ST. PETER'S ROMAN EPISCOPATE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 37, 10 September 1903, Page 4

ST. PETER'S ROMAN EPISCOPATE

DEAN BURKE AND BISHOP NEVILL

The following additional letter from the Very Rev Dean Burke in reply to the Anglican Bishop of Dunedin on the above subject appeared m the ' Otago Daily Times ' of Thursday :— ' Sir, — Bishop Nevill's contro\ersy with me is, I fear, beginning to abut upon the ridiculous He told us that he was one " of those who ha\e had the opportunity of learning all that is to be known upon the subiect " in question. Some of your readers are now beginning to suspect that his knowledge is confined to what he gets from occasional dips into the " valuable little book " of the lovely Littledale In his published sermon he said that the Roman episcopate of St. Peter was a " figment." In his letter of August 22 he made a great step in advance, saying " that the local episcopate of St Peter is at least not proven." In his letter of August 29 he goes still further, and admits that he has no positive arguments to establish his thesis— the " figment ... of Peter having been Bishop of Rome " " I don't profess to do impossibilities, and I could not produce such a mass of literature, " says his Lordship And yet any intelligent person can see that if St Peter were not the predecessor of the Popes the arguments derivable, especially from the third, fouith, fifth, etc , centuries should be, from the nature of the case, thick, in early Church history, as leaves that stiew the autumn brooks. The Bishops of Rome, acting precisely in their capacity as successors to St Peter, claimed to direct, rule, try, and remo\e from their sees other bishops all over the Church — East and West Weie they not acknowledged as the .successors of St Peter the whole history of the early Church should be strewn with protests against their authority, denials oi their claim, iejections of the " figment of Peter . luumg been Bishop of Rome." The learned Anglican authonty Dean Millman writes- " Before the end of the third century (A D. 2!)0) the lineal descomlcnt of her (Rome's) bishops from St Peter was unhesitat inpjv claimed, and obsequiously admitted by the Christum woild" (Hist of Early Christianity, 111 , p 370 ) A foinier Protestant

president of Marshall College, Pa., referring to a period a little later, writes : << In every great question of the time, whether rising in the East or in the West, all eyes show themselves ever ready to turn towards the Cathedra Petri as a last resort for counsel and adjudication • all controversies, either in the way of appeal or complaint, or for ratification of decisions given in other quarters, are made to come directly, or indirectly in the end, before this tribunal, and reach their final and conclusive settlement only through its intervention. The 1 opes, in these cases, take it for granted themselves that the power which they exercise belongs to them of right in virtue of the prerogative of their see. . . . And the whole world apparently regards the Primacy in the same way, as a thing of course, a matter fully settled and established in the constitution of the Christian Church. We hear of no onjection to it, no protest against it, as a new or daring presumption, or as a departure from the early order of Christianity." (Mercersberg Review, ap. Kenrick's Primacy, p. 148.) ' Suppose, as Bishop Nevill does, that those early 1 apal claims were a figment, a belief entertained by nobody in the primitive Church, these protests from Bishops, synods, councils, etc., must occupy the pages of thd history of those times. Where are the Records of these Protests ? 1 have been demanding them from Bishop Nevill and Co. ! His answer is, " I don't piofess to do impossibilities, and I could not produce such a mass of literature ' ! These are actually the Bishop's own words ! What a pretty pass for a Bishop to come to— he who was so brave a little while ago over that " figment " ! 1 His Lordship seems to have a weakness for pursuing legends. He was awfully troubled over some foolish statement which, it appears, he found made somewhere, " That St. Peter was Bishop of Rome for 34 or 35 years." He " engaged " it and " slew " it. At least go he gives us to understand— the monster is lying dead somewhere among the leaves of his manuscript sermons. In his last letter he is pursuing a smaller animal of the same kind—" the legend of the 20 or 25 years' episcopate of St. Peter." Though he has met and " engaged " it a couple of times it is not yet " slain " ; itis jumping about, to my mind, as lively as ever. But why tire himself pursuing these reptilian wrigglers ? Who asks him to do so ? Among Catholic Church historians there are differing opinions as to the length of St. Peter's Roman episcopate. Had Bishop Nevill read even a penny tract by a Catholic writer on this subject he would know thus much, and he would have been spared all the above-mentioned engagements and grimy efforts at slaughter.

' His Lordship is very sore over the ditch into which he fell in the matter of my references to Irenaeus. He assures your readers no less than four times in his last short letter that no such mishap occurred to him. lie quotes my words to show this ; but he stops short at the very references in question— at the very words he should have quoted ! Charitable reader, do please extend a corner of your mantle to cover " the tricks of controversialists "

' His Lordship does not like Greek. In my last letter I gave not merely the references but added a few Greek words from the passages for the benefit of his Lordship— in order that he could not possibly mistake them I succeeded ,he has not mistaken the references this time But in a most kindly and gentlemanly way he suggests that I introduced those cabalistic words to deceive your readers What a fine thing it is to be a gentleman ' Men, gentlemanly and otherwise, have a standard whereby they measure others — their own motives and actions. His Lordship seems to complain that 1 united my friends to laugh at him as he was struggling on two shaky parallel columns out of the Irenaean ditch. Recognising that it was a Bishop who was in trouble, and that decorum should be preserved in the circumstances, I ordered my friends to restrain theit 'aughter. Bishop Isevill, I suppose, does not like Latin any more than he likes Greek, seeing that he fails to tianslate three words of it—" Risum teneatis, amici."

' Let us now briefly examine how, after a study of that " useful little book " of the inspiring Littledale, his Lordship slays St Irenaeus over again I confess that he sadly murdered that magnificent doctrinal passage which he quoted on August 22 from Irenaeus, Bk. 11l , c 3. I confess also that iie now " murders " eloiiously the other two passages referred to by me. To rise above his ridiculous arithmetical tangle, I may say that

Irenaeus gives a twofold enumeration of the Bishops of Rome — one taking in the whole series of Bishops, the other taking in the successors to the apostles In the former — the passages referred to by mo — Tl\ ginus is- put down as " holding the ninth place of the episcopate by succession from the apostles " Well, count backwards :— Ninth, Ilygmus ; eighth, Telesphorus;

seventh, Sixtus ; sixth, Alexander ; fifth, Euaristos ; fourth, Clement ; third, Anencletus ; second, Linus ; and first, Peter — to whom the unanimous voice of the ancient Church, East and West, gave that place. On the other hand (Bk. 111., c. 3), where for controversial purposes and as a proof of the true doctrinal tradition Irenaeus is tracing the succession of the Bishops back to the Apostolic Founders — enumerating those whom the Apostles, to use his ( .own words, "were leaving behind as their successors, 'delivering up their own place of government to these men " ,(ibi. n. I),— the writer sets down Linus as first successor, Hyginus being then, of course, the eighth. Irenaeus is quite correct and consistent with himself. • Bishop Nevill objects that in one of my passages (Bk. iii., c. 4) the old Latin translation has " eighth " (remember the Greek original overhead has ninth). An unhappy objection this ! Look at the manner in which the Anglican Bishop Lightfoot of Durham, an eminent patristic critic, demolishes' his good brother of Dunedin in regard to this whole matter. Referring to the two passages, or, as he calls them, " two other places " (Haer i, 27 ; iii., 4), Lightfoot goes on : " Here, therefore, if the readings be correct, either the apostolic founder or founders must have been included in the enumeration, so that Linus would be the second Bishop, or there must be some accidental tripping in the number. In either case, Irenaeus is probably copying from some earlier writer, such as Justin Martyr or Hegesippus. At all events, we can hardly suppose him (Irenaews) to have deliberately adopted a different enumeration in the second of these passages, which occurs only a chapter later than his own complete catalogue of the Roman bishops." To all this he subjoins a note : " In the first passage (i, 27) the text of the old Latin translator has ' ninth ' ; and this reading is confirmed by Cyprian (Ep. 74) and by Eusebius (H.E., iv., 11), as well as by Epiphanus (Haer. xh.., 1). Here, then, all the authorities are agreed " (Clem. Rom., i., 204). All the authorities, and Irenaeus himself, are against Bishop Nevill ! And yet he coolly assures us that " critics usually allow that ' ninth ' in Book i., eh. 27, is either an interpolation or an error which has crept in." The phrase, " critics usually allow," is ambiguous. If he means that competent critics generally do so, the statement is utterly without foundation ; but if he means that some critics, understanding thereby himself, his chaplain, and the lovely Littledale, have a habit of doing so, that may be admitted. But they have got an unfortunate habit.

' The mention of Littledale's name reminds me that a writer in your issue of Saturday chid me because I used rather strong language m regard to the authorities alleged by Bishop Nevill— especially in regard to Littledale. I regret the necessity. But what could I do ? Hear what Littledale's Anglican co-rehgiomsts say of him : " His controversial works," says the Rev. E. W. Gilliam, " are so evidently dictated by ill-feeling and prejudice, and the rules of good breeding are so seriously ignored by him, that a reader of any refinement of mind instinctively draws back from one who seems thus regardless of the first principles of Christian moderation and ordinary charity." Of Littledale's " Plain Reasons" he spoke thus : " Entirely negative in character " (I am reminded of the character of his Lordship's arguments) "it is, moreover, a coarse, vituperative, brutal book, without piety and without justice— a book whose spirit has nothing in unison with a holy and upright mind." (Vide Carr's " Reply to Potter," p. 12.) Another Anglican clergyman— the Rev. Dr. Lee-

Detected and Exposed not less than 201 errors in regard to fact, inaccurate quotations, garbled extracts, quotations from Fathers* showing an entirely different meaning from the originals — all in only one of Littledale's " valuable little books." Dr. Lee might well have added : " Had we a body of clergy with a sound theological education, such a publication must have met, first, with a chilling welcome from those being duped, and then with a howl of execration. I will not directly say more than that, having carefully examined it, in conjunction with others— the first edition with the last— we have found it to be manifestly unfair and altogether untrustworthy. I would that we could regard its compiler as unintentionally misled and mistaken " (loc. cit ) " The book "— " Plain Reasons "—wrote Dr. Mossman, " appears to me to be written in. a most reprehensible spirit. Unless exposed and refuted, it is calculated to do griorvous harm to the blessed and holy cause of Christian reunion. The book cannot, of course, mislead anyone who is really acquainted with ecclesiastical history and dogmatic theology ; but how very few of its readers will kinow that it is a little more than a rude congeries of fallacies and erroneous statements, taken at secondhand, which have been exposed and refuted again and a&ain." One might, in view of the sneers of Bright, and even of " the shameful garbling^, misquotations, and misrepresentations " of Salmon's " Infallibility," keep his temper, but no honest man could use other than

strong language if he referred at all to Littledaltf and ins " valuable little books." ' One can now understand a late local, rather peculiar, ecclesiastical phenomenon. When King and Kaiset President and Ambassador, were expressing their regrets over the death of Leo, Bishop Nevill was gathering his wretched bundle of controversial nettles from the prickly hedges of Bright and Littledale in order ito throw them into the open grave of the great-hearted Pope mourned by men of every creed and class, lamented— and that with good reason— by the dark children of Africa, as well as by the working men of our great civilised cities. Strange that our " Catholic Bishop of Dunedin " should be so out of harmony and sympathy with his kind ! But then he reads, admires, and recommends the "coarse," "brutal," and "ill-feeling" book of Littledale. ' The Bishop, with an ogle at the gallery, says that I " want to draw off my forces under the shadow of a charge " that he should produce some evidence for his assertions. As to the drawing off of my forces, the Bishop makes a huge mistake. I desire to get some excuse to draw them on. Why does his Lordship, who is the invader, give me an opportunity ? Why does he content himself with a few feeble pin-pricks at the scouts I sent out to reconnoitre and give him a chance of showing what he has got in his camp ? lam ready to maintain my position with extracts, genuine and authentic, from The Writings of the Fathers, the records of Councils, the decrees of Popes, from ancient catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs, from Greek and Oriental chronographias, from ancient inscriptions, monuments, missals, martyrologies and hymnologies of the Eastern and Western Churches, from the absolutely unanimous agreement of all Catholic historians and archaeologists, and from the emphatic declarations of learned and fair-minded writers among Bishop Nevill 's own coreligionists. ' As to my demanding that he should produce some clear, positive evidence for his assertions— yes, he is bound on all accounts to do so. " In courts of law," says a recent writer, " the importance of possession, as a presumptive title which throws the burden of proof on the invading party, is fully recognised. It needs to be recognised in history also, wherever history occupies itself with rival claims." Where, then, is Bishop Neviil's evidence ? Where are the protests of the early Bishops against the peremptory exercise of the Papal right, deriving from succession to Peter, to rule, remove, and govern them ? Suppose that Pius X. issued to-day a peremptory decree to the Anglican bishops, both Protestand and " Catholic," what protests and indignant denials would resound from pulpit and platform and press ! We need not, in that case, travel far to hear " language " But to be generous, exuberantly generous, with Bishop Nevill, let him bring forward a protest made during the first thousand years of the Church's history by one obscure heretic — Ebionite, Marcionite, Arian, Nestorian, Eutychian— rejected and excommunicated by the Popes ; and then we shall begin to think that he has got —well, something to say for himself. ' Why, I would ask, does not his Lordship as a student of the philosophy of history, give us some rational explanation of the rise and spread of the early, universal, indubitable, primitive belief that St. Peter had been Bishop of Rome, and that the Popes were his successors (Pearson) ? Has he not given us to understand that he knows all about the matter. Has he not given us reason to think, by his rushing into print on an -untimely occasion, that the episcopal brain is bursting with historical information ? I fancy I can give a rational account of the rise and spread of Bishop Neviil's own fiction. It rose not from calm, philosophical examination of the records of history, but from the promptings of excited religious controversy. It was spr.ead by that sweeping spirit of denial and contradiction which prevailed in Germany in the sixteenth century. " I wish I had more arguments to worry the Pope with," said the beer-swilling gentleman of Wittenberg : " may the name of the Pope be d d" ; " may his kingdom be abolished ;if I thought f ihat God did not hear my prayer I would address myself to the devil " ; " Pestis cram vivus, moriens tua mora ero, papa " (see Luther's Tisch-Reden, passim). Animated by this hideous spirit, Udalric Balen concocted (1502) his " XVIII. Arguments," partially and feebly reechoed by Bishop Nevill to establish his " figment . . . of St. Peter having been Bishop of Rome." ' I would remind his Lordship that his " I say," " I hold," " I repeat " do not go so very far with myself or with many of your readers. " Tantum valet auctoritas quantum ratio "—a dignified gentleman's " I say " is just of the value of the reasons he alleges for his "I say "—was a principle of the hard-headed medieval logicians. We, too, want arguments, evidence, quotations, extracts from ancient sources, clear, solid, convincing. The

people of Southland, I can testify, are waiting for them, and the people of Dunedin are wailing for them. I wrote in my manuscript " waiting," but your compositor and proof-readers, reflecting, no doubt, the sentiment in Dunedin, turned it into " wailing." Would his Lordship kindly remember his obligation in logic, law, common sense, and the principles of historical investigation, to come out with his excessive information, and to relieve this strained popular expectancy ? '