STAND FAST IN THE FAITH

New Zealand Tablet, 9 October 1913, Page 3

STAND FAST IN THE FAITH

(A Weekly Instruction specially written for the N.Z. Tablet by ‘Ghimel’.) - THE ROMAN CHURCH IN ITS INFANCY THE COMING OF ST. PETER TO ROME—III We are not concerned now with the date of St. Peter’s arrival in Rome, the duration of his apostolic labors there, ,or the date of his death: all these points are still a subject of debate among scholars. The main fact is that St. Peter lived, taught, and died at Rome : this is the historical foundation of the claim the Bishops of Rome make to the Apostolic Primacy of St. Peter. Fortunately the fact of Peter’s activity and death in Rome is susceptible of strict and scientific proof: it cannot be denied without denying the best known facts of Roman history, and serious Protestant historians of to-day have ceased to deny it. The facts may be set forth thus : Writing almost undoubtedly from Rome, St. Peter ended his First Epistle in this fashion : 4 “The Church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth my son Mark (v. 13).” Babylon must be here identified with the Roman capital; since Babylon on the Euphrates, which lay in ruins, or New Babylon (Seleucia) on the Tigris, or the Egyptian Babylon near Memphis, or Jerusalem cannot be meant, the reference must be to Rome, the only city which is called Babylon elsewhere in Christian literature (Apoc. xvii, 5; xviii., 10) t (Oath. Encyc. xi., 749), St. Clement of Rome, writing to the faithful at Corinth in the year 96 or 97, says; ‘ Through zeal and cunning the greatest and most righteous supports [of the Church] have suffered persecution and been warred to death. Let us place before our eyes the good Apostles —St. Peter, who in consequence of unjust zeal, suffered not one or two, but numerous miseries, and having thus given testimony has entered the merited place of glory.’ He then goes on to connect the death of St. Paul (who certainly suffered at Rome) and of St. Peter with the memory of a number of elect who, in suffering martyrdom, gave a great example of courage ‘ amongst us,’ that is, among the Romans (ch. x). Something similar occurs in a letter written (before 117) to the Romans by St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. The venerable old man was being brought to Rome for martyrdom, and he begged the Roman Christians not to ask pardon for him from the Emperor; then he adds: ‘I beg [this of you], I issue no commands, like Peter and Paul; they were Apostles, while lam but a captive (Ad. Romanos IV). 'The meaning of this remark must be that the two Apostles labored personally in Rome, and with apostolic authority preached the Gospel there’ (Oath. Encyc., XI., 749). From the second century on, the witnesses speak more explicitly. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a native of Asia Minor, and a disciple of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, who in turn was a disciple of St. John the Apostle, passed a considerable time in Rome shortly before the middle of the second century. He tells us that ‘ Matthew edited a Gospel written in their own tongue for the Hebrews, whilst Peter and Paul were preaching Christ at Rome, and laying the foundation of the Church.’ (Testimony preserved in Eusebius, History V., 8.) Again he speaks of the Church at Rome as ‘ the greatest and most ancient Church, known by all, founded or organised at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul’: (Apt. Heresies, 111., hi). Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, writes thus of the Church at Rome in the time of Pope Soter (165-174) : ‘ You have therefore by your urgent exhortation bound close together the sowing of Peter and Paul at Rome and Corinth. For both planted the seed- of the Gospel also in Corinth, and together instructed us, just as they likewise taught in the same place in Italy and at the same time suffered martyrdom’ (In Eusebius’s Hist., 11., xxviii.). !

The great teacher at the famous school of Alexandria, Clement, writes thus towards the end of the second century, and writes, be it noted, on the strength of what he had learnt-, from tradition : ‘ After Peter had announced the Word of God in Rome and preached the Gospel in the spirit of God, the multitude of hearers requested Mark, who had long accompanied Peter in all his journeys, to write down what the Apostles had preached to them (In Eusebius, Hist., IV., xiv.). Tertullian, about the same time, says; If thou are near Italy, thou hast Rome where authority is ever within reach. How fortunate is this Church for which the Apostles have poured out their whole teaching with their blood, where Peter has emulated the Passion of the Lord, where Paul was crowned with the death of John (the Baptist ’ (O/?, Prescription xxxv.). Again, ‘The budding faith Nero first made bloody in Rome, since he was bound to the cross ’ (Scorjnoce, xv.). At the beginning of the third century, the Roman priest Cajus, could appeal confidently in a dispute with heretics to the tombs of the two apostles: ‘ But I can show the trophies of the Apostles. If you care to go to the Vatican [where St. Peter was executed] or to the road to Ostia [where St. Paul suffered], thou shalt find the trophies of those who have founded this Church’ (In Eusebius, His., 11., xxviii.). Eusebius himself refers to ‘ the inscription of the names of Peter and Paul, which have been preserved to the present day on the burial-places ’ at Rome. This documentary evidence is amply confirmed by that of numerous monuments in Rome, the most important of them certainly authentic, which preserve to our own day the memory of St. Peter’s coming to the Eternal City. Lanciani, an archaeologist of the first rank and a non-Catholic, sums up the position in his book, Fagan and Christian Rome ; For the archaeologist the presence and execution of SS. Peter and Paul in Rome are facts established beyond a shadow of doubt by purely (monumental evidence). . ‘ Must we consider them all (that is, those who erected these various monuments) as laboring under a delusion or as conspiring in the commission of a gigantic fraud.’ * There is no event of the imperial age and of imperial Rome, which is attested by so many noble structures, all of which point to the same conclusion, the presence and execution of the apostles in the capital of the Empire’ (pp, 123, 125).