ST. PETER'S ROMAN EPISCOPATE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 38, 17 September 1903, Page 3

ST. PETER'S ROMAN EPISCOPATE

DEAN BURKE AND BISHOP NEVILL In the ' Otago Daily Times ' of Monday appears the following additional letter on the above subject from the Very Rev. Dean Burke in reply to his Lordship Bishop Nevill :— v ' Sir,— Allow me to reply to Bishop Nevill's latest productions. The reply to his arguments will not prove a difficult matter ; but to reduce to order a chaos—running through two and a-half columns of your paper— of words, complicated sentences, and dislocated paragraphs seems a formidable task. I shall try to manage it. '1. His Depreciation of Modern Scholars.— He cavalierly brushes aside the conclusions of writers who have devoted much time to the investigation of this and cognate subjects. They were able men— experts in the matter in hand ;— but their testimony, apparently, has little value in the eyes of Bishop Nevill, whose information is, I strongly suspect, confined to what he derives from the shilling shocker of the lovely Littledale. The layman who, despising the learned opinions of his lawyer or doctor, would follow his own devices, should have, I opine, a fool for his client or patient. I should observe here that I quoted Protestant historians only— persons quite naturally opposed to the Papal claims. If Catholic experts were quoted by Bishop Nevill against me I should feel rather uncomfortable, I fancy. If I attempted to waive them off it would be with a trembling— not with a majestic— movement of the hand.

12. He Shirks the Giving of Proof.— ln his now famous sermon he set about showing the Roman episcopate of St. Peter to be "a figment." He pretended to allege " evidence " to establish his thesis. He has since been challenged and asked to produce some clear, positive evidence calculated to upset a cause in firm possession. He refuses to produce it ! He complains that I have asked him for " a mass " of positive evidence. Well, if his contention were true, evidence— protests, denials, indignant rejections— woum be found scattered over the pages of Church history. But I was generous with him. I asked him to bring forward any positive evidence whatever— any protest made during the first thousand years of the Church's history by one obscure heretic, rejected and excommunicated by the Popes. He has since written three times to your paper, but no evidence appeared ! He says he is not bound to prove a negative ! But his negative is a mighty positive—" a figment " (i.e., " a fabrication, a story invented, a fable," "Encyc. Diet.")— a false claim, " upon which," he says himself, " the most stupendous issues are made to hang "—a false claim constantly asserting and proclaiming itself. Why not allege the decrees of synods, of angry bishops flouting it. But no ; There it is in Calm, Immemorial Possession, with all its prescriptive rights. In logic, law, and common sense, on the principles oi historical investigation, only strong, positive argument can shake such a claim. 13. Rather Queer Evidence —Notwithstanding his protests, the Bishop feels all this, and so he makes a supreme effort to quote from early councils, with the following results :— (a) There was a meeting of ihe Apostles about the year 51 at Jerusalem ; when there had been much disputing Peter, the chief of the Apostolic College, rising up, spoke ; then Barnabas and Paul spoke ; finally the " insignificant James " said " ego krino," " my judgment or decided opinion (on the matter) is," etc. (Bishop Bloomfield in loco) ; therefore, according to Bishop N.evill, Peter was never Bishop of Rome ! (b) Some 20 canons were drawn up at this Council of Nice (A.D. 325), presided over by Hosius, Bishop of Corduba, and by Vitus and Vincent, the legates of Pope Sylvester. I have before me in Greek and Latin, the sixth canon of this council. An extraordinary translation and modification of this canon, made at Bishopsgrove, Dunedin, on September 3, 1903, puts Rome, of course, in an inferior place. Remembering the place and time of the production of the revised canon, you, Sir, will be able to appreciate the conclusion : Therefore, Peter was never Bishop of Rome ; it's all a figment ! So it is when he sets about it, that his Lordship alleges clear, certain, convincing evidence — all with " exhaustive effect." If, dear reader, you feel convinced of Bishop Nevill's point by this much positive argument, it is your own fault. I pity you, but I can-not-help you. 1 4. St. Irenaeus and Bishop Lightfoot.— Bishop Nevill falls back for the fifth or sixth time upon his denial as to that Irenaean ditch and those parallel columns. Yet my references are there before him ; " httera scripta manet " — the written letter remains. Lightfoot exposed his little game in the matter of Irenaeus. I quoted Lightfoot word for word as he wrote, whilst he was

stating facts and referring to " all the authorities." Bishop Nevill complains that I did not quote a suspicion or little personal inclination of his, expressed at the close of the note ! What are Lightfoot's personal inclinations to me ? When he has no reason to give for them they are no more in my estimation than Bishop Nevill's inclinations as to " the figment . . of St. Peter having been Bishop of Rome." » 11 ' 5 --JW ir y , m £° a Murder Case.-His Lordship follows the lovely Littledale, using almost his very words, when he " murders " St. Cyprian. I told you Sir, before that I strongly suspected his information was derived— though he assured us it was very extensive— mostly from occasional dips into " the useful little books " of that charming writer. The lovely Littledale wants " expressly " a quotation from Cyprian like this • "St. Peter was Bishop of Rome." His Lordship wants some passage in which Cyprian " directly affirms any residence of Peter at Rome at all." Littledale and the Bishop should know that indirect reference to a fact provided it be unmistakable, is often stronger than a direct, express statement, because it implies that The Fact is Commonly Known and stands uncontradicted. An indirect statement clearly assuming that St. Peter had been Bishop of Rome —a fact of deepest interest to all Christians, and one which many would have denied in those early times if it were possible to do so— is the best proof of the point. ' Let us take a few such statements from Cyprian. Referring to some troublesome parties who were going to Rome to try and deceive the Pope, he says : " Yet after all this they dare not set sail and to carry letters from schismatic and profane persons and to the Chair of Peter and to the principal (or ruling) Church, whence episcopal unity has taken its rise, not reflecting that those to whom they went were Romans— whose faith was proclaimed as worthy of praise by the apostle— to whom perfidy cannot have access."— (Ep. 59.) Rather Romish after that ! The Roman Church the Chair of Peter ! The principal (or ruling) Church ! the source and centre of sacerdotal— 1 c., episcopal— unity ! the Church to which perfidy cannot have access ! Hence we can understand what Cyprian meant when he said that " Cornelius (the tihen ruling Pope) was made Bishop . . . when the place of Fabian (his predecessor)— that is, when the place of Peter and the dignity of the sacerdotal chair— was vacant , . . when the tyrant (Decius, the Emperor) would hear with more patience and equanimity that a rival prince rose against him than that a rival priest (the Pope) was constituted at Rome." Hence we can understand what Cyprian meant when he told Cornelius that he had sent letters to the bishops of his province telling them of Cornelius's election. "In order that all our colleagues may firmly acknowledge and hold your communion— that is, the unity and The Charity of the Catholic Church." ' The practice of Cyprian was of a piece with his doctrine. He knew nothing of the independent bishop theory so dear to Dr. Pusey and to the Anglican Puseylte school. He earnestly requested Pope Stephen to depose Marcian, Bishop of Aries, in distant Gaul, who was infected with the Novatian heresy, and to get another appointed in his place. He sent to the Pope the Acts of. the Councils of Africa and the Decrees against the " lapsi." Do Anglican bishops when they assemble periodically at Lambeth send their decrees to Rome for approval ? St. Cyprian knew simply nothing of our independent bishop. It is a wretched twisting of his words' — the effort made by Dr. Pusey and by Bright and Puller, in our day, to make him appear to do so. Cyprian " redivivus " would prove a terror amongst the independent bishops of the present day ; — Cyprian, who put down abuses in subordinate bishops with an iron hand, who excommunicated such as defied his authority, and threatened with like measures those who refused to accept the terms laid down by him— as, for instance, in the case of the " lapsi." Indeed, he was often accused of overstraining authority ; hence, in exculpation, he used words now twisted into a meaning contrary to his doctrine and practice. Hence " Some of the most brilliant German Protestant writers, such as Neander and Harnack, and, amongst Americans, Schaff, maintain That Cyprian's Teaching necessarily issued in the Papal and Roman form of Church government."— (R ivington's Prim. Ch., p. 48.) " Cyprian looked upon the Roman Church," says the Protestant historian, Neander, " as really the Cathedra Petri— (Chair of Peter),— and as the representative of the outward unity of the Church."— (Vol. 1, p. 299.) '6. A Small Proposal.— l agree with his Lordship that short extracts do not always give a grasp of the author's meaning. Hence, I would, in all respect, submit this proposal to him : Let him bear half the cost, I shall gladly bear the other half of printing and circulating gratis St. Cyprian's treatise on " The Unity of the Church "—a work very suited to our time— together with

some long extracts from St. Irenaeus on the point in dispute. I feel confident that such a little publication would be read eagerly by, and would do some good among, the congregations of St. Paul's, Dunedin, and St. Mary's, Invercargill.

' 7. Continued 111-treatment of Eusebius.— The Bishop says that the passage I quoted from the Chronicle of Eusebius, wherein it is expressly stated that St. Peter had been " prelate of the Church " at Rome, " is considered to be an interpolation " ! The lovely Littledale so considers it. Is it ? The passage is perfectly genuine, and well authenticated ; it is found in the original Greek fragments preserved by Syncellus ; it is found in the Armenian version ; it is found in the independent Synac version ; and it is found in the Latin translation by St. Jerome ! How unfortunate a thing it is for a man to have anything to do with that lovely Littledale ! The Bishop tells us that Eusebius's Chronicle is contradicted by many passages in his history. Perhaps so, when both are interpreted by persons who will not grasp their plain meaning.

' 8. Valesius to the Rescue. — By-the-hye, Sir, you remember that his Lordship introduced to us an old gentleman by the name of Valesius — a narrator of some " curious facts " about old engravings ; facts which did not turn out very propitiously for the Bishop. Now, had his Lordship taken Valesius a little more into his confidence, the old Gallican would have enlightened him considerably in the matter of understanding Eusebius. Valesius was endowed with an acute mind, and he used it much in the study of

The Ancient Fathers —of Eusebius especially. Hear what he says :— " We would observe that Eusebius never reckons the apostles in the" number of the bishops ; and, in fact, he has said already that Paul together with Peter had founded and planted the Roman Church, appealing to the words of Dionysius of Corinth, as, later on, he does also to those of Irenaeus. When, however, he speaks of the Roman Episcopate " (mark this) "he attributes it to Peter alone, as is clear from his Chronicle. It is thus too," (mark this also) " we must reconcile Irenaeus speaking of Hyginus (Adv. Haer., Bk. I. and Bk. 11l ,4) 'as holding the ninth place of episcopal succession from the apostles ' with what he says in Bk. 111., c. 3 ; since Irenaeus, in the same way as Eusebius, speaks of the Apostles Peter and Paul having both founded the Roman Church, though he does not reckon them in his catalogue of bishops. It is in a like sense that St. Epiphanius, treating of the heresy of the Cerdonians, says that Hyginus held the ninth place of episcopal succession after James, Peter and Paul. Now, should anyone maintain from this passage, that James was Bishop of Rome along with Peter, he should simply be laughed at And in the same way we may argue in regard to Paul " (111. 21). What a shame ! There is old Valesius, introduced to us by Bishop Nevill himself, turning round and laughing at his Lordship's interpretations !

' 9. Some Trilling Items — My letter should run to length too great were I to treat even briefly such petty points as the episcopate of Linus, " superstite Petro '' ; Tertullian's mention of the ordination of Clement by Peter ; the chronological mess made by the compiler of the Liberian Calendar, etc. To one who has any firm grasp of the literature of the subject these are no difficulties whatever ; they can be swept away like dust. Tl is Lordship just referred to the " Clementine Recognitions" as being responsible, however, for the universal belief that St. Peter had been Bishop of Rome. If his Lordship cares to enlarge upon those writings— no new matter with those from whom he gets his information— l shall undertake to show that the Clementine romance had about as much to do with propagating the belief under consideration as these, my letters, shall have to do with promoting Bishop Nevill to the Primacy of the Anglican sect in New Zealand

' 10. The Records of Councils.— His Lordship volunteered to quote the records of Councils for me ; he did so, as avo have seen, " with exhaustive effect " ' In the matter of Councils, he took, he thought, a pace with which I could not dare to keep up. " But the records of Councils— no, not these — I don't think he will quote these," said the Bishop. Well, now, I shall exhibit a few examples, mst to please his Lordship :— (a) The " acts " of the first General Council, that of Nice, are lost ; but the Council of Sardica, held in 342, and attended by more than 300 bishops, is commonly regaided as a continuation of that of Nice. This Council says in its third canon, repeated in the synodical letter to Pope Julius " This will seem the best, and by far the most fitting, if the bishops make reference from all the provinces 1o the Head — that, is the See of the Apostle Peter." Now, we must remember that those ancient bishops, assembled in solemn deliberation, knew what they were about They also knew the history of the Ch'irrh up to their time ; they had before them evidences of that history, since lost. Those old Fathers were not,

as some people, themselves not overburdened with cerebral grey-matter, would have us think, mere simpletons prepared to swallow any bolus presented to them. Yet they all admitted and declared the Bishop of Rome to be

The Successor of Peter, Peter's Roman episcopate must, therefore, have been regarded by them as a fact admitting of no possible question, (b) Let us come to the General Council of Ephesus, held in 431. The attending bishops were all Easterns, and not at all inclined to " obsequiousness " towards the Bishop of any Western See, no matter how great in itself. St. Cyril, of Alexandria, presided as representative of Pope Celestine, and the i^apal legates Arcadius, Projectus, and Philip attended to " carry into effect what we have before determined ; assent to whom we doubt not will be accorded by your Holinesses " tier of the Pope to the Council). The Fathers did assent and carry out the Pope's directions, " compelled by the sacred canons and the letter of our most holy Father and fellow-minister Celestine." They call the Pope " Bishop of the Apostolic See," " the successor and place-holder of the blessed Peter. . . who even until now lives and exercises judgment in his successors." These few extracts give an idea of the spirit running all through the " acts " of this Council (Hard. v., 1). (c) In the year 451 was held the General Council of Chalcedon, at which were present about 630 Eastern bishops— none of whom was likely to have been ignorant of the early traditions of his own Church, or to have been unduly biassed in favor of those of the Latin world. Yet the bishops of this great council, in their synodical letter to Pope Leo, tell him that by his legates he " had presided over them as head over the members . . . being appointed unto all men interpreter of the voice of the blessed Peter." When Leo's " tome " was read in the second session the Fathers unanimously cried out, " Peter has spoken these things by the mouth of Leo " ! (Hardouin's " Council," 11., p. 305.) I think. Sir, I am keeping up pretty well with his Lordship in the matter of quoting councils, especially when we remember his " ego krino," and his aibsurd mutilation of the sixth canon of Nice !

1 11. Compulsory Omissions.— The fear of exclusion from your columns, Sir, compels me to omit reference to the canons of the Western Councils, to the " acts " of the Popes themselves, to the declarations of great Fathers like Augustine and Ambrose, and to the teaching embodied in liturgies and hymns, etc. I have by me pages and pages of Greek originals testifying to the grand historical fact attacked by Bishop Nevill. I must also, out of deference to his Lordship, omit the learned conclusions arrived at by Protestant experts like Pearson, Cave, Lardner, Milman, Harnack, Schaff, etc. Of course, the great works of Catholic historians are out of court ; mere Ultramontane opinion, no matter how erudite, is not to be for a moment entertained !

' 12. Some Light on a Dark Corner.— Those who talk loudly of the pretensions of the Popes find apparent support in " the historical blank," to use an expression of Lightfoot's, beginning in the last quarter of the lirst century and extending on through the second. Those were days of direst persecution ; Christians hid away or went about in constant fear of death. The heads of the Popes were knocked off, during those times, in regular succession, by the swords of the Pagan legionaries ; vast numbers of Christians were put to death. That was not a time for exercising much authority or for making a display of it. On the contrary, men in high places hid away, for they were sought after particularly. That was not a time for writing books ; yet some were written, but nearly all have perished — (Lightfoot, " Hist. Essays.") Now the dark literary barrenness of that period is lighted up by

The Patristic Works and the ecclesiastical " Acta~" of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. These testify, constantly, universally, unmistakably to the Roman episcopate of St. Peter. The testimony of these must have been grounded upon the universal belief and testimony of the previous period. A grand universal effect must always owe its existence to an adequate cause. To say that this great Petrine fact, so intimately and actively intertwined with the entire growth and development of Christianity, with the spread of missions, the contest with heretics, the disciplinary legislation, and the doctrinal unfolding of the f'hurch— to say that it was based on an unaccountable second-century " figment " is to introduce historical scepticism and to subvert the principles on which the human mind acts and must act. Beside, let us not forget that fragments remaining from that dark corner confirm, as I have shown, the later teaching, and not one of them supplies a word against it. Still, the "historical blank," referred to above, affords a happy hunting-ground to faddists and theorists of all sorts from Straus and Baur to the " authorities " relied upon by Bishop Nevill.

1 13. " Catholicism " and Catholicism.— On the death of • the Pope some weeks ago his Lordship made the welkin of Otago and Southland ring with his challenge to all and sundry to controvert with him this Petrine fact. He has since strung together in your columns an immense quantity of words and words and loosely constructed paragraphs, but he has not, I submit, thrown one glimpse of light on the subject. The people of Southland are still 44 waiting," and the people of Otago are still " wailing " for his evidence, positive, clear, convincing. But he wound up his last long letter in, at all events, an edifying way— that is, with a •• hearty prayer " that the veil should fall from our 41 faces " so that we could all see the beautiful lineaments of his insular " Catholic " sect. It will, I know, take a good many " hearty prayers " from Bishop Nevill to make your humble servant set much value upon his Royal-Supremacy, Act-of-Parliament, rather manycolored affair. A recent scholarly Protestant historian, Mr. G. W. Child, tells us that the Church of England, having separated under its first popes, Henry VIII. , Edward VI., and Elizabeth, from the rest of Christendom, " became for the first time in its history a separate Christian community, of which little could be affirmed, but that, for the time being at any rate, it agreed with no other, that it retained

An Anomalous and Decapitated Catholicism, and that in practice, if not in theory too, it owed its doctrine as well as whatever of discipline it retained to its lay Supreme Head " (•* Church and State," London, 1890, p. 264).

' To this " anomalous and decapitated Catholicism " I prefer that Catholicism of which the great Augustine of Africa said, more than 1500 years ago : " The agreement of all peoples and nations keeps me there. Authority—begun in miracle, nurtured in hope, increased by charity, and confirmed by antiquity— keeps me there. The succession of bishops from the See itself of Peter (to whom the Lord committed the feeding of His sheep) down to the present episcopate, keeps me there. Lastly, I am kept there by the very name of Catholic, which, among so many heresies, that Church has, not without reason, alone held in possession. So much so, that though all heretics wish themselves to be called 4 Catholic,' yet when any stranger asks where the Catholic service is held no one of them dares point to his own church or house." And again : "I am held in the communion of the Catholic Church by the succession of bishops from the very chair of the Apostle Peter. . . . For if the order of bishops succeeding to one another is to be considered, how much more surely and beneficially do we reckon from Peter himself. . . And to Peter succeeded Linus," etc. (Ep. contra Man. and Ep. 53, G-ener. n. 2).'