Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 17 April 1913, Page 21

Current Topics

St. Patrick and Rome /' A few weeks ago we made some casual comments in this column on the fantastic theory wmen finds favor in certain Anglican circles to the eii.eet that bt. fatricK. had no connexion with and did not acknowledge the authority of Rome, and that his Christianity was of an entirely non-Papal type and our remarks found their way into a controversy which has been going on in the columns of the Adelaide lieyisitr, which controversy was inaugurated by an Anglican clergyman, the Rev. W. IT: inter, B.D. Ids references to the Tablet paper which he has presumably never seen and his method of controversy generally are not remarkable either for manners or modesty. Sweeping assertion, and a lordly dogmatism and cocksureness which are entirely alien to the spirit and attainments of the true scholar, are his constant characteristics. Here is a specimen of his idea of controversial courtesy : ' The Tablet shows complete ignorance when it says that the non-Roman theory has been in existence tor only 50 years.' The Tablet said no such thing. What it said was that the theory had been '.flitting about on the field of polemics ' during the last fifty —which is an entirely different thing. There exists in London an organisation known as tne Fiat Earth Society, which disseminates literature for the purpose of proving that the earth is flat; and it establishes its thesis by the simple process of ruling out all the evidence on the other side. In his method of dealing with awkward statements Mr. Winter is a follower of the Flat Earth school of controversy. In his first letter he asserted very confidently that St. Bede ' does not mention ' St. Patrick. When confronted with our specific and fully attested quotation from Bede's Marlyroloyy, he calmly declares that the Martyroloyy is spurious—and triumphantly proves that the earth is Hat ! The Adelaide cleric is in error. The specific quotation which we gave from the Martyroloyium de iXafa/itiis Sanctorum is recognised as genuine not only by the distinguished Oxford scholar from whom we quoted, but also by that erudite investigator and brilliant Celtic philologist, Professor Zimmer, in his article 'Keltische Kirche,' in the llealeitcj/plopad-ie fiir Proiestantische Thtoloyie u. Kirche, 1901. ■* The Adelaide writer evidently found the two direct quotations which we gave from St. Patrick's sayings a difficult hurdle to negotiate. To the first—' As you would be children of Christ, so be you children of Rome,' he makes no direct reply. Nor could he, for the genuineness of this third Dictum, as it is called, of St. Patrick is, says the learned Hartmann Grisar, now recognised. The actual text runs: ' Aecclesia Scotorum immo Homanorum,, ut Christiani ita et Roman siiis ' ('The Church of the Scots— Irish—is a Church of the Romans. Be Christians, but in such wise as to be Romans also.') In regard to the second—the famous canon ordering disputes to be referred to the Apostolic See— Adelaide writer, still following the Flat Earth method, observes The Booh of Armagh was not written by St. Patrick at all, therefore a citation from it is not to the purpose.' Here again the Anglican apologist blunders. The Book of Armagh, besides containing the earliest and best authenticated Life of St. Patrick in Latin by Muirchu Maccu Machteni, contains also the Dicta Sancti Patritii, or brief sayings of the Saint, which are recognised as certainly authentic. The canon is given in two forms—the longer form (from the Book of Armagh) quoted by us, and a shorter form found in the Collectio Hibemensis Canonnm, which is of unquestionable authority and dates from the year 700 (Wasserschleben, 2nd ed., 1885). We may mention in passing that the theory that the word ' archbishop ' stamps the canon as a forgery is a pleasant invention of Mr. Winter's, which finds no countenance in scholarly works on the subject such as that of Professor Bury (1905), who deals'exhaustively with the whole question of the organisation

of the Irish episcopate.. Even Mr. Winter's great standby, the ultra-Protestant Dr. Todd, admits that the word 'archbishop' occurs in early Irish Church history, though not of course, in the precise and definite' sense which, it now has. /The actual text of the famous decree as given in the Hibemensis is as follows: 'Si quae (difficiles in three MSS.) quaestiones in hac insula oriantur, ad Sedem A postalicam referantw.' ('lf any difficulties arise in this island let them he referred to tne Apostolic See'). The Protestant Wasserschleben contends that the longer canon is the original. Others maintain that it is but a paraphrastic explanation of the shorter one, yet conveying its true meaning. But as Salmon {Ancient Irish Church) points out: 'As far as the Papal supremacy is concerned, the point is ,of no importance. Both canons involve that doctrine. Both direct that disputes be carried to Borne. One provides for a preliminary reference to Armagh ; the other does not. And this is the only difference, in substance, between them.' * The argument from silence is always more or less dangerous, but the use made of it by the Adelaide writer is a beautiful sample of logic gone stark mad. The argument from the silence of Bede fails, as we have seen, because there happens to be no silence. Equally, disastrous is the misguided attempt to draw an anti-Roman inference from the silence of St. Patrick's Confession as to his Roman mission. ' Can we imagine,' writes Mr. Winter, ' Cardinal Moran . or Archbishop O'Reily writing an account of their faith at great length, and answering objections against their mission, making no mention whatsoever of the Church of Rome or of the Pope. The thing is incredible.' The man who wrote that either shows ' complete ignorance ' —to use his own expression—as to the subject matter of the Confession, or he shows that there are few lengths to which he is not prepared to go in the way of misrepresentation. The full text of the Confession lies before us. It is. not, and was not intended to be, a set exposition of all the articles of Patrick's faith. Nor was it written to ' answer objections against his mission.' It is an almost entirely personal document, written as a reply to things that were said to belittle him personally. One charge that was brought against him was his lack of literary education. Another referred to the matter of a youthful peccadillo committed when Patrick was about the age of fifteen, and which was thrown up against him 4.5 years later when he was about to- be promoted to the episcopate. The two main objects of. the Confession are to vindicate his personal character against certain specific charges, and to exhibit the wonderful ways of God in dealing with his own life. He did not refer to the Roman mission for the simple reason that the Roman mission had' nothing to do with the subject he was writing about. . * Mr. Winter commits . himself to theories as to the ' anti-Roman ' attitude of St. Aidan, St. Columba, etc., that have long ago been discarded by scholars, and which could be easily refuted, did space permit, from the testimony of Anglican historians themselves. But this discussion with the question of St. Patrick's relation to Rome, and to that it shall for the present be confined. On this general question the following summary of the positionnecessarily condensedwill furnish a sufficient answer to the utter travesty of the facts presented by the, Adelaide partisan. (1) The learned Protestant writer, Dr. Whitley Stokes, in his edition of Tripartite. Life of St: Patrick (1., exxxv) says of St. Patrick : 'He had a reverent affection for the Church of Rome, and there is no ground for disbelieving his desire to obtain Roman authority for his mission, or for questioning the authenticity of the decrees that difficult questions arising in Ireland should ultimately be referred to the Apostolic See.' (2) Another Protestant authority, Wasserschleben, in his edition of the Tlibernensis (or eighth century collection of Irish canons), distinctly states that the ancient Irish Church was in unison with Rome, and acknowledged the Pope as its head (p. xxxv). (3) St. Patrick's canon regarding appeals to Rome was not alone known in the early Irish Church. It was acted upon. A conspicuous

instance of this is given in the Paschal Epistle of St. Cummian to Segenus, Abbot of Hy, in 634, published by the Protestant Archbishop Usher. Mr. Winter refers to the controversy which agitated the Irish Church regarding the proper day for celebrating Easter. In that epistle of St. Cummian, Rome is referred to as 'the place which the Lord hath chosen,' 'the fountain of their baptism and of their wisdom.' The Synod of Magh Lene in 630 despatched deputies to Rome as ' children to their mother 'says St. Cunmian, one of the Fathers of the Synod—' in virtue of the precept that if disagreement shall arise between cause and cause,' etc. The decision of Rome on the question was promptly adopted on the return of the deputies in or about a.d. 633. The primacy of St. Peter—which involves that of his successorswas clearly acknowledged, as Salmon clearly shows, in the early Irish Church. Thus the Bobbio Missal, an Irish manuscript of the seventh century or earlier, in one of .the Masses of his feast, declares that God had made" him ' the head of the Church after Himself.' In the ancient Hymnology St. Peter is styled ' the Supreme Pastor,' ' the Key-bearer,' the First Pastor,' and is addressed as 'ruling the kingdom of the Apostles.' Claudius, a ninth century Scripture commentator, says that he ' specially received the keys of the kingdom, of heaven, and the princedom of judicial authority,' and that all who separated themselves ' in any manner from the unity of his faith or society can neither be absolved from the bonds of sin, as such, nor enter the gate of the heavenly kingdom.' St. Columbanus, writing to Pope Boniface IV. in 613, refers Rome as 'the head of the Churches of the world,' ' th'e principal See of the orthodox faith,' and to the Pope as the Pastor of Pastors,' the prince of the leaders,' 'the first pastor,' ' the highest,' 'the greatest,' etc. (Migne's Patrologia). Mactheni's Latin Life of St. Patrick (seventh century) styles Rome ..' the head of all the Churches of the whole world.' A similar expression occurs in the Third Life of St. Patrick, as well as in the Fifth Life, by Probus—both of which are set down as tenth century compositions. The devotion of the early Irish people towards the Holy See, the pilgrimages of the early Irish saints to Rome, the papal character of the Christianity established by the Irish missionaries on the Continent of Europe and of the phurches in the neighboring countries with which the Irish people were in those days in constant communication, are matters that the limitations of available space forbid us entering upon. The ordinary reader will find sufficient to interest and instruct him in Salmon's Ancient Irish Church (Gill, Dublin, 1897), which proves incontestably in how thorough accord the early Irish Church was with us in its government, our principles of Church authority, our sacramental and penitential system, the use of holy oils, the invocation of saints, veneration of images and relics, fasting, praying for the dead, exorcisms, the use of blessed palms, incense, holy water, the sign of the cross, and all the doctrines and practices that are distinctly Roman. To this faith the Irish people have clung in sunshine and storm ever since St. Patrick's days. The present and continuous faith of Ireland is, as we have said, the best evidence of the faith which St. Patrick held. All the documents that have come down to us through the wreck of ages tell the same way—and that is in favor of the papal and Catholic character of the early Irish Church. J * After writing these lines we turned to the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and find that the results of the latest scholarship as there given entirely corroborate the position above taken. We quote a single decisive sentence. ' His importance in the history of Ireland and the Irish Church,' says the article on ' Patrick,' ' consists in the fact that he brought Ireland into touch with Western Europe and more particularly with Rome, and that he introduced Latin into Ireland as the language of the Church.' That should settle the matter. The choice is between the unsubstantiated assertions of the Adelaide . partisan on the one hand, and the measured utterance of the authoritative Britannica on the other; and intelligent readers

will have little difficulty in deciding which witness to accept. Evading the Issues The following reply to Dean Fitchett and others, which appeared in Saturday's Of ago Daily/Times;' explains itself :—' Sir,l did well to ask your readers to watch carefully the answers that would be given to the two questions which I submitted in your issue of April 5, and to note the unanimity with which the League apologists- would evade the point. The questions were quite simple, and, whatever else they were, they were plain and definite, so that for those who had ? any real answer to give there was not the slightest excuse for evasion. Mr. Braithwaite had asserted that the wonder is that any Christian should object ' to the League's scheme, and arising out of that assertion I asked these two questions: (1) Is it *a Christian thing to compel Jewish teachers, without the option of a conscience clause, to handle such lessons as." Gethsemane" (page 118 of the Queensland manual), "Christ before Caiaphas" (page 120), "Christ before Pilate" (page 121), "The Crucifixion" (page 123), etc., and to administer religious teaching of a kind which they have been taught from their infancy to regard as blasphemy against their God?' (2) ' Is it a Christian thing to compel Jewish taxpayers, by the strong arm of the law, to pay for the propagation of Christianity and of religious teaching which they believe' to be blasphemy against the God of their fathers?" The local secretary of the League who a few weeks ago huzzaed in your advertising columns for "liberty of conscience" preserves a judicious silence. Mr. Braithwaite discourses de rebus et omnibus— Bishop Moran, Bishop Cleany, the New Zealand Tablet, the Fifth Pacific Reader, Abou Ben Adhem, Home Rule, etc.,— gives not a single syllable in specific reply to my questions. The word "Christian" is not so much as mentioned in his letter. Incidentally, he shows his sense of honor and of the fitness of things by making an entirely false statement about myself evidence of its falseness being before his eyes at the time of his making it, and being again brought under his notice by me, —and by declining chivalrously to withdraw it, thereby discrediting both himself and the League which he represents. Dean Fitchett makes no reply at all to the second question, and tries to side-step the first by saying that under the League's proposals the teacher will give religious instruction only 'in the sense in which he is giving religious instruction now." I will have more to say on this point in my next two letters, when I will continue the series of communications on this aspect of the subject, which were interrupted by a temporary digression in answer to the letters of Mr. Barnett and Mr. Braithwaite. For the present I content myself ' with pointing out that Dean Fitchett's statement is, to use the mildest word available, not correct, and that to say. that a teacher who imparts the facts embodied in such lessons as "Gethsemane," "The Crucifixion," etc., is only teaching "ethics" is to trifle with the intelligence of your readers. In the meantime, until some better defence is forthcoming:, the statements implied in my two questions must standnamely, that, the League by its proposals, is prepared to compel Jewish teachers, present and future, few or numerous, to teach, and Jewish taxpayers to pay for, teaching which they conscientiously believe to be blasphemy. That, I contend, is simply religious persecution. * ■ With grave defects and blemishes staring us in * the face, we are invited to surrender our own judgment ; in regard to the League's scheme, and to take it on trust and on the testimony of outsiders. "The excellent record of this system in New South Wales," says Dean Fitchett, "has converted to belief in it . . . Tasmania, Western Australia, and Queensland." To begin with, this is not a correct presentment of the-position Take the case of Queensland as an example. I will give the final figures in connection with the taking of the referendum, and your readers shall judge to what extent that State has been "converted to belief in" the. New South Wales system. The number of voters on the roll

•was 260,009, and the voting resulted as follows:—Yes, 74,238; No, 56,681; informal, 7651; refused to vote, 121,449. Thus, nearly 48 per cent, of the voters refused to vote, and the proposals were actually carried by 28.5 per cent, of the possible voters. Those who were against the proposal and those who refused to vote totalled 178,130, or considerably more than twice the number of those who voted for the proposal. That is the extent to which Queensland has been "converted." 'There is a further and absolutely conclusive answer to this appeal to the alleged testimony of certain of the Australian States. It is found in the fact that the League proposals involve questions of right and wrong, of elementary morality and Christian principle, and in regard to these issues it is not only our right, but our duty as conscientious people, to judge for ourselves. Wrong does not become right even if the whole Australian continent gave voice in its favor, and in the light of this moral aspect of the movement the suggestion that the Australian experiment disposes finally of the question is seen to be as futile as it is weak. On these moral issues we can, and must, judge for ourselves. In this connection I submit two out of the many questions which must be faced and answered by the League if it is to justify its far-reaching demands in the eyes of fair-minded men. * ' (1) Is it morally right that objecting taxpayers should be forced by law to pay for the propaganda of Biblical and "general religious teaching" at variance with their conscientious convictions ? It is not a question of majorities or minorities; for if the conscience of the majority is to be the standard, then there is no such thing as right of conscience at all. It is part of the common teaching of Christianity that rights of conscience are rights of God, and that the rights of conscience of a minority are as sacred and inviolable as the rights of conscience of a majority. Presbyterians fling a glory round the memory of their Covenanter ancestors, who (they say) dyed Scottish hillsides with blood rather than violate conscience at the bidding of ruling majorities. At this very moment Nonconformists in England are allowing their goods to be distrained and sold rather than submit to the very form of persecution now proposed to be introduced into this country—that is, rather than pay taxes for a form of religious teaching in the schools to which they conscientiously object. Do their brethren in New Zealand care less for liberty of conscience? Are they prepared themselves to turn persecutor, and to throw their Christian principles to the winds?

* (2) Under the existing New Zealand law no one is compelled to conduct Biblical and “general religious teaching " of any —much less Biblical and “genera,! religious teaching" at variance with his conscientious convictions. The League proposes to make such religious teaching compulsory, by law, for all State school teachers, of any creed, or of none. The profession, by an overwhelming majority, have declared themselves opposed to the proposal ; and my question is, Is it morally right to coerce and force the consciences of the teachers ? Ten years ago the Bible-in-schools denominations with one voice answered no ; and declared that they would be no parties to such tyranny. At a conference held in Wellington four resolutions (afterwards endorsed by the Council of the Churches) were unanimously agreed to, and were submitted to Mr. Seddon with a view to securing a referendum. I transcribe the fourth resolution as it is given in your issue of May 2, 1903: “ That teachers who conscientiously object to give Bible lessons shall not be compelled to give them, and scholars whose parents have conscientious objections shall not be compelled to receive them.” The churches represented at this conference were the Anglican, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Congregational, Baptist, Primitive Methodist, and Church of Christ ; and the official report supplied to the press declared that there was the most absolute harmony and unanimity regarding the platform

adopted. If, then, it was' by- unanimous consent of the Bible-in-schoola Christians, morally wrong to fores the consciences of the teachers in 1903, has it become morally right to do so in 1913, and if so, how.—l am, etc., 'J. A. Scott. ' April 11/