CHAPTER VI

ORIGIN OF THE ROMAN CLAIMS

TERT

ERTULLIAN and Cyprian scorned, both in theory and practice, the idea that the Bishop of Rome was Summus Pontifex and Episcopus Episcoporum; yet there is no disguising the fact that the Church of Rome, almost from the very beginning, put forth claims to a certain superiority and primacy over all other Churches. The tone of the letter of the Roman Church to the Church of the Corinthians; the attitude of Pope Victor in the question of Easter; the strong words of Pope Stephen to St. Cyprian; the letter of Pope Zosimus to the African bishops; the proclamation of the legate Philip before the Fathers at the Council of Ephesus; and other documents down to Pope Gelasius, all go to show that Rome did not forget itself. I do not mention the texts of St. Ignatius

and Irenæus, because they are too obscure and uncertain to prove anything.'

The claims of the Roman Church were resolutely and constantly resisted from the very beginning, which fact should set Roman theologians thinking whether their claims are not, after all, rather of human than divine appointment.

According to me, the rise and further development of the Roman claims are due to the following causes:

1. In St. Matthew's Gospel xvi. 13-19

1 The words of St. Ignatius, #pокalŋμévη τîs ȧyánηs ("presidens in charitate"), if they prove anything, show that at the time of St. Ignatius the Church of Rome was famous all over the Christian world for her charity, a thing attested also by St. Dionysius, quoted by Eusebius, H.E. lib. iv. cap. xxiii. § 10. I say, if they prove anything, because the reading is very uncertain and the meaning obscure. Cf. St. Ignatius, Epistula ad Romanos; F. X. Funk, Patres Apostolici; G. Rauschen, Florilegium Patristicum (Bonnæ, 1904).

The same thing, and that with greater reason, must be said of St. Irenæus's text about the Roman Church. From Dr. Grabe to Dom Chapman, a host of learned men have attempted to fix a definite meaning on the famous text, and all failed; because the original Greek text of the saint is lost, the translation is barbarous, the reading doubtful, and the meaning very obscure. It is high time that Roman divines should cease quoting St. Irenæus's text in favour of the Roman Church. At the best it is worth very little. Cf. Opera S. Irenæi contra Hæreses, lib. iii. cap. iii.; Dissertationes in Irenæi Libros, pp. 219, 231 (ed. Migne); Dom John Chapman, Le Témoignage de St. Irénée en faveur de la Primauté Romaine (Revue Bénédictine, Février 1895).

and elsewhere-supposing these texts to be genuine, and not later interpolations, as some scholars are inclined to think-there is a real ground for a limited primacy, but of Peter over the rest of the apostles, not of the Bishop of Rome over his fellow bishops in Christendom. Peter was certainly among the apostles primus inter pares, but for the modern Roman claims there is no foundation whatever in that text. On the other hand, in the Gospels and Epistles there are other texts that seem to counterbalance more than half the weight of St. Matthew's text.

2. Connected with the famous text is also the inference that, as Christ in it blesses St. Peter and promises him a reward for his faith and confession, the effect of Christ's blessing and the reward can hardly be any other thing but the primacy in the Roman sense. This we deny. We must never forget that St. Peter, in the person of all the apostles, had already made a similar confession, long before the scene at Cæsarea Philippi : And we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God" (John vi. 69), a confession,

but are you

indeed, fuller and more emphatic than that at Cæsarea. Fr. Corluy, S.J., to solve the difficulty which St. John's text undoubtedly creates against Matthew's xvi. 16, answers in a twofold manner: "Perhaps," he says, "John's original text read, ori σù el ó xpiσTÒS å åyιos Toû PEOû, 'that Thou art the Christ, the holy one of God,' which is less than % o viòs rou (cou, the Son of God.” Certainly it is less, infinitely less; but warranted in making such a supposition? The good Father sees that, and therefore adds ; "Si præfertur lectio ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ admittendum est tunc temporis nec Petri nec ceterorum apostolorum supernæ Christi naturæ cognitionem tam plenam fuisse, ut eum unius cum Patre naturæ esse crederent."1 Admittendum est: it is to be admitted. Why? Because, otherwise, the force of Matthew's text would be too far diminished. The Roman theological prejudice must be held up at all costs.

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My answer is, St. Peter got his reward in being proclaimed blessed by our Lord; in being given the privilege of fixing, so to

1 P. Corluy, S.J., Spicilegium Dogmaticum Biblicum, tom. i. p. 37. Gandavi, 1884.

say, the formula and rule of faith, upon which, as upon a rock, Christ would found His Church; and finally, in getting the promise of the keys of the Church in a solemn manner, before all the other apostles, with a certain pre-eminence of honour among his fellow apostles. Is not this a magnificent reward?

3. Various historical circumstances combined in no little degree to bring the Roman Church to what it now is. The greatness of imperial Rome could hardly fail to give lustre, dignity, and power to the Church. resident within its walls. And so we find that already, from the beginning of the second century, the Church in Rome was greatly respected, respected, far-famed, very holy, charitable, and very rich. Later on followed the division of the empire into metropolises, in consequence of which, the Church also established its metropolitans, corresponding to the Roman divisions. Rome became one, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, others. Under Constantine the Great the empire was further divided into four patriarchates, which the Church immediately imitated, and the Bishop of Rome became