ST. PETER'S ROMAN EPISCOPATE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 36, 3 September 1903, Page 2

ST. PETER'S ROMAN EPISCOPATE

DEAN BURKE AND BISHOP NEVILL

r P niv +n fT A ett ? rs of D the Ver y Rev - Dean Burke > in reply to the Anglican Bishop of Dunedin (to which referr?,ntJy made in our edit orial columns) covered practically the same ground as our articles at the same time on the same subject in the columns of the « N.Z I* r + 7 y aPa PP eared in ' Otago Daily Times' and elicited a rejoincr from Dr. Nevill in which he disclaimed any idea of discussion merely with a view to a controversial victory, and raised minor objections, based on negative contentions only, and chiefly from St IrenStP nf frf St n, C 5? v r . ian - a S ainst th e Roman episcopate of St. Peter. To this- Dean Burke replied as follows in the ' Otago Daily Times ' of last Thursday :- n^h^v"" 1 -^ US i t ex P ress m y surprise at the contents of Bishop Neyill's defence. I looked for a vast mass of evidence newly derived from the deep study of ancient lit?r? r 5 tl |F, c . an , d f monuments, upsetting the Early-Christian beIVrnn li, + ct 2 r - had been Bisho P of Rome-a belief so strong that no <Jhe questioned the fact of Peter's episcopate- a question which in the piimitive Church," says the learned Anglican Bishop Pearson, » was never looked upon as a question but as a real indubitable truth ' This tact then, was in possession through all the Christian centuries ; but possession is nine points of the law The dispossesses must show reasons, positive clear, overwhelming, before he can dare to attempt to drive out the old owner It was Bishop Neviil's duty in logic and common sense to produce such expulsive evidence Did he do so in his sermon published in your paper ? I should think nut. Has he done so in his long letter ? 4gain I should think not. It is hardly necessary for;me to say that I was not bound according to the requirements' of logic to give the summary of evidence advanced in my letter against Bishop NeviU's thesis—" the figment of St Pet^r . . . having been the first Bishop of Rome " My place was to ask his Lordship for his proofs— clear strong, overwhelming. However, ex ahundantia, I gave my she-it summary to show your readers that there was something to be said on the other side, and to give the Bishop a chance to be more explicit than he had been in his sermon. I must say that, in common with many of your readers, I am disappointed. The letter has not improved much upon his sermon. ' Here I may be permitted to call attention to an introductory remark of Bishop Neviil's. He hinted that ne does not care much about controversy ; but still truth, above all things, is dear to him. I claim to be on a level with his Lordship in these respects ; at anyrate I have not written a controversial letter for 19 years' Though a few Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury have died m my time, and have been spoken of highly in the references to their deaths in the papers, yet I have never idt my anti-Anglican zeal so roused as to preach a contioversial sermon on the " figment " of the Anglican claims and then to run with it to the public press for a wider circulation. ' But now to come to his Lordship's letter. He was bound in logic and common sense to produce from the ancient Fathers, councils, synods, monuments, etc., evidence strong, positive, calculated to overturn the timehonored " indubitable " belief Instead of doing so he has contented himself with Attempted Pinpricks at portions of my summary, adding a little cobweb spinning to finish up with. He is, however, satisfied with himself, for he assures us that he has written " with exhaustive effect " and that he is one of " those who have had the opportunity of learning all that is to be Known on the subject." I like to be logical and to keep Lo the point. Hence I shall pass over all he says about (he " rock " and St. Augustine, etc., and shall come Ho the pinpricks and cobwebs.

'1. Irenaeus :— Lo ! what is this we find at the outset ? I referred to Irenaeus, Book i, c. 27 and Book

J £• ™ I £* d betore me in the original Greek, preserved by Eusebius, the passages-" epi Huginou enaton Kleron . . echontos," and " hos en enatos episkopos." . - . Bishop Nevill with his parallel passages, following in the wake of the Rev. Mr. Neild, quoted a different part altogether of Irenaeus to show how sadly I had misquoted and misinterpreted that Father ! •« Risoim teneatis amici ! " Well, after that, what are we to „nk of all tne italics and small capitals and disquisitions on the preposition " after " and so on ?

12. Cyprian :— We now come to the Bishop of Carthage. Bishop Nevill does not think that Cyprian considered that St. Peter had been the first Bishop of Rome ; yet Cyprian himself writes : " Cornelius was made Bishop of Rome . . . when the place of Fabian (his predecessor)— that is, when the place of Peter and the rank of the sacerdotal chair was vacant."— Ep 51 Why, the assumption that St. Peter had been first Bishop of Rome runs through all St. Cyprian's treatises and letters, so much so that the learned Presbyterian historian, Dr. Schaff, says : '* Cyprian is clearest in his advocacy of the fundamental idea of the Papacy, and in his protest against the mode, of its application in a given case. Starting from the superiority of Peter, upon whom the Lord built His Church, and to whom He entrusted the feeding of His sheep, in order to repiesent thereby the unity in the College of the Apostles, Cyprian transferred the same superiority to the Bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter, and accordingly called the Roman Church the

Chaii? of Peter

and the foundation of priestly unity, the root also and the mother of the Catholic Church " ; (Ante-Nicene Christ., vol., i., p. 161). The Lutheran historian Neander writes to the same effect (Hist., Ch., vol. i., p. 297298). Glance at Bishop Nevill's proof to the contrary, " The episcopate is one of which a part is held by each in solidum." If this famous extract convinces anyone that Cyprian did not hold Peter to have been Bishop of Rome— well, that person is soft.

13. Eusebius :— The Bishop has a long and rather complicated dissertation, in which I must confess I see no point, explaining what, according to his Lordship, Eusebius, means. I have the Greek text of Eusebius before me, and I fancy the critical and careful Eusebius explains himself. Listen to him : " The Apostle Peter, when he had first founded the Church at Antioch, sets out for the City of Rome, and there preaches the Gospel and stays as prelate of the Church for 20 years " (" Chron.," ad an. 44, Arm. version). " Linus, whom St. Paul has mentioned in his Second Epistle to Timothy as his companion at Rome, has been before shown to have been the first after Peter— pro tos meta Petron— that attained the episcopate at Rome " (Hist. B. iii., c. 4). Lipsius, one of the highest living authorities as to a question like the present, says that Eusebius, in adopting the particular form of words which he used in his succession lists, "expressly asserted" the Roman episcopate of St. Peter (Ap. Rivington, " Prim, and Roman," p. 13). But Eusebius is the best expounder of himself.

'4. That Note from Valesius.— The Bishop derives great consolation from the fact that Eusebius places Paul twice before Peter. He says " that It is to be noted " ; and he refers to Valesius as an annotator of Eusebius. "On the question of precedence between the two," writes his Lordship, " a curious fact is noted by Valesius in his notes to Eusebius, that in the most ancient seals of the Roman Church whenever SS. Peter and Paul are engraved, the right hand, or place of honor, is given to St. Paul ; this fact is also mentioned by Baronius." This looks formidable, doesn't it ? But hear Valesius himself : " But we must not thiirk that he (Eusebius) therefore sets Paul above Peter, for frequently those who are more honorable are named in the latter place. For the matter of that, in the seals of the Roman Church Paul is always placed on the right hand and Peter on the left, as Baronius has remarked in his ' Exposition of the Nicene Council.' " (B. iii. 21.) The 1 Bishop assures us that he is amongst those " who have opportunities of learning all that is to be known upon the subject " ; yet if he had known one whit about the interpretation of the places of figures in those old engravings he would have left this venerable note from Valesius quite untouched.

♦ 5. Tertullian and the Liberian Catalogue.— The Bishop asks why I did not quote Tertullian. If I quoted all the authors I might have quoted with effect I should require not a column but a whole page of your paper, and I should even then have to add at the end : " To be continued." I have Tertullian standing in my book shelves before me — not in a sweet accommodated-to-our-theory Oxford translation, but in the original rough, energetic Carlylian— ready to plant his feet on the chest of any man who comes in his way. The Bishop reminds me that I introduced with a flourish, but without quoting them, the Liberian Catalogue, etc. Well, here

is the Liberian Catalogue for his comfort - "The SucpTeSd^Tin!? 0^! 01 R £ me >' How Many Years He or Under Whose Reien — • Peter 21 vfia™ i ri^JL^ H* ™ m the^imes oAibe'ri^Sesar and Caius, and Tiberius Claudius, and Nero, from the Consulate of Vimcius and Longin'us to (that) of Nero and Vetus. He suffered, moreover with Paul thp third suis, during the reign of Nero Linus 12 years 4 months 16 days He was in the timtso?' Ncro 7 'from the Consulate of Saturninus and Scinio until Canitn and Rufus " ; and so on. I really thlSfft waste of S ?InS?ic ' tif 1 ° f /° Ur Space to follow his Lordshp^s SS °?h the P r f decea f of Linus, the ordination of Council gr S Rufinus, and the Vatican chn ,'J . w ?^ a b ° ut Bishop Nevill's authorities. He ancient Fathers ' CouncilS > etc > but Bright and Littledale— Sfn£°v - d ? t0 t ? 6 du l im 7 irate p u»er of the •' Primitive Saints? " I must protest against this. Bright was a man with a craze against the Papacy, The subject was to him as the proverbial red rag to a bull. The personal opinions and inferences of a man like Bright on a Mibject like this ; are worthless ;-see passings "Waymarks » and "The Roman See in the Early Church.'' As for Littledale, I have no hesitation in designating him a controversialist of the very lowest type, congenitally unalble to tell the truth. Why Salmon's shallow scjuib "Infallibility" is decent rLding as coXjSSd especially with Littledale, and yet, "It is marked throughout," said the learned editor of the "Tablet" in last week's issue, "with shameful garbling, misquotations, and misrepresentation of points of Catholic doctrine. In my citations I referred only to ancient writers, or to respectable Protestant authors. I quoted one or two Catholic names, not as authorities against Bishop Nevill but as summing up my matter in language better than I could use. Suppose, if I had got them, I used in support of my views rabid Catholic pamphleteers of the mental quality of Bright and Littledale, I should begin to fear proceedings " de lunatico inquirendo.

In conclusion, I would congratulate his Lordship on his new-found title. Writing to the press a few weeks ago he signed himself " Anglican Bishop of Dunedin " • row he is "Catholic Bishop of Dunedin." I like the" sound of that inspiring word— Catholic. Might I express the hope that soon we both shall embrace in brotherly undivided Catholic communion. Meantime however, your readers and my humble self are waiting Tor that clear, positive, decisive evidence which proves to his Lordship's mind that the Roman episcopate of SI Peter is " a figment." He is bound by the fact of his attack on a cause In immemorial possession to produce it In order to space a little ink, however, I would humbly submit that it will prove of precious little use to him to trot out the quarrel of Cyprian, the MeletUn schism, the case of Apiarius, the twenty-eighth Canon of Chalcedon. Those, when groomed up by Bright and Puller, may caper well on the floor at St. Paul's but I give a premonitory hint that they will cut a sorry figure on the boards of the " Otago Daily Times." »