefly refer to the following : St. Anatolius of Alexan-

dria designates the Pope as ' the successor of S. Peter and Paul (Paschal Canon n. 10). St. Cyprian, an earlier writer, telis (ep. 51, ad Antonianum) how ' Cornelius was made bishop ' in Rome • when the place of Fabian-that is, when the place of Peter and the rank of the sacerdotal chair-was vacant.' In another letter (ep. 55, ad. Cornelium) he refers to Rome as ' the Chair of Peter 'and • the principal Church, whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise.' Firmilian of Cappaaocia when mjustly attacking St. Stephen, was witness (ep. 75) that that Pope ' proclaims that he occupies by succession the Chair of Peter.' There was, in fact, no counter-theory at the time. But why multiply proois of a fact which Protestant scholarship no longer seriously questions— namely, the belief prevalent in the third century that St. Peter resided and was martyred in Rome and was Bishop of that See? In our next issue we shall follow the evidence of St. Peter's Roman episcopate through the first century and into apostolic days.

V. With the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers of the periods with which we have been so briefly dealing, the fact that St. Peter was Bishop of Rome was something that was taken for granted. There was no second opinion about it. There is not the shadow of a trace of a different belief. The Orientals agreed with the Westerns that St. Peter was Bishop of Rome, that he was martyred there, and that his sacred remains were preserved in the Eternal City. And "this belief (as Martin and other authorities show by reference to their liturgies) continues in the East to the present day, not alone among the Catholic Orientals, but among the Nestorians, the separate Greeks, and others who long centuries ago broke away from the centre of Christian unity. We have dealt with the episcopate of St. Peter as a {separate and independent fact. But to the Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers of the period covered in this paper it was no such thing. It was, of course, important as an event of history. But it was more than a merely human historical fact. It was bound up and identified in their minds, and in the minds of the early Christians generally, with a principle that is most vital to the Church— namely, the fulfilment of Christ's promises to St. Peter and the primacy, which is the fount of its unity, the source of its jurisdiction, the guarantee of the truth of its teaching. «Itis in this light,' says Livius (p. 191), ' that the early Fathers treasure up and record the connection of St. Peter with Rome And hence, whatever mention they make of him in this relation—whether of his journey to Rome, his preaching and founding the Church there, his being Bishop of that See, or his martyrdom in that city— is made with a view to illustrate the same one fundamental doctrinal fact, viz ,

The Primacy of St. Peter and his successors in the Roman See. Consequently, whatever arguments or testimony the writings of the early Fathers supply in proof that St. Peter went to Rome at all, go also to prove his episcopate and martyrdom in Rome. It is in this concrete, collective sense antiquity understood these several facts, which must stand or fall together.' In all these circumstances, the Roman episcopate of St. Peter, if not solidly grounded in fact, would ha\e beeh sure to have been hotly challenged and strenuously denied in the early Church, especially by the African and Eastern bishops and clergy. But, as we have seen, these accept it as a sheer matter of course. There is not, in all Christian antiquity, a trace of doubt or denial of it. Writing of the fourth, and fifth centuries, the; Rev. Dr. Nevin, formerly President of the Marshall College (Prot.), Pennsylvania (quoted in Kcnrick's ' Primacy,' \>. lf»5) says that in those times all controversies, appeals, complaints recened their final settlement only il-iough Rome, and that the Popes were the final judges ' m \irtue of the prerogative of their See.' l We hear of no objection to it,' he continues, 'no protest against it, as a xiew and daring presumption, or as a departure from the <arly order of Christianity. The whole nature of the case implies, as strongly as any historical conditions and relations well could, that this precisely, and no other oider, had been handed down from a time beyond which n i memory of man to the contrary has reached.'

Several able Protestant writers and divines— among them such illustrious names as Grotius and Leibnitz — have fully admitted the absolute need and the actual existence of this primacy of the Roman Pontiff. At present, however, our business is with those who acknowledge, with the whole voice of antiquity, that St Peter was Bishop of the Roman See. The learned Swiss Protestant writer, Baratier (quoted in ' Clambers' Encyclopaedia,' cd. 1901, Art. ' R.C. Church ') says :

' All the ancients, and the great majority of the moderns, have undertaken to derive the succession of the Bishops of Rome from he Apostle Peter. So great in this matter has been

the agreement of all that, in truth, it ought to be deemed a miracle that certain persons born in our day have presumed to deny a fact so manifest.' Palmer an Anglican authority, says in the second volume of his freatise on the Church ':' The Roman Church was particularly honored as having been presided over by a n*? e l£ r> o aca c' therefor e, by many of the Fathers called the See of St. Peter.' Dr. Lardner, the noted Nonconformist divine (quoted by Palmer) says • ' There were in the second and third centuries disputes between * ♦?i *2? of Rome and ofcher bishops and Churches about the time of keeping Easter and about the baptism of heretics, "ket none denied the Bishop of Rome to have what they called the Chair of Peter.' A book which has acquired a great vogue among adherents of the Church of England is ' The Catholic religion, a Manual of Instruction for Members of the Anglican Church by Rev. Vernon Staley. The author, basing his statement on St. Irenaeus, says (pp. 43-44, sth cd* 189 b) : Rome received the Apostolic succession from St. Peter and St. Paul, and both of these Apostlete were martyred and buried there.' Bishop Pearson, an able and learned Anglican ('Minor Theol. Works,' Oi?5? v' JB4J 844 ' voL L ' ?• 348 > writes as follows : ' For although m this age a dissertation treating of this Apostolic succession (whether, namely, the first Bishop ot Kome had some one of the Apostles as author and predecessor) may be called a question, yet in the primitive Church it, was never looked upon as a question but as a real and indubitable truth.' And then he goes on to prove (by reference to Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Caius and other early Fathers and writers) that St. Peter and St. Paul founded the Church in Rome, that they were Bishops of Rome, and that the Bishops of Rome (the Popes) derived their succession from St. Peter alone A recent Protestant writer, the Rev. Mr. Hall, goes farther still. In his ' Leadership, not Lordship ' (p 40) he writes as follows : ' The primacy is of our Lord's appointment. It resides in Rome, because Rome was chosen for St. Peter's fixed and final See. The evidence of this is overwhelming. The only passage that I know of which can be quoted against it, is the clause in the abortive canon XXVIII. of Chalcedon, that the Fathers gave the primacy to- Rome be,cause it ; was the Imperial city ; but this sentence, even if the canon were authoritative—which it is not— does not explain the primacy but only why Rome was chosen for its seat. I feel this is most important for anything like fair and respectful controversy with Rome.' Let it be borne in mind that all this is Ihot merely the personal testimony of Protestant historians and divines. It is founded on the unanimous belief of the primitive Church in the very ages in which, according to the generally received Anglican teaching, the faith was pure and the Roman Pontiffs generally conspicuous for the sanctity of their lives. (To be concluded.)