> 3. 11. (4. . 
 
 BR 160 .R45 1896 
 Rentoul, J« Lawrence. 
 The early church and the 
 Roman Claim; lectures, in 
 
The Early Church 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ROMAN CLAIM 
 
 LECTURES BY 
 
 J. LAURENCE RENTOUL, M.A., D.D.. 
 
 Professor of N.T. Greek and Exegesis : and of Christian Philosophv. 
 
 (FoRMEi'.LY Professor of Hebreu' and O.T. Exegesis) 
 
 Orjiond College, Melbourne University. 
 
 IN REPLY TO ARCHBISHOP CARR 
 ON "THE PRIMACY OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF.'^ 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 WITH 
 
 COlV= 
 
 dttclbourne: 
 
 MELVILLE, MULLEN AND SLADE, 
 
 1896. 
 
MELBOURNE: 
 
 m'CARRON, bird and CO., PRINTERS, 
 
 479 COLLINS STREET. 
 
TO 
 
 AND TO 
 
 The Elders, Managers, and People 
 
 or 
 
 ST. KILDA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 (in which they were first spoken), 
 
 these lectures are inscribed 
 
 in token of 
 
 old friendship and sincere regard. 
 
 J. L. R. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In these Lectures our conflict is not with men, but 
 with opinions. Frankness of speech in vindication 
 of historic facts does not in any way alter the kindly 
 personal feeling I entertain for those from whom I 
 differ. 
 
 The Eoman Claim would ban out of God's fold, 
 and exclude from the brotherhood of the hope in 
 Christ, myself, and half of Christendom. It becomes 
 a Duty not to be shirked, in loyalty to Truth, and 
 to the Common Faith, to test the basis on which 
 such a claim affects to rest. This duty I trust I 
 have performed with candour. 
 
 The following pages are intended at once for the 
 ordinary reader, and also (by Notes and Appendix) 
 to aid those who wish to make a further study of 
 the subject. 
 
 J. LAUEENCE EENTOUL. 
 
 Ormond College, 
 
 The University, 1st July, 1896. 
 
FORE-WORD. 
 
 FOUR LECTURES. 
 
 H»»« < 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. — The Roman Claim, an]> Method : Peter and the 
 
 Rock - 16 
 
 II. — The Ro3Ian Legend of Petek— The Question and 
 Modern Scholarship. — Was Peter "Bishop 
 OF Rome?" 72 
 
 III. — Rise of a Sacerdotal Order in the Christian 
 
 Ministry ....... 103 
 
 IV. — Evolution of the Papacy: Its Early Stages - - 132 
 Appendix _.-_.---.- 183 
 
 Delivered on Sunday Evenings in the St. Kilda Ghurch, and Redelivered 
 in the Scots' Church, Melbourne. 
 
FORE-WORD. 
 
 TO CHURCHMEN: ANGLICAN AND NON- 
 ANGLICAN. 
 
 It was with much rehictance that I consented to 
 prepare these lectures, and to enter, for the first 
 time in my Hfe, into controversy with Eoman Cathohc 
 advocates. 
 
 The very large and representative audiences that 
 followed the lectures, and the many kindly communi- 
 cations received by me from all parts of Victoria since 
 their delivery, have touched and encouraged me. It 
 seems evident that the public sense has been revolted 
 by the sweeping claims and the assertions as to 
 history made during the last few years by Eoman 
 Catholic ecclesiastics, and emphasised in Archbishop 
 Carr's annual series of lectures, culminating in his 
 attack, last year, upon the English Bible and the 
 Keformers, and in his recent utterance on the 
 Primacy of the Roman Pontiff. Not the least cordial 
 and generous of the letters I have received have come 
 from clergymen and laymen of other Churches than 
 my own. The writers have been good enough to say 
 that I have not spoken as an advocate for my own 
 Church (however much I am personally loyal to her), 
 but in vindication of the basis of Scriptural and 
 historic truth on w^hich the early Christian Church 
 
6 FORE -WORD. 
 
 rested, and on which all the Churches of the Eefor- 
 mation rest still. 
 
 These lectures will, I hope, he found (especially 
 from Part II. of Lecture I. onward) a treatment possess- 
 ing interest quite apart from the temporary causes 
 which called them forth. The questions raised have 
 perennial claim upon all Christian men. Their im- 
 mediate occasion, however, was the course of six 
 lectures delivered by Archbishop Carr, of Melbourne, 
 on The Primacy of the Roman Pontiff — oddly enough 
 during the penitential season of Lent. An examina- 
 tion of the character of Archbishop Carr's dealing 
 with "the Testimony of the Fathers," and with 
 "Protestant testimony," and of his "quotations" 
 and representation of historical facts generally, in the 
 effort to present a plausible case for Papalism, will pro- 
 bably strike the intelligent reader with the impression 
 that the six lectures might fitly have been followed 
 by another and more adequate "penitential season." 
 
 The publication of large abstracts of my lectures in 
 the Argils and the Age led to a correspondence between 
 Archbishop Carr and myself. The one and only 
 statement of mine which Archbishop Carr attempted 
 to controvert was a mere side issue, viz., my criticism 
 of one characteristic illustration of his " quotations," 
 and what he termed " exclusively Protestant testi- 
 mony." In my first lecture I protested both against 
 his inclusion of Kenan in that category, and (still 
 more) against his drastic mutilations of the passage 
 he quoted from Eenan, so as to shape it into a 
 testimony for "the Koman Primacy." That brief 
 correspondence made, I have reason to know, a pro- 
 found impression all over Victoria with regard to 
 Komanist methods of controversy. (The full corres- 
 pondence will be found in the Appendix.) 
 
 I refuse to be diverted from the central and all- 
 important question by this side consideration. For, 
 
FORE -WORD. 7 
 
 I suppose, the public will agree with me that — even if 
 all Archbishop Carr's "testimonies" had been solid, 
 instead of mainly worthless or irrelevant or misleading, 
 owing to the use of ambiguous terms like '' Primacy," 
 or thrown out of line with their original context — a 
 mere array of names and opinions is a very secondary 
 and unimportant element in an investigation like 
 this. The facts of the New Testament, and of the 
 Apostolic time, the facts of chronology, the real facts 
 of history — these are the things which should be faced. 
 In the first letter of the above-mentioned corres- 
 pondence, Archbishop Carr promised, however, that in 
 " the book form " of his lectures he would "avail him- 
 self of the opportunity of developing (his) answers to 
 meet the special phases of the difficulties which have 
 been most recently presented." I replied : 
 
 "I shall be happy to examine the developed answers of the 
 Archbishop. I venture to suppose that they will require 
 development. For the difficulties which front the Archbishop 
 and his Roman claim are solid and unanswerable historic facts." 
 {Argus and A<je, 20th May.) 
 
 In " the book form " of Dr. Carr's lectures nothing is 
 more significant than the fact that the " developed" 
 answers have not arrived. He does not in the least 
 attempt to deal with the chronological facts I have 
 adduced, proving the " Koman claim" to be an historic 
 impossibility, and to rest on what is undeniably legend. 
 Hoiv Peter could he in two i^laces at the same time (which 
 supposition is necessary to the "Eoman bishopric of 
 Peter"), Archbishop Carr has not attempted to show. 
 How the Eomanist advocate can harmonize the facts 
 that Tertullian, in the close of the second century, 
 declares that Clement was first bishop of Kome,* and 
 that Irenaeus (Tertullian' s contemporary) declares 
 
 * Tert. Be Prcescr. Haer. 32. "The context shows that he did not 
 regard Peter as first bishop." — Prof. Bright, Roman See (1896), p. 11. 
 
8 FORE -WORD. 
 
 that Linns was first bishop of Kome ; this, or any 
 other of the many huge difficulties that beset even the 
 first steps of the self-contradictory Eoman tradition 
 (necessary to Papalism), Dr. Carr does not venture to 
 look in the face. His role is that of all Eoman 
 Catholic advocates — to shun actual facts of history, and 
 to pile together (under the Eomanist notion of the im- 
 pressiveness of " mitJioritij" and names) a mass of odd 
 *'quota.tions" from "fathers," and from "Protestant" 
 testimony. My readers will find this sort of thing 
 analysed in the cognate parts of the following pages. 
 
 Archbishop Carr must have a limited belief in the 
 intelligence of the public when he announces that the 
 views of his " new adversary" differ radically from the 
 views of "Anglicans" on "the primitive form of 
 Church government and the necessity of Apostolical 
 succession." This sentence resembles the rest of 
 Dr. Carr's controversial utterances. It derives its 
 only plausibility from the use of "amhiguous terms.'' 
 When I turn to my dictionary, I find that the word 
 "Anglican" means "English;" or, in a religious 
 sense, "a member of the Church of England." But 
 Archbishop Carr is always trying to use it, ivhe7i it 
 suits him, as if it meant what is known as " Anglo - 
 Catholic." When it does not suit him in this 
 sense then he uses it differently ; and, like the 
 other "ambiguous term," "Primacy/' this word 
 " Anglican" plays strange pranks in the Archbishop's 
 rhetoric. 
 
 Thus, in his fifth lecture, Salmon {i.e. Professor 
 Salmon of Dublin) is specially set amongst " Anglican 
 controversialists," and is accused by Archbishop Carr 
 of " downright dishonesty," and worse. Also, Bishop 
 Lightfoot is grouped amongst "Anglican writers ;'' 
 and Archbishop Carr knows very well that the views 
 held by Lightfoot as to the primitive form of Church 
 government are substantially identical with the views 
 
FORE-WOIID. y 
 
 set forth in my lectures, instead of being, as he tries 
 to hint, " radicahy different." 
 
 But that is not all. In his Lecture I., when it 
 suits his purpose. Dr. Carr denounces " the utterly 
 tin- Anglican and un-episcojjalian tlieory advocated by 
 Lightfoot." Poor Bishop Lightfoot ! Great scholar 
 as he was, he was not acquainted with the methods of 
 Archbishop Carr. Hence he supposed that the letter 
 of Clement of Eome " does not proceed from the 
 Bishop, but from the Church of Eome." That is 
 how Archbishop Carr expresses the great un- Anglican 
 sin committed by the late Bishop Lightfoot. And, 
 unfortunately, any of us, reading Clement's letter 
 from " The Congregation of God sojourning in Rome" 
 would fall exactly into the same "sin" of interpre- 
 tation into which poor Lightfoot fell. 
 
 But, as a simple matter of truth, to talk of an 
 " Anglican view " and a " Presbyterian view " of the 
 primitive form of Church government is to talk 
 absurdly. There are two now dominant "views" 
 amongst modern scholars as to "the primitive form 
 of Church government." The one may be called the 
 " Lightfoot view," held also substantially by such 
 scholars as Sanday, Westcott, Alford, Perowne, 
 Ewing, Eeichel, Moorhouse, &c., by Stanle}^ Arnold 
 of Eugby, Farrar, and a host of others. Are not 
 these good "Anglicans"? The view (expressed briefly) 
 is that, originally (as proven by the New Testa- 
 ment) " presbj^ters" and " bishops" were synonymous. 
 They were the same in function, and their ordination 
 the same. Then, gradually, one presbyter was 
 elevated above the others, or, as Lightfoot puts it, 
 "the episcopate was developed out of the presbyterate." 
 All these Anglican scholars have rejected, just as 
 utterly as I reject it, the figment of " the Apostolic 
 Succession." A great and sensible bishop, like 
 Lightfoot, knows too well within himself that, what- 
 
10 FORE -WORD. 
 
 ever else he is he is not an Afostlc. But if we hold 
 the Apostles' /a/^//, it is well! 
 
 Professor Sanda}^ of Oxford ("the later Lightfoot," 
 as he has been called) saj-s distinctly that the early 
 Church " passed through a Presbyterian stage," and 
 the acknowledgment of that and cognate facts ought 
 to be "the eirenicon between the churches." For him- 
 self he prefers Episcopacy, as in our days, he thinks, 
 " the more excellent way." He is quite free to that 
 opinion, and we to ours. But between him and m}'- 
 self there is no " radical difference" of an}^ kind as to 
 " the primitive method of Church government." 
 Nay, Archbishop Carr knows this very well. He has, 
 in past courses of lectures, declared that all the 
 Reformers who shaped the Pieformed Church of Eng- 
 land held that view. 
 
 The other scholarly view is called the Hatch-Har- 
 nack view. It is still more destructive of the earl}'- 
 Episcopal notion, and of the "Apostolic Succession 
 figment," than is the Lightfoot view. The early 
 ejnscojyos (bishop) according to Dr. Hatch's view, was 
 the man who was functioned to the oversight, in each 
 €ongre(iatioti, of the alms and charities and finance, in 
 connection with the weekly Lord's supper and Agape 
 (or love-feast). Hence he and the "deacons" were 
 associated. Now observe that this theory also was 
 set forth by an eminent " Anglican" (Dr. Hatch). It 
 was adopted b}^ the great Lutheran scholar, Harnack, 
 and elaborated with his wonderful ability and research. 
 The Presbyters were over the Episcopos ; the 
 Presbyters ruled the Christian communit}' ; "they 
 were the persons of authorit}" ; they were honoured 
 and obeyed." {See Clement of Piome.) Dr. Harnack 
 admits, however, that practically and frequently " the 
 functions of presbyters and bishops were not distin- 
 guished." And the "Lightfoot view" is certainly the 
 dominant view at this moment amongst scholars. 
 
FORE -WORD. 11' 
 
 Now look ! Both Lightfoot and Hatch were 
 "Anghcans." Nay more, Jerome, the authoritative 
 Latin " father," on whose labours Eome's Latin Bible 
 rests, says the same on this matter as Lightfoot 
 does. He asserts, as Dr. Carr well knows, just what 
 I have asserted, viz., that the early Church's govern- 
 ment was in each place " by a common council of 
 presbyters." Afterwards, in the epoch of the gnostic 
 heresies, one presbyter was lifted into a single 
 episcopos in each congregation or community. Then 
 the thing soon spread till the bishop became a great 
 fellow. Each bishop was called ''papa" (Pope). 
 Finally, one bishop in the biggest city became the 
 most bumptious bishop, and then claimed to be the 
 only "Papa" or Pope. Finally, he took the title of 
 the extinct pagan Koman high-priest, and called 
 himself Pontifex Maximus. This is the verdict of 
 history. 
 
 I notice, and it shows the unworthiness of Arch- 
 bishop Carr's attempt to confuse the public judgment 
 on this matter, that one of the most scholarly 
 Anglicans in Victoria, Canon Berry, the Bishop of 
 Melbourne's Examining Chaplain, has written a frank 
 and finely-toned letter to the Argus stating that he 
 and all moderate Anglican Churchmen would accept 
 the positions affirmed in my lectures ; further, that 
 the same position is substantiall}^ taken by Canon 
 Spence in his work on the recently discovered earh^ 
 Christian writing, the Didache f Teaching of the 
 Twelve Apostles J. ^ 
 
 One other thing I wish to say here. I call attention 
 in my lectures to the attack made by Archbishop 
 Carr on that noble scholar. Professor Salmon, whom 
 he accuses of "downright dishonesty." Eoman 
 Catholic advocates are angry at what Dr. Salmon 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 
12 FORE -WORD. 
 
 lias said about the early Eoman "lists," and also 
 about the "Clementine Eomance," viz., that an 
 early editor of it was the inventor of the legend of 
 Peter s Roman Episcopate. Archbishop Carr's attempt 
 to deal with this, and with Canon Potter's state- 
 ments on the same subject, are in my judgment 
 the most earnest attempt, to be met with in Arch- 
 bishop Carr's lectures, to grapple with a great diffi- 
 culty in a critical and historical spirit. It is quite 
 evident that Dr. Carr could write with effect if 
 he had facts to go upon. But here, again, as will 
 be evident from my discussion of the Legend of 
 Peter, the Archbishop has been misled by his very 
 untrustworthy Achates, the Piev. Luke Piivington, 
 and by the cross lights of an " ambiguous term," viz., 
 " the Clementine Piomance." 
 
 He quotes, and it is his one seemingly strong point, 
 from Harnack's recent work. As I shall show, he 
 quite misunderstands Harnack. The very words he 
 quotes might have guided him better. Harnack is 
 speaking of the Clementine writings " in the form in 
 which we have them.''' Bat Harnack, like Lightfoot, 
 Eenan, and many another scholar, has shown that the 
 Clementine writings, as we have them, rest upon much 
 older apocryphal irritings of the second century. And 
 in those there lies at least one teeming source of the 
 early legends about Peter. This will be seen in its own 
 place. In this matter Archbishop Carr does not shake 
 the substance of Canon Potter's argument: just as, on 
 Irenaeus, his elaborate discussion and quotations do 
 not impair the statement of Dr. Stacey Chapman.* 
 To m3^self who used to sit in the class-room of a great 
 German University listening to Harnack, with his 
 union of rare knowledge and genius for teaching, 
 Dr. Carr's use of him seems odd. 
 
 * The Alleged Papal Supremacy, 1895. This seems to have induced 
 Archbishop Carr's course of lectures. 
 
FORE -WORD. 13 
 
 •Just as I go to press my attention is called* to 
 Professor Briglit's latest book, The Roman See in the 
 Early Church. It is startling to find that the conflict 
 we are compelled to wage here is being waged just 
 now in England, and over just the same field. Pro- 
 fessor Bright is an outstanding man amongst the 
 *' Anglo-Catholics"' at home. Archbishop Carr, in 
 conflict with what he terms "Anglican controversia- 
 lists," has frequently quoted him with great gusto — 
 this "Oxford Eegius Professor." Now this scholar, 
 Canon Bright, has had to write his book mainly in 
 criticism of The Primitive Church and the See of St. Peter, 
 by the Eev. Luke Eivington, a convert from "Anglo- 
 Catholicism" to Eomanism. Mr. Eivington' s argu- 
 ments and "quotations," and "adventurous appeal," 
 as Dr. Bright calls it, bear the same general family 
 features as the modes and words of the various hand- 
 books and pamphlets now being pushed out in advo- 
 cacy of the Cathedra Petri, Prof. Bright points to the 
 very grave issues "raised by a publication which is 
 obviously part of a new Eoman campaign against the 
 English Church and the churches in communion with 
 her."t Here is how Bright apostrophises " the Eoman 
 spirit, when it absorbs all other considerations into 
 the supreme necessity of making out a case for 
 Eome": — 
 
 "You will therefore read that view into all yoitr documents. 
 You will assume it as in possession of the ground, and throw on 
 opponents the task of proving its absence. Whatever seems to 
 inake for it, yon will amj)lify ; ivhatever seems to make against it, 
 yoit tvill miimnise, or explain away, or ignore."l 
 
 On the next page he says : — 
 
 ''^ Loyalty to Roine will determine how much of a passage, or a 
 sentence, should he quoted in the text ; or how far the reader is to 
 be enabled by foot-notes to refer to authorities and to judge of 
 
 * By the Rev. Dr. Robinson, 
 t Bright, Roman See, p. 213. t P. 211. 
 
14 FOEE-WORD. 
 
 their accuracy * You will deal largely in assertion, and in 
 repetitif)n and reiteration of what has been asserted ; you will 
 not be afraid of paradox, in maintaining the geimineness of what 
 has iisvally been deemed sjyvrions, or the spuriousness of what 
 has usually been deemed genuine. You will uphold the majesty 
 of the Holy See with an air of superb confidence ; you will 
 apply to the defence of Papal authority the watchword of a 
 great revolutionist— '79e Vaudace, encore de Vaiidace, totijours de 
 I'aiidace.' Such boldness suits the Roman genius, and is tradi- 
 tional with those who have best understood Rome."t 
 
 Now, this is tolerably strong from a scholar whom 
 Archbishop Carr has been fond hitherto of quoting. 
 In my own gentler temperament I would not have 
 ventured upon it, though it seems justified by the 
 facts Canon Bright brings into evidence. 
 
 But what I quote it for is to emphasise the demand 
 that is upon all of us to-day if we but understand our 
 time, with the great world's need and sin-sickness 
 weltering round us, while Christ's living Gospel and 
 God's Scriptures are hid away from the eyes of men. 
 Eome dreams of reconquering England — and mainly 
 through a sacerdotal movement, gradually killing the 
 Protestant tone and faith within the bosom of 
 England's national Church. Every strong blow 
 struck by Archbishop Carr in his writings against the 
 Church of England and against Protestantism has 
 come weighted by the quoted words of some Laudian, 
 or non-juring, or " Anglo-Catholic" man within the 
 Church of England herself. And, meanwhile, " Anglo- 
 Catholics" are playing into the hands of Eome by a 
 theory of mediating priesthood, and a kindred theory 
 of the direct descent and inspiration of all bishops 
 equally as " successors of the Apostles" — a theory of 
 which the father was Cyprian of priestly North Africa 
 
 * I have had to spend days trying to put right the many utterly 
 erroneous foot-references on Archbishop Carr's pages. Many of 
 them are utterly wrong and unmeaning. 
 
 t Bright, Uoman See, p. 212, 
 
FORE -WORD. 15 
 
 in the third century. And whether one hold that 
 Cyprianite theory or hold the Papal theory, of which 
 the father was Leo I. of Eome in the fifth century, it 
 is essentially the same pagan theory — foreign to, and 
 lacking faith in, the all-sufficient high-priesthood and 
 accomplished sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord. It 
 is disloyal to His perpetual spiritual presence in His 
 congregation, in the hearts, wills, and lives of His 
 believing people. 
 
 That theory of a priestly caste in Christ's ministry 
 divides and distracts Christendom. I have spoken 
 these lectures in the hope of emphasising, and draw- 
 ing men's attention to, that which is the abiding 
 centre of unity for all the Churches of God. The 
 possession of that proves that there is far less disunion 
 between the Protestant Churches than is seen in 
 the Eoman Catholic Church herself, with her iron- 
 bound and authoritative external uniformity, and the 
 ghastly internal self-contradictions and changes which 
 have marked her tragic history. 
 
 Whatever may help to call us back direct to Christ 
 and His Apostles — John, Paul, Peter, and all the 
 men who bore His Evangel to the world — is said 
 well — whatever causes us to build simply upon the 
 one Petra, the one foundation set forth equally by 
 St. Paul, St. Peter, St. Stephen, and the early "wit- 
 nesses": — Christ, the Atoner, the life for men and in 
 men. Li this central substance of the living faith 
 there is no distinction between Presbyterian Church- 
 man, Anglican Churchman, Wesleyan Churchman, 
 and the Churchmen of God's *' independent" con- 
 gregations. 
 
 (Note. — I have been unable to use Canon Bright, save for a few 
 foot-notes, and one or two brief passages inserted in the final 
 revision of my Lectures. These I have marked in square brackets. 
 His Lecture on "The Reign of Elizabeth" is marked, unfortunately, 
 by strong "Anglo -Catholic" bias, e.g., his treatment of Grindal, 
 &c.) 
 
16 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD: 
 
 LECTURE FIRST. 
 
 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD 
 PETER AND THE ROCK. 
 
 "Paul, a servant of Jesa« Christ, called to be an apostle, 
 separated unto the Gospel of God, ... to all that are 
 in Rome beloved of God, called to be Saints : grace to 
 you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ."— 
 
 St. Paul's Letter to the Christians in Rome. 58 a.d. 
 (Rom. I., 1-7.) 
 
 " Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the Elect who are 
 Sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappa- 
 docia, Asia, and Bithynia."^ — 
 
 St. Peter's Letter to the Je^ visit- Christians scattered 
 through various Provinces in Asia, where his 
 ministry lay. (1 Peter I., 1.) [63-64: a.d., ace. 
 to Lightfoot ; 70-80 a.d., ace. to Prof. Ramsay ; 
 45 A.D. (! I), ace. to the Donay Version.'] 
 
 Part I. — Introductory. — Eome. 
 
 The city of Piome was not the cradle of civilisation or 
 of Christianity. But, as the capital of the ancient 
 *' heathen" World-Empire, and long afterwards the 
 central city of Western Christendom, Eome has left 
 her impress, for good and for evil, upon both civil 
 and Christian history. To all who have open heart 
 
PETER AND THE EOCK. 17 
 
 and eye for the tragic story of the human race, and of 
 the Christian Faith, that city of Italy by the yellow 
 Tiber will always yield a vivid interest. Amongst the 
 many features of that old-new city, fitted to arrest the 
 gaze and to set the mind a-thinking, there are two 
 which stand out now in startling contrast. They are 
 symbols of two antagonistic forces, whose conflict has 
 been from of old. They rise on opposite sides of the 
 river; and the stream of Time, turbid with its move- 
 ment, flows between. The one symbol is the palace 
 of the King of a free people, with, not far away, the 
 significant tokens of the Parliamentary Institutions 
 and popular self-government that attend upon National 
 order and liberties, and that brook dictation from 
 neither priest nor Pope. Near to it on one hand lie, 
 in the valleys and on the heights, the ruins of ancient 
 " pagan" Piome, the once metropolis of the world, in 
 their massive wonder of shattered and silent strength. 
 On the other hand and in far circuit spread the streets 
 and ways of the Modern City, like living arteries 
 through which throb the movement and energies of a 
 nation's life. The Christian King, Victor Emmanuel's 
 son and Garibaldi's friend, walks in the garb of a 
 simple gentleman along the Corso, or passes in his 
 unpretentious carriage, with no pomp of attendant 
 soldiery, a loyal King amid a loyal and enfranchised 
 people. Then, away opposite, across the flow of the 
 turbid Tiber, there rises on the view the other Symbol 
 — the Symbol of the dead and dying Past. It is a 
 huge dark palace, by a huge dark church, reached by 
 the slope which (as a brilliant scholar of our time 
 says) "the bad taste of the seventeenth century has 
 occupied with a theatrical arcade," known as the 
 Piazza of St. Peter. Within that palace, its ajD^Droach 
 guarded by rifle and bayonet, the aged Pope of Piome, 
 calling himself the successor of Peter the fisherman 
 of Galilee, and infallible Yicar of Christ, frowns from 
 
18 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 his sullen seclusion at the existence of the Christian 
 King and the freedoms of the new Italy, and dreams 
 of a restoration of the "temporal power of the Papacy" 
 over Emperors and Peoples. A once predecessor of 
 that Pope could march at the head of ruthless armies 
 with sword and flame, and crush his adversaries, or 
 could put a hostile King '' under the ban," or could 
 keep a Kaiser waiting barefoot and in sackcloth in 
 the snow, and finally could plant his foot on that 
 Kaiser's prostrate neck, pretending that the sub- 
 mission was "penitence." In a later century, an 
 Emperor and a great German Diet would have to 
 denounce "the power of the Pope as an Enemy of 
 Peace, and his interference ... as the act, not 
 of a Vicar of Christ, but of a cruel and lawless 
 tyrant."* But now, to-day, a Pope writes from that 
 Vatican palace impotent encyclicals to a Protestant 
 and amused England, consigning that sturdy Puritan 
 realm as "the Dowry of Mary" to the mercies of 
 St. Peter and of Mary "the Holy Mother of God." 
 Nor can "Peter's Vicar," with all his ban and 
 anathema, scare to-day even one wretched princelet 
 of Bulgaria to keep himself and his child loyal to the 
 Holy Koman Church, and to the " See of Peter;" not 
 even though that princelet' s heir be descended from 
 the blood of "most Catholic Kings." The day for a 
 Pope's banning of England's Magna Charta, the day 
 for Canossa, or for the threatenings of a Council of 
 Trent is past. To-day, the wholly different course 
 needs to be taken — it is needful to manipulate dexter- 
 ously the ambiguous term " primacy," and to strain 
 out of their natural meaning " the early fathers," in 
 order to get plausible apology for the beginnings, and 
 rise, and development of a Papacy of any kind. 
 
 Nevertheless, to that city of Rome the perennial 
 glamour clings. Not for its Pope and Papacy, but 
 
 * of. Gibbon, Meuzel, Milmaii Lat. Christ. Bk. xii., &c. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 19 
 
 for what is older and more abiding than its Papacy, 
 what was earher than its Popes, does the interest of 
 the student and of the man who has a human heart 
 gather round Kome. The great Pioman PiepubHc — 
 *' The parliament of Kings, the men of Rome" — whose 
 genius of practical state-craft and of conquering power 
 culminated in the Empire of the Caesars, worked out 
 into actuality the splendid dream of one world-wide 
 Eealm. It made the Christian hope of a brotherhood 
 of men possible. Though slavery weltered, as yet, at 
 that great pagan Empire's heart, yet the justice and 
 civil law of ancient Kome, abridged and arranged later 
 on by a Christian Emperor, have left their impress 
 upon the jurisprudence and life of all modern nations.* 
 But to the Christian thinker the city of Eome has 
 a yet deeper interest. It was by Eome's Procurator, 
 and by violation of Eoman law, Christ was sent to the 
 cross. Eome was at that time the centre and capital 
 of the civilised world. All movements of men, good 
 and bad, gravitated towards Eome. Early Chris- 
 tianity, which always sought the throng of men, soon 
 reached to the Empire's heart. On the tide of traffic, 
 which swept all things towards the great Central City 
 of the West, the message of the Gospel in Christ w^as 
 borne to Eome. Wandering Jews, like Aquila and 
 Priscilla, passing from city to city bartering their 
 wares, carried with them the new tidings which could 
 give Life to the dying world. 
 
 Paul in Eome. 
 
 The new faith and brotherhood of Christianity, 
 beginning at Jerusalem, soon broke beyond the 
 barriers of Judaea and of Judaism. It made itself 
 felt in all the great cities — in Antioch of Syria, in 
 Thessalonica of Macedonia, in Corinth of Achaia, in 
 Ephesus of Asia, in Alexandria of Egypt, in Rome of 
 
 * Prof. Bryce — Art. "Justinian," Encyc. Brit. 
 
20 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD I 
 
 Western Europe. Soon the great Apostle of the 
 Gentiles. Paul, set his thought on Eomeas the world's 
 centre of life and citizenship. He longed to come to 
 it, to carry out from that metropolis the evangehsa- 
 tion of Western Europe. As early as the year 58 a.d. 
 he wrote to the Christian congregation in Eome his 
 greatest epistle. That Church was already in vigorous 
 existence. No Apostle was at its founding. Three 
 years later Paul himself reached Eome a prisoner, to 
 be tried before Nero, the Emperor. Paul was the 
 first Apostle who set foot in Eome. There was no 
 Peter to welcome him when he came. Only three 
 years later the first terrible persecution — the persecu- 
 tion of the year 64 a.d. under Nero — burst out against 
 the Christians. It made Eome to be "filled with 
 the blood of the Saints and of the martyrs of 
 Jesus." To the early Christian imagination, Eome, 
 next to Jerusalem, soon came to have most tragic 
 interest. It was at once the forceful centre of 
 the world's life, and glorified by the memories of 
 faith's heroism and martyrdom. Paul himself, the 
 great Apostle-prisoner — even if set free from his first 
 imprisonment — certainly perished in Eome, under 
 Nero's axe or sword. Eor the moment, the Christian 
 " congregation" at Eome was swept away. When it 
 again began to gather back into Eome, the memory of 
 " the blood of the martyrs" was a quickening impulse 
 to a swiftly-growing Christian community. 
 
 The Faith of the Early Church at Eome. 
 
 But that was not the Church of Popes, or of priests, 
 or of prelates, or of altars, or of outer ceremonial. It 
 was the congregation of Jesus, the gathering together 
 of men and women in a living faith, which found 
 the heart, and then from the changed heart, in its 
 inner trust in Christ, changed the life — making its 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 21 
 
 spirit and conduct Christ-like. The faith and practice 
 of the Early Church of Eome in the Apostles' day we 
 find quite clearly set out in St. Paul's Epistle to 
 Eome, and in his Epistles written to other churches 
 from Eome. Here is that faith : — 
 
 "We are justified freely by His (God's) Grace, through the 
 redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be a 
 Mercy seat (or Propitiation), through faith by His blood to show 
 His righteousness . . . that God might be Just and the 
 Justilier of him that hath faith in Jesus." (Rom. iii. 24-26). 
 
 In that one sacrifice and righteousness of Christ for 
 us, the Apostle says, all other priestl^nnediationis ended 
 and done away. Here is the only priestly " service and 
 practice" which still continues in the Church of God : — 
 
 "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, through the mercies of 
 God that ye present your bodies a liviufj sacrifice, holy, acceptable 
 to God, which is your reasonable (rational or spiritual) service 
 (latreia, ministration of worship)," (Rom. xii.*) 
 
 And here, according to St. Paul, is the inner motive 
 and state of heart which constitutes men members of 
 the Kingdom and Church of God, and renders their 
 prayer and gratitude and purity of life tJic only true 
 priestly " service" which (jod will accept: — 
 
 "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are Sons of 
 God." (Rom. viii. 14-15.) 
 
 In all the w^ritings of Paul, to Eome and from 
 Eome, there is not a trace of what is now known to 
 the w^orld as " Eoman Catholicism." The two are in 
 direct antagonism — Paul and "Eome." There is 
 nothing more tragic in history than this fact, which a 
 study of the New Testament makes certain, that the 
 thing Eoman Catholic ecclesiastics hate with a fierce 
 hatred, and which they condemn as "Protestantism," 
 
 • A service to God such as befits the reason, as contrasted with 
 dumb and dead Jewish or heathen sacrifices, or ritual ceremonial. 
 — Prof. Sanday, Lightfoot, Meyer, Thayer's Grimm, &c. 
 
2-2 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD I 
 
 is just the thing set forth in St. Paul's letter to the 
 Romans as the Gospel that saves men. Very strik- 
 ingly does even M. Kenan, a brilhant modern scholar, 
 educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood, but re- 
 coiling from it into scepticism, confess that the 
 Roman Church afterwards ''arrived at ideas which 
 iuonld have revolted Paul.'' More strikingly still does 
 he speak of that characteristic feature which has 
 marked the history of the Roman Church, the "ascetic 
 and sacerdotal character opposed to tUe Protestant 
 tendency of Paid.'" Penetrated with the "political 
 and hierarchial spirit of old Rome," the old Rome of 
 the Pagan Empire, " the city of the pontificate, of a 
 hieratic and solemn religion, of material sacraments 
 alone sufficient for justification'' — in vain Paul speaks 
 to her! 
 
 "In vain will Paul address to her his noble Epistle, expound- 
 ing the mystery of the Cross of Christ, and Salvation by faith 
 alone. She will hardly understand it. But Luther, fourteen 
 centuries and a-half later, will understand it."* 
 
 I have quoted these words from Renan, whose 
 faith in Christ Rome's training killed, because Arch- 
 bishop Carr has, as we shall see, appealed in singular 
 fashion to him as " testimony" for the ancientness 
 and solidity of the Roman claim ; and because, also, 
 the words themselves, in their truth and exactitude 
 have, as coming from a man like Renan who knew 
 Roman Catholicism from the inside, a touching and 
 tragic impressiveness. 
 
 In Rome, the material capital of the ancient world, 
 the centre of forceful authority, the embodiment of 
 the fusion of imperial and priestly rule, the city where 
 the Pagan Emperor was also Pontifex Maximus (Chief 
 Pontiff), the Christian faith and Church soon became 
 a politico-religious force, all unlike in spirit and aims 
 
 * Kenan's Hibbert Lectures, p. 60. Consult also pp. 59-172, etpassim. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 28 
 
 to what Christ had proclaimed as the spirit and 
 method of His Kingdom. Not one of the martyrs, 
 who died in the flames of Nero's gardens in Kome in 
 the year 64 a.d. (could they revisit om* earth to-day), 
 would be able to recognise in the externalism of this 
 Roman Catholic liierarch}^ doctrine, and worship — in 
 the " sacrifice of the Mass," the compulsory confes- 
 sional, the images, the mariolatry, the indulgences, 
 the purgatory, the claim made for a sinful man of 
 infallibility as Christ's Vicar on earth — any resem- 
 blance to the faith for which those early martyrs 
 died, or to the simple forms of worship in which that 
 faith expressed its aspiration and its " service." 
 
 " Made Void by Tradition." 
 
 And yet here is a tragic thing ! Away in, under- 
 neath all that external growth of priestly invention 
 and of ecclesiastical state-craft, there lies, hidden out 
 of view of the people, that truth of the Divine love 
 and of a redeeming and living Christ, which could 
 save and regenerate the nations, were it not " made 
 void by traditions of men," and by unwholesome 
 legends of " saints." The noblest hymns of both the 
 Greek Catholic and the Eoman Catholic Churches, 
 those which express the Christian heart's devotion at 
 its highest, are singularly free from any of those 
 accretions either of doctrine or worship which 
 form the characteristic substance of "Catholicism," 
 whether Greek or Roman. Eminent men of our 
 time have pointed out this great fact. What the 
 Reformers brought to light again, and vindicated 
 for God's modern Church, was what had lain at 
 heart of the purest and greatest souls of the con- 
 gregation of Christ in all the ages. This is the 
 "unity and continuity of the Church" — the life of 
 Christ in man. It is not the things for which Arch- 
 
 c 2 
 
24 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD: 
 
 bishop Can- contends, or for which Anglo-Catholics 
 contend, that the great illumined souls of all the 
 Christian ages and Churches have vibrated to, and 
 liave uttered into undying beauty of devotional song 
 and gratitude. It is the Evangelic, the Protestant 
 heart of the Faith, that speaks in the greatest hymns 
 even of Eoman Catholic singers. Not Peter's primacy, 
 nor any priestly claim, nor any " sacrifice of the 
 Mass," nor Mary's intercession, nor " saints' merits" 
 voice themselves there, but the soul's direct living 
 trust in God's fatherly mercy, and in Christ's re- 
 deeming love and High Priesthood, and in the in- 
 dwelling of His Spirit within the hearts of believing 
 men. The great Pieformers re-discovered this central 
 and life-giving truth of Christianity. They lifted it 
 up again before men's gaze, bidding them come in 
 their need and sin and penitence direct to Christ him- 
 self. And they made thus the modern world and the 
 people's freedoms. They brought back into our life 
 the faith and the Gospel which the Apostles preached, 
 and for which the early martyrs in Eome died. 
 
 The Eeason foe these Lectures. 
 
 Eeligious controversy is personally distasteful to 
 me. Unless absolutely necessary it should be avoided. 
 It frets awa}^ time : and time with some of us is toil- 
 some and precious. It is mere folly, however, to say 
 that " controversy is always injurious." History 
 gives that assertion splendid disproof. Controversy, 
 when waged by true-hearted men, with rightful 
 weapons of truth and argument, and for worthy 
 causes, has been fruitful of great results. Every 
 great epoch, religious, scientific, or political, has been 
 an epoch of controversy. The Eeformation day, the 
 Puritan day, the day of Wesley's and Whitefield's 
 rousing of England into new spiritual life, the day of 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. .25 
 
 modern missionary outburst and self-sacrifice — all 
 these have been days in which men of strong intellect 
 and spiritual elevation strove together for the faith of 
 the Gospel, and for the good of the peoples. Let the 
 heat of the conflict's temper be avoided; let the 
 conflict itself be waged ! For what is at stake is 
 truth. The indifferent souls will grow eager and 
 vehement at least when the question is a disputed 
 "legacy" or "a boom in stocks!" They, too, will 
 "contend" when the question is about the things of 
 the pocket and the till, "the things of self." Christ's 
 own ministry was often "a controversy," weary and 
 hazardous — Paul's too, and even Peter's. He with- 
 stood the Judaeizers at Jerusalem. Paul withstood 
 Mm at Antioch ! 
 
 Yet I dislike controversy. It is, for the most part, 
 the love and the life and the character of churches 
 and of men that tell on the world, rather than 
 argument. Also, there are good and there are bad 
 in the best and in the worst churches. To myself, 
 especially, argument with Eoman Catholics is dis- 
 agreeable, because of kindly memories which lie in 
 the' [background of my life. Till now I have never 
 publicly taken part, in pulpit or on platform, in such 
 controversy. 
 
 The New Eomanist Propaganda. 
 
 Of late, however, under the regime of Cardinal 
 Moran in Sydney and of Archbishop Carr in Melbourne, 
 the peaceful manner of the late Archbishop Goold 
 seems to have been deliberately abandoned. There 
 seems like a trumpet-blast along the whole Eomanist 
 line. Of late Archbishop Carr has persistently 
 launched forth, not only against his "Anglican" 
 antagonists, but against the positions common to all 
 Protestant Churches, not excepting " the Protestant 
 
26 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD: 
 
 Bible" from his attacks. He has also implicitly 
 assailed myself, though I had, in word or act, given 
 him no ground for reasonable annoyance. My sin 
 apparently was that I attended a " British and Foreign 
 Bible Society" meeting.* Archbishop Carr has further, 
 in recent courses of lectures, made for his own Church 
 (which is at best but a section of Christendom, and 
 never was, even in its most potent days, aught but an 
 organisation in Western Europe) such sweeping 
 claims that all of us should be unchurched and 
 un-Christed did we assent to those truculent demands. 
 In presence of such claims, all who care for the 
 spiritual heritage of Christendom find their judgment 
 and common sense challenged. And all who prize the 
 accuracy of historic facts must feel revolted by the 
 strange assertions, and the equally strange "quota- 
 tions," by which Archbishop Carr has sought to 
 buttress his positions. When, therefore, I was urged 
 from various quarters to speak on this subject, I could 
 no longer refuse. 
 
 The Eoman Claim. 
 
 Bellarmine, the authoritative Eoman Catholic 
 theologian, defines the true Catholic Church as con- 
 sisting of all those, and of those only, who (1) profess 
 the true faith, (2) partake of the true sacraments, and 
 (3) subject themselves to the rule of the Pope of Kome 
 as head of the Church ''even though they may be 
 false, wicked, and impious" {ctiamsi rcprohl scelesti et 
 impii sint). This definition of the "Holy, Catholic, 
 Apostolic, and Eoman Church" obliterates the divine 
 distinction between the Church visible and the Church 
 invisible and spiritual, and makes the Church and 
 Kingdom of Christ as external, "visible, and palpable" 
 as is "the Kingdom of France or the Eepublic [of the 
 
 * See his lectures on " The Church and the Bible." 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 27 
 
 Venetians."* It excludes out of God's Church, and 
 out of the pale of salvation, not only all the Reformation 
 Churches and all Protestant peoples, but also the 
 whole Greek or Eastern Catholic Church. For the 
 Eastern Catholic Church, though holding substantially 
 the same faith as the Roman communion, and ob- 
 serving "the seven sacraments," rejects the supremacy 
 and authority of the Pope, and denies him to be the 
 successor of Peter, declaring that ^^ Peter's apostolic 
 activitij in Rome is unknown to history." f The Romish 
 definition of the Church thus seeks to exclude out of the 
 pale of the Church of God, roughly speaking, the half 
 of Christendom, with the majority of its most en- 
 lightened nations. We shall see, in our fourth lecture, 
 that Leo I., "the father of the Papacy," took the same 
 dreadful view in the fifth century, consigning to hell 
 those who do not assent to the primacy of the Bishop 
 of Rome. 
 
 Archbishop Carr, in his recent Lectures, takes the 
 same ground. He says : — 
 
 "Catholics then maintain (1) that St. Peter was invested by 
 Christ with supreme authority over His church ; (2) that St. 
 Peter finally fixed his see in Rome ; (3) that the Roman Pontifis 
 are the successors of St. Peter in the see of Rome." 
 
 He boldly declares that this "primacy" does not mean 
 any mere primacy of honour — " a first amongst his 
 equals" — but an absolute "supremacy," a "supreme 
 authority" — "authority to teach, to rule, and to 
 correct." Further, "the limits of that authority are 
 as wide as the Church of Christ upon earth." He 
 further quotes and affirms the words of the Canon of 
 the Vatican Council — words which, in common with 
 the whole dogma of " infallibility," must, to the Pro- 
 
 * De Cone, et Ecc, lib. ill., cap. 2. 
 
 t See Declaration of the Greek Catholic (or Orthodox) Bishops 
 in Replj^ to the Pope's Encyclical (1895). 
 
28 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD: 
 
 testant reason and conscience, in the light of the New 
 Testament Gospel, sound as a foolish blasphemy : — 
 
 "If anyone say . . . that the Roman Pontiff is nob the 
 successor of Blessed Peter in the same primacy lei him be 
 anathema." 
 
 This is a large claim ! If it had power, it would be 
 a ferocious claim. And, as I and all of us utterly 
 reject it, we must run the gauntlet of that now futile 
 "anathema." To all those three huge propositions 
 of ArchbishoiD Carr, and of his church, we answer that 
 the facts of history and of Scripture comj^el us to 
 reject them as without basis in truth, and as essentially 
 foolish in substance. Christ did not invest St. Peter 
 with any " supreme authority over His church." Both 
 Peter himself and Paul declare just the opposite. St. 
 Peter had never any " see" in Kome, probably never 
 was in Eome, or in Europe anywhere. And the Eoman 
 Pontiffs are in no way " the successors of St. Peter in 
 the see of Eome." They are, as a matter of historic 
 fact, the successors of a long line of despotic priestly 
 politicians, many of whom were amongst the worst 
 figures in human history.* 
 
 Archbishop Carr's " Proofs" and " Testimony." 
 
 In support of his three propositions one naturally 
 asks what j^'^'oof does Archbishop Carr give? On 
 examination of his Lectures, we find that the ''quota- 
 tions" he gives are many, but the proofs are sadly 
 few. The attempts at "proof" are amusingly irrelevant. 
 Archbishop Carr's method of argument must, to any 
 one accustomed to the laws of evidence, seem extremely 
 odd. But it is the method of "Eoman Catholic 
 controversy" to pile together a great number of 
 names and of "quotations" from various "Protestant" 
 
 * of. Gibbon, Milman, Menzel, Hallam, &c.; even frank Roman 
 Catholic writers abundantly confess to this. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 29 
 
 writers, and to read these out one after the other, torn 
 from their context, and irrespective of age, or century, 
 or vakie, as if this in some way strengthened the 
 Archbishop's propositions. Archbishop Carr's first 
 two lectures, for example (if we except their references 
 to two "fathers," Clement and Irenaeus), are taken 
 up almost wholly with the "padding" of fragmentary 
 passages, forming what he is pleased to term "exclu- 
 sively Protestant testimony." When one asks — 
 "testimony" in favour of what? and when one begins 
 to examine the so-called "testimony" itself, the result 
 is like Eosalind's chin — "indifferently furnished." 
 Most of the names quoted are either (1) so antiquated 
 that they have no weight in our modern day of exact 
 historic criticism; or (2) the "quotations" attached 
 to the names have no relevance to the positions Arch- 
 bishop Carr is trying to establish, but rather support 
 the contrary; or (3) the professed "quotations" them- 
 selves are so completely torn away from their original 
 ■context, or are so mutilated and altered in their inner 
 substance that they convey to the general hearer or 
 reader almost the opposite of the original meaning. 
 Some of these instances are very venturesome and 
 astonishing. [For Archbishop Carr's " quotations" 
 and " Protestant testimony" see Appendix I.] If 
 wit be " the juxta-position of the incongruous," 
 then the topsy-turvy array of undated and obsolete 
 names adduced by Dr. Carr's "testimony" is wit of 
 a brilliant quality! When Archbishop Carr does 
 condescend upon a few modern names, of com- 
 manding importance in the historic investigation 
 of these subjects, such as Lightfoot, or Lipsius, or 
 Harnack, or Eenan, or when he appeals to an influen- 
 tial modern writer like Farrar, not one of those men 
 <;an be got to say any of the three things — the three 
 propositions — which Archbishop Carr's lectures took 
 in hand to establish. Three of those scholars, 
 
30 THE ROMAN CLAIIM AND METHOD I 
 
 viz., Lightfoot, Eenan, and Farrar, express the 
 opinion that Peter probably visited Eome for a few 
 months at the time of Nero's persecution and died 
 there. Lipsius, as we shall see, declares, on the 
 strongest ground of historical fact, that Peter never 
 was in Eome at all. Harnack, as we shall see, 
 suspends his judgment. But all of them, with one 
 voice, reject as impossible the entire chronological 
 theory on which the "Eoman claim" rests. They 
 resject utterly what Archbishop Carr asserts, viz., that 
 Peter "founded the Church in that City of Eome;" 
 or that at any time " St. Peter was invested b}^ Christ 
 with supreme authority over his Church." 
 
 Mutilation and Misquotation. 
 
 During the perusal of Archbishop Carr's lectures I 
 have been persistently forced to ask myself two ques- 
 tions — (1) Has he really read the books from which 
 he professes to quote, so as to know the context of 
 the passages "quoted?" Or (2) is not the kindlier 
 explanation the true one, viz., that the Archbishop is 
 culling from the various "Hand-books" of "Catholic 
 Controversy" written in defence of the Cathedra Petri^ 
 the characteristic "quotations" which form the sub- 
 stance of all of them, without having the opportunity 
 to compare them with the original? This latter 
 explanation has seemed to me both the more gentle 
 and the more feasible. [The methods of " quotation" 
 adopted in Eoman Catholic Controversy Canon Bright, 
 of Oxford, has recentty hit off by the striking phrase 
 "to Vatkanise' history. "Loyalty to Eome," says 
 he, "will determine how much of a passage or a 
 sentence should be quoted in the text."*] 
 
 * The Roman See, p. 212. This has been read by me since the 
 delivery of my lectures. 
 
peter and the rock. 31 
 
 The Eomanist Method of Advocacy. 
 
 I am exceedingly sorry to have to refer to this 
 peculiarity of Eoman Catholic Advocacy. I will take 
 at present only a few of the startling instances in 
 Archbishop Carr's Lectures. I feel the more free to 
 speak of it because, in connection with one amazing 
 "quotation" purporting to represent Bishop Light- 
 foot's statement regarding L-enaeus and the early 
 "lists" of bishops of Rome, Archbishop Carr does 
 much more than simply make Lightfoot appear as 
 saying the opposite of what he meant to say. To 
 render the thing more impressive he eulogises Light- 
 foot at the expense of Professor Salmon, of Dublin, 
 and the Rev. F. Puller and other "Anglican contro- 
 versialists," and actually accuses the latter of "down- 
 right dishonesty," both a " suggestio falsi' ' and a 
 '^ suppressio vert,'' and of a deliberate ignoring of the 
 facts ! It is very bad, all this. And I can account 
 for it only on the supposition that Archbishop Carr 
 had not Lightfoot in his hands, but took the repre- 
 sentation of his statement on the authority of others. 
 
 Professor Salmon's name, I need scarcely say, is 
 (and will always be) a word of honour and renown to 
 Dublin's great University, and to its Schools of Clas- 
 sical, of Mathematical, and of New Testament learning, 
 with which its fame is inseparably associated, and in 
 all of which his singular ability has been jDroven. He 
 is not only of world-wide reputation as an expert in 
 these questions which lie close to his special chair of 
 New Testament teaching, but he is trusted for his 
 unswervingly fair, and judicial temper. In many 
 matters I do not agree with Professor Salmon. But 
 all of us, in all Churches, who are special students of 
 Biblical and Early Christian learning, owe to him a 
 debt of reverence. That Archbishop Carr could per- 
 mit himself to apply such epithets to such a man, and 
 
32 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD: 
 
 at a time when he himself is just about to misquote 
 and misrepresent another pre-eminent scholar, viz. 
 Bishop Lightfoot, only shows that the Eoman Catholic 
 Claim, at these crucial points of Early Christian his- 
 ory, is anything but strong.* 
 
 [ 
 
 Dr. Carr on Lightfoot and Irenaeus. 
 
 I will put in parallel columns what Archbishop Carr 
 asserts Lightfoot says about Irenaeus' ''list" of the 
 
 early Koman "bishops," and what Lightfoot says 
 himself. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 Carr on Lightfoot. Lightfoot Himself. 
 
 "I cannot pass from these "It will thus be seen that 
 
 lists of the first Popes without Irenaeus, in the passage 
 
 23rotesting against the down- quoted, separates the Apostolic 
 
 right dishonesty of Anglican fouiulers of the Roman Church 
 
 controversialists, such as Sal- from the bishops, and begins the 
 
 nion and Puller, who delibe- nnmher'DUf of the latter vrith 
 
 rately ignore the character of Linus. Accordingly, elseAvhere 
 
 the list of St. Hegesippus and (iii. 4-3), he describes Anicetus 
 
 the twofold enumeration of St. as the tenth bishop ; but in two 
 
 Irenaeus. Such a suptpressio other places (H(er. i. 27 I, iii. 
 
 veri is more than a stiggestio 4-3), speaking of Cerdon, he 
 
 falsi. Amongst Anglican wri- says that this heretic appeared 
 
 ters, however. Bishop Lightfoot in Rome in the time of Hyginus, 
 
 is a remarkable exception, and whom he describes as the 
 
 * The passages which follow, down to the M^ords "The above 
 instances," on page 39, and included in square brackets, were not 
 spoken in full when this lecture was delivered. The matters dealt 
 with need the eijc to discern clearly the details of the misquotations 
 here censured. The general facts of the misrepresentation regard- 
 ing Lightfoot, Irenaeus, Ignatius, and Cyprian, were simply stated 
 rapidly. Then I passed on to take in detail one only of Dr. Carr's 
 " quotations," viz., that from Renan, "as a sample of alU' In view 
 of the additional matter introduced into the Archbishop's published 
 Lectures, with the additional amazing "quotations " there, I deem 
 it better to set these passages in their proper place in the text of my 
 lecture. The " quotations " have been compared in each case with 
 the published form in Dr. Carr's lectures. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 
 
 33 
 
 ' ninth ' in the episcopal suc- 
 cession from the Apostles, 'the 
 ninth bishop. ' Here, therefore, 
 if the readinys he correct, either 
 the Apostolic founder or foun- 
 ders must have been included 
 in the enumeration, so that 
 Linus would be the second 
 bishop, or tliere tnnst be some 
 accidental tripimig i)v the num- 
 ber." — Lightfoot, Clement of 
 Jiome, vol. i., p. 204. 
 
 I gladly acknowledge the fact. 
 Thougli his conclusions are 
 sometimes in strange conflict 
 with his premises, still he never 
 suppresses any important fact 
 connected with his subject. 
 For instance, lie admits that 
 all author Hies '"'' are agreed as to 
 the authetdicitij of St. Irenaeus 
 enumeration of the Bishops of 
 Home, which includes St. Feter; 
 and he admits, also, that there 
 coidd be no accidental triijpimj," 
 because St. Irenaeus gives the 
 enumeration in the very next 
 chapter to that in which he had 
 given the list of the successors 
 of the Apostles in the see of 
 Rome. But /or qco other reason, 
 apparently, than that such an 
 enumenition does tiot liarmonise 
 with his oiun theory, he (Light- 
 foot) coolly says that he believes 
 St. Irenaeus was mistaken." — 
 (Lect. v., p. 169-170). 
 
 In a footnote Lightfoot points out that, as to "the 
 two places" in which Irenaeus seems to contradict his 
 own Hst, beginning as it does with Linus, and exclud- 
 ing Peter and Paul, there is a confusion of the text — 
 
 "In the flrst passage (i., 27, I.) the text of the old Latin 
 translation has nonum (ninth), and this reading is confirmed by 
 Cyprian and Eusebius, as well as by Epiphanius. Here, then, 
 all the authorities are agreed. In the second passage (iii., 4, 3) 
 the Greek is preserved only in Eusebius, who has enatos (ninth) 
 but the Latin translation of Irenaeus lias octa,vus (eighth). I 
 am, disposed to think that in both passages— in the latter cer- 
 tainly — the ' nintJb' tvas a later emendation, so as to include 
 the Episcopate of Peter. "'^ 
 
 At the risk of weariness, I have been at pains to set 
 out this matter in full. It illustrates the value of 
 
 * In the above passages I have put the emphatic sentences in 
 italics. 
 
34 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 Archbishop Carr's charges against Salmon and other 
 Protestant scholars, and the worth to be attached to 
 his " quotations" throughout. Just let us look at 
 this one instance for a moment. He asserts that, 
 according to Lightfoot, '' all authorities are agreed 
 as to the authenticity of St. Irenaeus' enumeration of 
 the Bishops of Kome, which includes St. Peter.'' But 
 what Lightfoot says is that Irenaeus' list excludes 
 "■ the Apostolic founders,'" that is, both Peter and Paul, 
 and " hegins with Linus-,'" and that in another passage 
 of Irenaeus {Haer., i, 27, I) there is a reading describ- 
 ing Hyginus as nintJt bishop, and this word 7iinth is 
 confirmed by the later ''fathers," Cyprian, Eusebius, 
 and Epiphanius (" all" the authorities" as to these 
 singular Irenaean "lists" of early Eoman bishops). 
 I will here turn to Irenaeus, and quote the passage : — 
 
 " Cerdon was one who took his system from the followers 
 of Simon (Magus), and came to live at Rome in the time of 
 Hyginus, who held the ninth place in the Episcopal succession 
 from the Apostles down." — (Iren. Haer. I., 27, i.) 
 
 It does not say a word about Peter, or his inclusion in 
 the list of bishops. And Lightfoot, further, points 
 out that the word " ninth'' must be a mistake, because 
 in the other passage the Latin text of Irenaeus calls 
 Hyginus the eighth, thus showing that Peter was 
 not counted " bishop" of Eome. 
 
 Then, further. Archbishop Carr actually asserts 
 that Lightfoot " admits there could be no accidental 
 tripping." But what Lightfoot says is — '' or there 
 must he some accidental tripping." Again, Arch- 
 bishop Carr asserts — "Lightfoot coolly says that he 
 believes St. Irenaeus was mistaken," and "for no 
 other reason than that such an enumeration does not 
 harmonise with his own theory." But, as an actual 
 fact, Lightfoot says — and his reason is solid grounds of 
 textual criticism — that the text of Irenaeus has been 
 
PETER AND THE llOCK. 35 
 
 tampered with or emended ''so as to include the 
 episcopate of Peter." 
 
 [Note. — In The Roman See and The Papacy, by Prof. Bright, of 
 Oxford, received since the above was written, it is funny to find 
 that in his conflict with the Rev. Luke Kivington, that Anglo- 
 Catholic convert to Romanism, and author of The Primitive Church 
 and the See of St. Peter, he has had to deal with this same sort of 
 " representation" regarding the " list" of Irenaeus. He says that 
 the language of Irenaeus, who calls both Paul and Peter "founders," 
 shows that neither was ever counted Bishop of Rome. " The 
 phrase ' from the Apostles' excludes either Apostle from the Epis- 
 copal list. . . . The Latin version of Irenaeus reads ' eighth' 
 in the second passage ; and Stieren considers that it originally read 
 'eighth' in the first passage also" (Bright, pp. 10, 11.) The manes 
 of Prof. Salmon ought to feel avenged. It is interesting also to 
 learn from Bright that not only, as we already knew, does Salmon 
 think that " Peter's Roman Episcopate" was first invented by "an 
 editor of the Clementine Romance," but our own Bishop Moor- 
 house, now of Manchester, has been in the fray too, and thinks 
 " the Clementine fiction" has played odd tricks with the original 
 history of the Roman Church. Of that fiction I have spoken 
 lower down.] 
 
 Dr. Carr on Lightfoot and Harnack as to Ignatius. 
 
 Another illustration of the daring method pursued 
 by Koman Catholic advocates, in dealing with historic 
 facts and Protestant scholars in relation to those facts, 
 is seen in Archbishop Carr's description of Ignatius' 
 letter to Kome in the second century, and Bishop 
 Lightfoot's statement regarding it. As all candid and 
 competent scholars now agree, the remarkable thing 
 in connection with the letter of Ignatius to the Eoman 
 ''Church," or congregation, in the second century, is 
 that he makes no reference to its having any bishop. 
 He writes to the Church or congregation itself: — 
 
 ' ' The Church which has obtained niercy . . . which 
 also presides in the place of the region of the Romans." 
 
 The eminent scholar Harnack holds that at this 
 time (130-140) "the Episcopate" had not yet begun 
 in the Eoman Church. But the Church itself, in its 
 
86 
 
 THE KOMAN CLAIM AND METHOD I 
 
 vigorous life and influence as the Church of the 
 Metropolis,, had a pre-eminence or "presidency" 
 " amongst the sister communities," and an energetic 
 activity in " supporting and instructing the other 
 communities." You might say as much of the 
 Wesleyan Methodist Centre in Melbourne in relation 
 to the' outlying Methodist congregations. But Arch- 
 bishop Carr actually twists this and Lightfoot's 
 similar words about it into a testimony to the Eoman 
 Papacy and its Universal Supremacy! " This singular 
 appellation of the Eoman Church," Archbishop Carr 
 tells the public, is a proof of the Papal Supremacy ! 
 In fact, the ambiguous term "Primacy" is made to 
 play fantastic tricks of varied meaning in Dr. Carr's 
 lectures. This is how he does it : — 
 
 Carr (p. 141). 
 
 " Protestant writers feel the 
 importance of this inscription 
 to the 'Church of the Romans,' 
 and make every eftbrt to ex- 
 plain it away. Still, however, 
 there are non-Catholic authori- 
 ties of the very highest emin- 
 ence who agree with the CatJiolic 
 interpretation. Bishop Light- 
 foot admits that it testifies to a 
 pre-eminence of rank, ' a Pri- 
 macy,' in fact, in the Roman 
 Church. . . . • 
 
 "Harnack is still stroni^er." 
 
 LiGHTFOOT. 
 
 " We might read the Epistle 
 from beginning to end without 
 a suspicion that the Episcopal 
 office existed in Rome at this 
 time, if we had no other 
 grounds for the belief." — 
 {I(jnat., vol, ii. , 186). 
 
 "In the letter (of Ignatius) 
 to the Church of Rome there 
 is not the faintest allusion to 
 the Episcopal office from first 
 to last." — Lightfoot's Clement^ 
 vol. i., p. 71. 
 
 ' ' Yet at the same time he 
 assigns a j^rimacy to Rome. 
 The church is addressed in the 
 opening salutation, as she who 
 hath the presidency (prokathe- 
 tai) in the place of the region 
 of the Romans.' But imme- 
 diately aftertvards the nature 
 of thu supremacy in defined. 
 The presidency of this Church is 
 declared to he a presidency of 
 love (prokathemene tes agapes). 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 37 
 
 Tills then was the original pri- 
 macy of Rome, a primacy not 
 of the bishop, bnt of the whole 
 church, not of official authority, 
 but of practical goodtiess,ha,cke(:\, 
 however, by the prestige and 
 the advantages which were 
 necessarily enjoyed by the 
 church of the metropolis." — 
 Lightfoot's St. Clement of 
 Borne, vol. i., p. 71. 
 
 ' ' The idea of the Cathedra 
 Petri (chair of Peter), there- 
 fore, has no place here." — 
 Lightfoot's Ignat. ad Bom., 
 vol. ii., p. 191. 
 
 Harnack truly is "still stronger!" But it is in 
 antagonism to all the propositions and misrepresenta- 
 tions of Archbishop Carr. Harnack shows that not 
 only does Ignatius, in the letter to Eome, not allude 
 to any bishop of Eome, but, further, that there icas no 
 such hishop as yet! Nay, still later than Ignatius, 
 Hermas (142 or 145 a.d.) is, says Harnack, a distinct 
 witness against the existence at that time of any 
 bishop of Eome. That Irenaeus' " list of bishops of 
 Eome" is legendary and "is false can he proved,'" says 
 Harnack. And when Harnack says so, he has the 
 proof in his hands. ^' 
 
 Interpolations of Cyprian. 
 
 Still more glaring, if possible, is the fact that 
 Archbishop Carr, in "quoting" from Cyprian, the 
 North African father of the third century, publishes 
 to the unwary crowd sentences ascribed to Cyprian, 
 but which critical editors have long ago condemned 
 as manifest interpolations. Thus : — 
 
 * Harnack, Ignatian Epis. Exp. , Ser. iii. , No. xiii. 
 
 D 
 
38 
 
 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 Carr. 
 
 "But St. Cyprian is not 
 content with pointing out the 
 unity of the Church ; he is 
 very precise in insisting on 
 the source of this unity: — 
 The Lord saith unto Peter : 
 'Thou art Peter, &c. Upon 
 him, being one. He builds His 
 Church."' (Lect. iv., p. 104.) 
 
 Critical Editors. 
 
 "This passage ('Upon him 
 being one He builds His 
 Church') is beyond all question 
 spurious. " 
 
 Prof. Roberts ; Dr. Donald- 
 son ; Dr. R. Ernest Wallis ; 
 Ante-Nicene Lib. Cyp. , 
 vol. i., p. 381. 
 
 "Falsifying of the text by 
 Romish editors." "Here is 
 interpolated ' Upon him being 
 one He builds His Church,' 
 &c." 
 
 Dr. Cleveland Coxe ; Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers, vol. v., 
 p. 422, notes. 
 
 ' ' Beyond all question spuri- 
 ous." 
 
 Roberts, Donaldson, and 
 Wallis ; " Writings of 
 Cyprian,^' Ante - Nicene 
 Chris. Lib. De Unit. Ecc, 
 vol. i., p. 381. 
 
 "Here is interpolated: — 
 ' Wlio deserts the Chair of 
 Peter upon whom the Church is 
 fouiided.^ This passage also is 
 undoubtedly spurious." 
 
 Bishop Coxe ; {Ante-Nicene 
 Fathers, vol. v., p. 422, n.) 
 
 See also Lightf oot — St. Clem. , 
 vol. ii., pp. 484, 485 ; [also 
 Bright — JRomati See, pp. 42, 
 43] ; Burgon — Letters from 
 Rome, p. 417 ; Coxe — Elucida- 
 tions ii. 
 
 It is to me sad and irksome beyond all words to 
 have to follow and refute thus Archbishop Carr 
 through all the pitiful minutice of his "quotations" 
 and purported evidence. Part of the unwelcome fate 
 allotted to me in life, as a teacher of New Testament 
 
 St. Cyprian: — "He who op- 
 poses and resists the Church, 
 and tvho deserts the Chair of 
 Peter, upon whom the Church 
 was founded, does he trust that 
 he is in the Church?" (Lect. 
 vi., p. 180.) 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 39 
 
 and Early Christian learning, lias been the necessity 
 of acquiring a knowledge of the ''patristic" writings 
 of the first three or four centuries. It is a tragic 
 study and story. None but those who have had to 
 familiarise themselves every day with this study can 
 understand the drastic distortion of facts to which 
 Koman Catholic advocates have recourse. Surely, at 
 least. Archbishop Carr ought to have felt himself 
 bound in honour to indicate that those passages he 
 quotes as authoritative and distorts out of relation to 
 their context, are deemed spurious by eminent critical 
 Editors of the ''Early Fathers." He dogmatically 
 quotes those passages as if no doubt had ever existed 
 regarding them.] 
 
 The above instances, alas ! are not at all isolated. 
 They are simply specimens of the method of Eoman 
 Catholic "quotation" and argument. But there is 
 worse than that. What impresses me most, on 
 examining the " quotations" and references in these 
 Lectures of Archbishop Carr, and of other recent 
 " Catholic Controversy," is that a forced meaning, a 
 quite unnatural interpretation, is stamped frequently 
 upon the fragmentary passages quoted, an interpreta- 
 tion which those passages were originally never 
 intended to bear. Cyprian of Carthage, as we shall 
 see later, was the earliest great spokesman and 
 inventor of "the episcopate;" "the one undivided 
 episcopate" resting equally upon all the Apostles. 
 This original Unity of the Church is according to him 
 " the root and matrix" of the Church.* Cyprian is the 
 father of what is called " Old Catholicism," the grand- 
 father of what is called "Anglo-Catholicism." North 
 Africa fashioned its cradle. Yet Archbishop Carr 
 represents him as a champion of the Koman Papacy 
 and of the Roman Pope ! 
 
 * cf . Coxe, Cyp. Ep. xliv. [Bright p. 46] ; Lightfoot, Phil. 
 
 d2 
 
40 the ro^ian claim and method : 
 
 Archbishop Caer and Eenan. 
 
 I am surprised at the Archbishop's boldness in 
 quoting from the briUiant critic, Eenan, in support of 
 the Roman claim for the Papacy.* I am still more 
 surprised that the quotation is so maimed and muti- 
 lated that it gives a sense almost the opposite of what 
 Eenan intended to sa}'. 
 
 I protest against the implication in Archbishop 
 Carr's lectures that Eenan was a Protestant. He 
 
 * The controversy in the Arpus and in the Ape, to which this 
 gave rise between Archbishop Carr and myself, I have gone to the 
 trouble and expense of publishing in the Appendix. In this way 
 the facts will stand before the public impartially and without 
 possibility of change. It is noticeable that, in his published lectures. 
 Archbishop Carr has added much new matter to his tirst lecture 
 as it appeared in Tlie Advocate, and which lecture he had, in his 
 letter of 21st May, declared was "published in e.vtenso in the 
 Advocate of the 14th and 2lst March." More noticeable still, the 
 new matter breaks the original connection just at that crucial 
 stage (forming the context of the matter of our correspondence) 
 where Dr. Carr had worked up along his chain of "Protestant 
 testimony" towards Kenan. The connective links were Nevin — 
 Neander — JieuiDi. No^c, between Nevin and Neander, is inserted 
 a page (pp. 21-2*2), beginning "A Catholic could hardly," &c., 
 thus throwing the connection out of gear. The further new 
 passage now concluding Lecture I. extends froni the words 
 "Church's Existence" to the end of the lecture (pp. 41, 42). This 
 new passage begins : — "It will seem to many that I have deliberate!}- 
 2}ut my self at a disadvantage in quotinii so e.vclusiveh/ from Protestant 
 authorities regarding St. Feter^s relations tcitJi Rome.'' In the next 
 sentence he attempts a subtle distinction between this and "the 
 Roman Primacy of the Prince of the Apostles," aboiit which "there 
 is no controversy amongst Catholic writers." (The italics are 
 mine.) But the correspondence and the beginning of his second 
 lecture and the whole make-up of his tirst lecture prove that this 
 will not do. (1) "That St. Peter Wcxs in Rome:" (2) That he 
 "fixed his See in Rome ;" (3) That his Primacy " was transmitted 
 to his successors in the Roman See ;" all these were what he 
 declared he had " quoted exclusively Protestant testimony to 
 prove." Thus after Nevin, Neander was "quoted" as testifying 
 " to the antiquity of the Papal claims to a Primacy of jurisdic- 
 tion," and then came Renan's admissions "7« favour of the Roman 
 Primacy as the irresistible outcome of the facts of history." 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 41 
 
 never was. He was educated for the Romish priest- 
 hood. Eecoiling from it, and from the incredible 
 demand which its absohite authority, and its ecclesi- 
 astical miracles and legends make upon the human 
 reason, he abandoned belief in the supra-natural of 
 Christianity altogether, Renan gravitated towards a 
 kind of Agnostic Pantheism. Probably he had not 
 soul or earnestness enough for more. Nothing more 
 sad, with a mixture of brilliant flippancy, can be found 
 in literature than Renan's description of his own 
 revolt from the teaching of the priests, prepared as 
 he was for such disbelief by his mother's witty 
 rehearsal of "the grotesque legends of the Breton 
 saints." The very diverse kinds of teachings his 
 priestly instructors gave him accelerated the process. 
 One of his clerical teachers — M. Gosselin, polite, 
 slim, fastidiously neat, and hating all enthusiasm — 
 possessed, as almost his only ardour, an exceeding 
 dislike of all the relics and all the ancient ecclesiastical 
 saints. His reason was — 
 
 "Their disregard, of personal cleanliness, their deficient 
 education, and their striking lack of common sense."* 
 
 Renan says: — 
 
 '*I imagined that in being polite like M. Gosselin, and 
 moderate like M. Manier, I was a Christian." 
 
 I am no admirer of Renan, save for his literary 
 brilliance. I must again say, also, he was not a 
 Protestant, although he confessed that Protestantism 
 was, "in a sense, a returning to the rehgion of 
 Jesus." 
 
 Now, if Archbishop Carr had told from what work 
 of Renan he professed to quote, and had given its full 
 title, the public w^ould have got some glimpse of its 
 meaning. I will tell you what it is. It is the Hib- 
 
 * Souvenirs^ p. 230. Cf. Professor Elmslie. 
 
42 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 hert Lectures for 1S80, on the Influence of the Insti- 
 tutions, ThouffJity and Culture of Rome on Christianity ^ 
 and the Development of the Catholic Church. The main 
 thouglit of that book is that the Papacy has been a 
 Eoman development mainly due to the peculiar con- 
 dition of the Cit}^ and Empire of Pagan and Imperial 
 Piome. The Second Lecture in that book is entitled 
 ''^The Lec/end of the Roman Church: Peter and Paul.'' 
 In that lecture Pienan declares : — 
 
 " If there is anything in the world which Jesus did not insti- 
 tute, it is the Papacy; that is the idea that the Church is a 
 monarchy." 
 
 In a later lecture in that book Eenan declares that 
 what " set order above liberty" was the "Episcopate." 
 Moreover, the chapter just preceding that from which 
 the Archbishop takes his "quotation" is entitled: 
 *' Rome, the Centre of Growing Ecclesiastical Authority.'' 
 In it, Eenan says he agrees with Lightfoot as to the 
 letter of Clement of Eome. In Clement's letter, Eenan 
 declares: "IJ^efliid no trace as yet of a j)?Ys/>^/f^r/^9 
 superior to and about to dethrone the rest." At the end 
 of the First Century the highest rulers of the Christian 
 Church, he says, were "the presbyteri " (elders), 
 (p. 130). He then shows, as Lipsius does, how the 
 legend of Peter's "bishopric in Eome" arose. It 
 sprang, he explains, in large measure from the 
 strange mingling together of "Ebionite," or Jewish 
 gnostic, and other heresies, whose ajiocryphal 
 wi-itings form so curious a feature of the second 
 century. These " heretic " factions took for their 
 "shibboleth" the most eminent Apostles' names, 
 especially Peter's and Paul's. The "Ebionite" 
 gnostics opposed the name Paul by the name Peter. 
 
 "J. rnst Ebionite legend arose in Borne," continues Eenan, 
 *^ a')id ttndey the name of ''the FreacJiing,' or '27(6 Jovrneijs of 
 Feter,' took a fixed sJia}^- ahont the year 130 a.d." (P. 134.) 
 
PETER AND THE EOCK. 43 
 
 Then he shows how this legend, glorifying Peter, 
 "was insulting, it is true, to St. Paul" (p. 136). But 
 Piety took hold of it ; the spirit of growing ecclesiasti- 
 cism blended it with the facts of Paul's labours in 
 Eome, and his martyrdom. 
 
 " In all that concerns Peter and Paul the work of legend was 
 rich and rapid." (P. 142.) 
 
 Then, in the opening of the very chapter from which 
 Archbishop Carr *' quotes," Eenan points out the 
 shrewd advantage which this legend of "a Church 
 founded both by Peter and by Paul " gave to Eome, 
 in the growingly despotic atmosphere of the Second 
 Century. 
 
 "To have succeeded in establishing this belief was the master- 
 piece of that cleverness which characterized the Church of 
 Rome." (P. 107.) 
 
 But even in Eome, Eenan points out, the introduction 
 of one presbyter or bishop as superior to the others 
 was strenuously opposed even as late as 145 a.d. 
 
 ' ' This revolution, however, was effected not without protest ; 
 the author of *The Shepherd' (Hernias), for instance, still 
 attempts to maintain the primitive equality of the presbyteri 
 against the growing authority of the bishops." (P. 155.) 
 
 Then, to illustrate the new autocratic spirit which 
 was invading the Church everywhere, Eenan quotes 
 from an Asian writing, which (in common with many 
 great scholars) he deems *' apocryphal."* The age or 
 time he is picturing is the latter part of the Second 
 Century y some 140 years after the death of Jesus. It 
 is the time, according to Archbishop Carr, the facts 
 regarding which make such impress upon Eational- 
 istic writers that we must " regard their admissions 
 in favour of the Eoman Primacy as the irresistible 
 
 * Ign. ad Eph. 
 
44 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD I 
 
 outcome of the facts of history,'^ It is, as he also 
 declares, the time when, according to Protestant 
 teaching, " tJie faith of the Church was pure, and the 
 sanctity of the Roman Pontiffs conspicuous.''^ That 
 sounds well ! But, as we know, Lightfoot and others 
 have pictured the state of things just then in Eome as 
 sadly different.i" And to speak of '* Eoman Pontiffs" 
 then is to speak " at large." Here, now, is the 
 picture of what Eenan means by the " Catholicity" 
 which grew up at Eome. It is strangely different 
 from the impression Archbishop Carr's hearers would 
 draw from this use of the word " Catholicity." 
 
 Here is the context in Eenan (pp. 171-172) — 
 
 *'This was written about the year 160 or 170. A purely 
 ecclesiastical piety took the place of the ancient ardour which, 
 for more than a hundred years, had been kindled by the recol- 
 lection of Jesus. Orthodoxy is now the chief good ; docility is 
 salvation ; the old man must bend before the bishop even if he 
 be young. It was thus that, by pushing to an extreme the 
 principles of Paul, men arrived at ideas which would have 
 revolted Paul. Would he, who was unwilling to listen for a 
 moment to salvation by works, ever have admitted that a man 
 could be saved by simple submission to his superiors ?" (Renan, 
 Bibh. Led., pp. 171-172. 
 
 Now, here is the passage as Archbishop Carr quotes 
 it, without any hint of its contextual or central mean- 
 ing, and with its damaging sentences dropped out, 
 and he prefaces it with the declaration: " there is no 
 room for mistake in his (Eenan's) words ": — 
 
 Archbishop Carr's Quota- Renan Himself. 
 
 TioN FROM Renan. ,,-r, ^i , . , . , 
 
 ' ' Rome was the place ni which 
 
 "Rome," says M. Ernest this great idea of Catholicity 
 
 Renan, "was the place in which was worked out. More and 
 
 the great idea of Catholicity more every day it became the 
 
 was worked out. More and capital of Christianity, and 
 
 * The italics are mine. t Cf. Lect. iv. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 
 
 45 
 
 more every day it became the 
 capital of Christianity, and 
 took the place of Jerusalem as 
 the religious centre of human- 
 ity. Its Church claimed a pre- 
 cedence over all others which 
 was generally recognised. [All 
 the doubtful questions which 
 agitated the Christian con- 
 science came to Rome to ask 
 for arbitration, if not decision. 
 Men argued — certainly not in 
 a very logical way— that, as 
 Christ had made Cephas the 
 corner-stone of His Church, the 
 privilege ought to be inherited 
 by his successors.] . . . The 
 Bishop of Rome became the 
 Bishop of Bishops, he who 
 admonished all others. Rome 
 proclaims her right — a danger- 
 ous right — of excommunicating 
 those who do not walk step by 
 step with her. ... At the 
 end of the second century we 
 can also recognise, by signs 
 which it is impossilDle to mis- 
 take, the spirit which, in 1870, 
 will proclaim the infallibility 
 of the Pope!" 
 
 took the place of Jerusalem 
 as the religious centre of 
 humanity. Its Church claimed 
 a precedence over others, which 
 was generally recognised. All 
 the doubtful questions which 
 agitated the Christian con- 
 science came to Rome, to ask 
 for arbitration if not decision. 
 Men argued — certainly not in 
 a very logical way —that as 
 Christ had made Cephas the 
 corner-stone of His Church, 
 the privilege ought to be in- 
 herited by his successors. By 
 an unequalled tour de force, the 
 Church of Rome had succeeded 
 in giving itself the name of the 
 Church of Paid also. A new 
 and ecpially mythical duality 
 replaced that of Romulus and 
 Remus, The Bishop of Rome 
 became the Bishop of Bishops, 
 he who admonished all others. 
 Rome proclaims her right — a 
 dangerous right — of excom- 
 municating those who do not 
 walk step by step with her. The 
 poor Artemonites — a kind of 
 Arians before Arius, have great 
 reason to complain of the in- 
 justice of fate which has branded 
 tliem as heretics, although up to 
 the time of Victor the whole 
 Church of Rome was of one 
 mind tvith them. From that 
 time forth the Church of Rome 
 put herself above history. At 
 the end of the second century 
 we can already recognise by 
 signs which it is impossible to 
 mistake the spirit which, in 
 1870, will proclain the infalli- 
 bility of the Pope." 
 
46 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 Notice Dr. Carr's use of the word " the,'" and the 
 quite different suggestion it conveys — ^Hhe great idea 
 of Catholicity." Eenan says ^'this great idea of 
 Catholicit3^" And he had defined it just above as 
 the notion that 'Ulocility is salvation,'' that "a man 
 can be saved b}^ simple submission to his superiors" 
 — ideas which "would have revolted Paul." Notice, 
 again, how Dr. Carr says *' precedence over all 
 others," while Eenan says the largely different thing 
 — "precedence ovc7' others/' 
 
 (I have italicised the sentences the Archbishop 
 omitted.) Now I suppose very few in Melbourne 
 could have dreamt there had been dropped out of that 
 "quotation," at the little blanks where the Archbishop 
 has made a few dots, two passages of tremendous 
 force,* which destroy the very basis on which the 
 Archbishop seeks to stand. In the one passage 
 Eenan declares that the Church of Eome gradually 
 invented the Apostolic succession, and the dual 
 foundation by the two Apostles, Cephas and Paul. 
 This duality Eenan declares to be as " mythical" a& 
 the pagan-Eoman legend of " Eomulus and Eemus." 
 In the other passage, omitted by the Archbishop, 
 Eenan declares that the Church of Eome was at that 
 very time Avian in doctrine, the very time when 
 the Archbishop is representing it as supreme over 
 Christendom and singularly pure in faith, and as the 
 guardian of the truth of Peter and of Christ. 
 
 * In the above column, which reproduces Archbishop Carr'^ 
 " quotation," I have marked in square brackets two sentences — 
 "All the doubtful, &c." — wliich did not appear in the Argus 
 abstract of his Lectiire (an abstract report which was carefully 
 made from his MS.), but which appeared afterwards in the 
 Advocate in extenso report (see his letters). I quoted from the 
 Argus. It will be evident that the two sentences referred to do- 
 not affect in the slightest my charge. The passage, as the Arch- 
 bishop quoted it, was drained of its whole meaning by the excision 
 of the sentences to which I refer, cf. Append. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 47 
 
 Here is the first passage Archbishop Carr drops 
 from out that plausible-looldng "quotation" : — 
 
 "By an unequalled fov/r de force the Church of Rome had 
 succeeded in giving itself the name of the Church of Paul also. 
 A new and equall}^ mythical duality replaced that of Romulus 
 and Remus." 
 
 Here is the second passage the Archbishop drops 
 out : — 
 
 " The poor Artemonites — a kind of Arians iDefore Arius — 
 have great reason to complain of the injustice of fate, which has 
 branded them as heretics, although up to the time of Victor the 
 whole Church of Rome was of one mind with them. From that 
 time forth the Church of Rome put herself above history." 
 
 I will make no comment on these startling facts. 
 I simply ask two questions : — (1) Why did Archbishop 
 Carr drop those damaging sentences out of Eenan's 
 statement, if he chose to quote from him ? (2) What 
 is the value of Archbishop Carr's "quotations" in re- 
 ference to the matter in hand ? 
 
 Part II. 
 Simon Peter and the Eock. — Peter's "See" at Eome. 
 
 " Other Foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, 
 which is Jesus Christ." — St. Paul, 1 Cor. iii., 11. 
 
 "Behold I lay in Zion a Chief Corner-stone. ... a Stone 
 of stumbling and a Rock (Petra) of offence." — St. Peter, 
 1 Pet. ii., 6—8; St. Paul, Rom. ix., 33. 
 
 "For I (Paul) reckon that I am not a whit behind the very 
 chiefest Apostles." — 2 Cor. xi., 5. 
 
 *' James, and Cephas, and John, who are reputed to be pillars, 
 &c."— Gal. ii., 9. 
 
 "If there was any primacy at this time it was the primacy not 
 of Peter but of Paul."— Lightfoot, S. Clement of Kome, 
 vol. ii., p. 490. 
 
48 THE PtOMAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 Of Archbishop Carr's three propositions, essential to 
 the Papal claim, the Jirst is — 
 
 "That St. Peter was invested by Christ with supreme 
 authority over His Church." 
 
 This huge assertion the advocates of Papalism seek 
 to base upon one solitary passage of one Gospel, viz., 
 the highly figurative words of our Lord to Simon when 
 Simon confessed Him as Messiah: " Thou art PetroSi 
 and on this PetraI will build my congregation" (Matt. 
 xvi., 18).* Now let me say, plainly, I do not myself 
 feel in the least concerned as to the question whether 
 the word Petra (rock) in this figurative passage is to 
 be interpreted as having special reference to Simon 
 Peter and as a play upon his name, or as meaning 
 only Oiw Lord Himself in His Messiahhood, to which 
 Simon, had just then so strikingly confessed. It does 
 not in the least affect the truth of the Protestant 
 faith, nor does it alter the falsity of the Pioman claim 
 whidi view we take. We Protestants (to use a 
 colloquialism) " have no axe to grind" as regards the 
 interpretation of this passage. A large number of 
 eminent Protestant scholars in our modern day have 
 held the opinion that our Lord, when speaking of the 
 rock, made special reference to Peter "in virtue of his 
 steadfast faith, "f or in virtue of his confession, faith, 
 and courage.:!: That the interpretation which affirms 
 a> personal allusion to Simon Peter does not in the least 
 make for the Koman claim is sufficiently evident from 
 the fact that such stalwart Protestants in our day as 
 Alford and Lightfoot in England, Fritsche, Meyer, 
 
 * Compare the accounts in the three Synoptic Gospels, Mark viii., 
 27 — 3.3, Matt, xvi., 13-25, Luke ix., 18 — 24. If the Romish notion 
 that Peter is the Rock-foundation of the Chiirch had any truth in 
 it, it woukl be unaccountable that Mark and Luke have no reference 
 even to the metaphor. 
 
 t Meyer, in loco. I Lightfoot, S. Clem., vol. ii., 483—487. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 49 
 
 and Weiss in Germany, Briggs and Scliaff in America, 
 and Dr. David Brown in Scotland have affirmed that 
 view. And, on the other hand, scholars just as free 
 from hias and as large in vision have taken the con- 
 trary vieW' . They have felt bound, by the whole force 
 of the passage and the true meaning of terms, to 
 conclude that the word "rock," with its Old Testament 
 prophetic associations, refers to Christ himself^ 
 just then so strikingly confessed by Simon, as the 
 Messiah. 
 
 It is part of the unvarying tactics of Eoman 
 Catholic apologists to ascribe any view save their own 
 to "bias,'' or the "exigencies of controversy." These 
 allegations provoke a smile. I will not now spend 
 time upon them. It is sufficient to point out here 
 that the huge difficulty of the modern Komanist 
 interpretation is that it has against it not only 
 Protestant scholarship, but the whole weight of 
 the opinion of the earliest and greatest "fathers." 
 Whether the word "rock" refers to Peter personally 
 or not is surely little to the point, as regards the 
 marvellous Koman claim, viz., that the bishops in 
 Kome are Peter's only successors, and that Peter 
 was made Supreme Prince of all the Apostles and 
 head of God's Universal Church, and that the 
 bishops of a city in Italy, and they only, speak with 
 Peter's infallible voice and authority. These state- 
 ments are so incongruous the one with the other that 
 the whole thing, calmly looked at, seems grotesque. 
 
 Difficulties of Eoman View. 
 
 To begin with, the Eoman interpretation has in 
 its path four insuperable difficulties: — (1) Peter 
 himself was quite ignorant of it ; so was Paul ; so was 
 John; so were all the New Testament writers; it is 
 
50 THE R03IAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 contrary to the whole spirit of the Gospel of Christ. 
 In the very chapter (Luke ix., 20, compare 46-47) in 
 which the Evangelist tells of Peter's confession of 
 Christ, it is also told: — 
 
 " And there arose a reasoning among tJiem tohlch of them should 
 be greatest (greater)." 
 
 "And Jesus took a little child, and set him by His 
 side," as a symbol of greatness in His Kingdom. (2) 
 The Koman interpretation did not come into existence 
 till the Jifth century. We shall show this in a later 
 lecture. The early Fathers knew nothing of this 
 "succession of Peter" existing only in the Church of 
 Eome. (3) If there could be any such thing as an 
 "Episcopal Apostolic succession" depending on a 
 "chair of Peter," or "throne of Peter," or "seat of 
 Peter," that chair would belong to Antioch and other 
 cities of the East rather than to Kome. The same 
 legends, exactly, on which Piome depends for her mar- 
 vellous "Petrine bishopric" and Petrine infallibility 
 assign that "Petrine bishopric" to Antioch earlier and 
 more certainly than to Eome. So the great " Greek 
 Fathers" of the fourth and fifth centuries call the 
 Bishop of Antioch, the " successor of Peter," and affirm 
 of " the great City of Antioch" that it possesses " the 
 throne of Peter." Owing to the wealth and political 
 power and situation of the City of Kome in the AVest, 
 owing to the legends it industriously intertwined with 
 its political and priestly arrogant claim, it came to 
 assume the title to "Peter's Chair" and "Peter's 
 Succession." But the facts of history prove that its 
 claim to these is later, weaker, and even more 
 legendary than that of Antioch and other Eastern 
 cities. And (4) that Peter ever was Bishop of Eome, 
 or ever founded the Church of Eome, is opposed, at 
 once, to historical truth, and to all that is even 
 probable. It violates every canon of the credible. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 51 
 
 The treatment of this latter question will come 
 in its own place. Let me at present look at the true 
 and simple interpretation of 
 
 Christ's Saying to Simon Peter. 
 
 The language, as recorded in St. Matthew's Gospel,* 
 with its figurative terms — " Petros," " Petra," " Con- 
 gregation," ''Keys of the Kingdom," " Gates of Hades 
 — can be understood only by comparing it with 
 kindred language in the Old Testament. It is 
 especially the impassioned and figurative language 
 of the Prophet Isaiah, in describing the kingdom 
 of the Messiah (language which was often on Our 
 Lord's lips, as also on the lips of his forerunner, John 
 Baptist) that unlocks for us here the simple yet 
 grand meaning. All of us will agree, I suppose, with the 
 judgment of Harnack that, whatever be the precise 
 signification of that passage, it indicates that, amongst 
 the twelve earliest Apostles, Simon Peter was the 
 most efficient and influential by force of will and 
 character : — 
 
 *'It seems to be in harmony with other passages of the 
 synoptic gospels which indicate not only that Peter was 
 foremost among the Apostles by virtue of natural force of 
 character, but that he was also their ordinary leader and 
 representative, "t 
 
 Until Paul arose, Peter was foremost in action. He 
 is mentioned first in the early Apostolic list, though 
 always on an equality with the other eleven: — "Have 
 not I chosen you, the twelve^ and one of you is a 
 devil?" Simon also was always associated with the two 
 or three who were the Lord's most intimate friends, the 
 two brothers, James and John (sons of Zebedee), 
 and his own brother Andrew. In the garden, he and 
 the sons of Zebedee were asked to watch with Christ 
 
 * Cap. xvi. 13-20. f Harnack, Pet. cf. also Texten u. Untersuch. 
 
52 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 one hour, and failed. In every society of men some 
 one or two stand out prominent, by influence of 
 character. But of any supremacy of one Apostle 
 over the other, there is never a hint. On the contrary, 
 Christ firmly represses any such question, on their 
 part, as " Which of us is the greater } " It is significant 
 that the Apostles ask that question after^ those words 
 about the "rock" and "keys" were spoken to Peter, 
 proving that they did not in the least understand the 
 words as giving any supremacy to him. If the 
 misused and ambiguous word " primacy" may be at 
 all applied to Peter, it was, as Lightfoot says, only 
 a "primacy of historical inauguration,^' 
 
 Peter's True Claim. 
 
 He was earliest in reaching clear-sighted faith; he 
 had force of initiating energy. Hq first, in a moment 
 when the great multitudes seemed forsaking Jesus, 
 and men were doubting tvho He icas, asserted boldly 
 He was God's Messiah. He^rs^ at Pentecost opened, 
 as with a key, the gate of the New Testament Church, 
 the Kingdom of Christ, to the multitude of Jewish 
 believers.*!" He first opened it also — reluctantly, but 
 none the less surely — to Cornelius the Latin cen- 
 turion, and to the Gentiles in Csesarea. In fact this 
 seems his true and only connection with Latins or 
 with Kome.J A little later he defended, at Jerusalem, 
 the reception of the Gentiles into Christ's Kingdom, 
 apart from all Jewish ritual-restrictions, in presence 
 of those who would keep the gate still closed. Peter 
 firmly used the metaphoric " key," and threw that 
 gate of entrance open. Then his initiative was done. 
 The forward movement of the Church's spiritual 
 progress depended on another; the larger "key" of 
 
 * cf. Matt, xviii., 1. t Acts ii., 41, 42. I Acts x. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 53 
 
 its wider door passed into the hands of a greater than 
 Peter — namely, Paul. " I laboured more abundantly 
 than they all," says that great pioneer and "founder," 
 who founded — as did all of them — well, because he 
 founded on Christ. Paul was greatest, not by 
 "sovereignty" or lordship, which was a thing unknown 
 and forbidden in Christ's society or kingdom, but 
 "greatest" because the greatest is "he that doth 
 serve." 
 
 Peter's Confess on. 
 
 Now, in the light of these facts, let us look at the 
 occasion when our Lord spoke his striking words to 
 Simon Peter. The crowd had deserted. Christ was 
 not the King they had expected. He was no Messiah 
 with David's sword and power, conqueror of the 
 Gentiles, bringer of material good, "restorer of the 
 Kingdom to Israel." As Harnack puts it — "His 
 miracles of healing and feeding had not been followed 
 by the assumption of the national leader ship. Many 
 of the disciples had begun to drift away. Those who 
 were looking for the (national) Messiah saw in Him 
 only one of the prophets. Those who remained were 
 tested by a direct question — 'Who say ye that I am?' 
 or (as St. John gives it) 'Will ye also go away?' 
 Then it was Peter who answered, and at once : ' Thou 
 art the Christ.' " 
 
 I will not stop to discuss whether Dr. Harnack does 
 Peter less than justice in saying: — 
 
 "Although Peter was foremost in expressing the confident belief 
 of the disciples that Jesus ivas the Messiah, it seems clear that, in Ms 
 conception of the Messiali, he did not rise above the current ideas 6f his 
 countrymen.'" 
 
 The "national Leader," the Eestorer of the World- 
 Kingdom to Israel — this notion was certainly in 
 Peter's mind, as in the minds of all, materialising 
 
54 THE EOMAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 their vision. Harnack points, as all of us have 
 pointed, to the startling facts that for this quite 
 material view Christ had immediately afterwards to 
 rebuke Simon as very "Satan" and adversary; and, 
 later, when all hope of the national Kingdom was 
 shattered by Christ's capture, " Peter gave way to utter 
 despondency, and denied that he knew Him!" 
 
 Yes; but, along with that material aim, there was, 
 we think, in Peter's soul, and in the others, something 
 of a spiritual vision, a faith (which Peter voiced, and 
 which God reveals within) setting Christ high, as 
 Lord of a new undying Age and Eealm, Maker of a 
 deathless Kingdom. 
 
 Christ's Eeply. 
 
 This, anyhow, is what is expressed in our Lord's 
 reply to Peter's prompt answer. 
 
 As over against the " Gates of Hades "* (viz., all that 
 makes for destruction, and for the darkness and doom 
 awaiting the falsity of Power and the glory of World - 
 Kingdoms) Christ lifts up the vision of His Spiritual 
 Kingdom, like a new kingly spiritual house, founded^on 
 the Spiritual Eock, in Zion. This "Eock," and on it 
 founded a house of enduring Messiah-Kingship over 
 the World, had been the dream and word of hope 
 spoken by the greatest prophets. The day for its 
 manifestation had come noiv. Simon Peter, voicing 
 the faith of others round him, saw this with spiritual 
 insight, and strongly said it : — " Here is the King- 
 
 * "Gates of Hades — by a well-known oriental form of speech — 
 the power of the Kingdom of Death.'' ^ — Alford, in loco. 
 
 Hades — Sheol — "primarily — the inexorable doom which demands 
 and swalloios up everything upon the earth." — Delitzsch. 
 
 "The realm of the dead, or the region of death and destruction, 
 is represented as an edifice with gates . . . rearing itself aloft 
 as if in antagonism to life.'^ — Dr. James Morison, in loco. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 55 
 
 dom : Thou art its King ! Thou art the Messiah of 
 God." In that hour of seeming desertion it was a great 
 confession. Swift came the answer of Christ back : — 
 '' Thou art Petros {Rock'inan or Stone) a7id on this 
 Rock (Petra) I will build my Church^' — the com- 
 munity of those that beheve in the Messiah, and 
 form the Messiah-Kingdom; "and the Gates of Hades 
 shall not prevail against it." 
 
 Now that, with these two distinct emphatic words 
 petros and petra, is the exact form of the sentence in 
 the Greek of it. And that is the only first-century 
 form of it we have in the Gospels. Let us take all 
 theologic " goggles," whether Protestant or Romanist, 
 from off our eyes, and look simply and frankly at it, 
 in the light of the Old Testament Scriptures, and 
 especially in the light of the figurative language of 
 Isaiah, in which Christ's mode of speech was un- 
 deniably steeped. 
 
 Manifestly the metaphors in Christ's saying to 
 Peter are a fusion of three striking passages in Isaiah 
 — two of which, viz., those about the Rock, are em- 
 phasised afterwards by both St. Peter''' and St. Paul.-f* 
 Both Apostles (a fact very significant) apply the 
 word Petra, and the Stone laid in Zion (called also by 
 Peter '^ Chief Corner Stone''), to Christ only, as the 
 foundation of the Messiah-Kingdom of God. 
 
 The Kingly House on Its Rock. 
 
 The three striking passages of Isaiah whose figura- 
 tive language blends in Our Lord's saying to Peter 
 are — Isa. xxviii. 16-22, and Isa. viii. 14, and Isa. 
 xxii. 22. The first two of these three passages give 
 us the picture of the Rock on which the abiding 
 Kingdom of God was to be builded, like a kingly 
 
 * I. Pet. ii., 6-8. t Rom. ix., 32, 33. 
 
 E 2 
 
56 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD: 
 
 house.* Over against that Kock-founded Kmgdom is 
 pictured the league of " Great Ones" trusting in the 
 world-forces — a Confederacy of Hades, " a Covenant 
 with Death, and with Hades an Agreement." But it 
 is all in vain! Calmly there rises, over against it, 
 what Jehovah " lays in Zion, the precious Corner 
 Stone — whosoever believes on it sliall never he shaken,^^'f 
 Yet, though it is a strong Centre of Kefuge — so that 
 " whatsoever escaped from doom, in the Old Testa- 
 ment, stood upon THIS Stone ":|: — it will be also a 
 '' Kock of offence, "§ on which " the proud shall be 
 broken to pieces." — Mat. xxi. 42-44. || It was Jehovah 
 himself in the Old Testament that was called the 
 Eock. But the prophetic eye, and the later conscious- 
 ness of the Jews, applied all these thoughts to the 
 expected Messiah. The word '^ Rock" was "« name for 
 the Messiah amongst the Jews.' 
 
 The other passage from Isaiah gives us the simple 
 meaning of the word '' Keys,'' in connection with this 
 Messiah-Kingdom, pictured thus by the Old Testa- 
 ment figure of a Koyal House upon the Eock. In 
 Isa. xxii. 15-25, the proud "House-Steward" of the 
 House of David, who lifted himself up in arrogant 
 trust upon the World-Kingdoms and their alliances, 
 is ^^ pulled down from his standing jjlace."' Another and 
 worthier Steward of the house is appointed in his 
 stead. "And the Key of the House of David" is 
 hung upon his shoulder " to open and to shut" the 
 King's house to the approach of those outside. 
 
 * Delitzsch's memorable treatment of Isa. xxviii. , and Cheyne's. 
 lucid exposition of the same chapter should be read. 
 
 t Isa. xxviii. 16. J Delitzsch. Isa. viii. 14-15. II Delitzsch. 
 
 IT Sanday. — See the very striking group of quotations from Jewish 
 writers and Justin given by Sanday and Headlam. — Romans (1895),. 
 pp. 280, 281. 
 
peter and the rock. 57 
 
 "The Ke^s." 
 
 ''A key*' is just what opens a door; any good and 
 believing and winsome man who loves Christ can 
 sm-ely open the door of the New Testament Church 
 {that is the Kingdom of Heaven), and can win those 
 who are outside into it. And Peter, as we all gladly 
 affirm, was the first man who, in an hour of defection, 
 proclaimed Christ as Messiah, the foundation on which 
 the Church rests. He was also the first man who 
 opened wide the door of the New Testament Church to 
 the approach of the multitudes outside.* Delitzsch 
 shows that the phrase ^^ binding and loosi7ig'' is 
 another figure just " similar in sense. ""f" 
 
 When one sees thus the simple meaning of these 
 Jewish Old Testament metaphors, which were familiar 
 to Christ's hearers, the "fitness" and force of his 
 words to Peter are evident. Simon Peter had just 
 boldly announced his belief in Christ as the King of 
 the Messiah-Kingdom, its establisher — the Messiah 
 answering to the people's hopes of "the Eock," on 
 which the Kingdom should be made perpetual. Christ 
 answered — " Thou art true to thy name : kin to the 
 Eock, and on this Eock I will build my Church, the 
 gathering of my faithful ones." 
 
 For many years, I myself believed that Our Lord 
 referred to Peter, personally, in the words ''this Rock," 
 thinking of him as the earliest "living stone" in 
 the building of His spiritual house. I have no 
 bias, as a Protestant, not to believe that still, for 
 it in no way strengthens the Eoman claim. But, 
 the more fully one studies into Old Testament 
 language, and into Christ's habitual modes of speech, 
 the more does one feel driven to the conclusion that 
 
 * Meyer, Lightfoot, Alford, Mansel, Morison, &c 
 t Del. Isa. in loco ; cf. Meyer, &c. 
 
58 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD I 
 
 Augustine, in abandoning his earlier opinion (viz., 
 that "the Kock" was Peter), and in finally deciding 
 that ''the Rock" meant Christ Himself (on whom, 
 as Messiah, God's congregation is built), was deciding 
 according to criteria of true interpretation. 
 
 Both Peter and Paul Make Christ the Eock. 
 
 It is to me an arresting fact tJiat both St. Peter and 
 St. Paul apply the word Petra to Christ only ; they 
 represent believing men as but "living stones," built 
 upon that one foundation-stone. I am arrested, too, 
 by the fact of St. Paul so boldly declaring, " Other 
 foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is 
 Christ Jesus." The whole New Testament chimes 
 with that. [When, in Eph. ii. 20, believers, as the 
 "household of God," are said to be built on the 
 foundation of Apostles, &c., of course the genit. is 
 subjective, viz., the foiuiclation laid by Apostles (Mey., 
 Stier, Ellic), or possessed and held firm by Apostles, 
 Alford, &c.]. I am impressed, further, with the fact 
 that nowhere, in all the New Testament, or in the 
 " Apostolic fathers," is there any hint of Peter being 
 the " rock," or foundation of the Church. Paul and 
 the others regard Peter as being a pillar (o-rOXos) 
 resting on the Piock, and strengthening and helping 
 to support the fabric of the Church's stability. But 
 James and John are equally "reputed" as " pillars." 
 This interpretation also preserves us from the startling 
 mixed metaphor which would make Peter both rock 
 on which the House is built, and also steward having 
 " the key" of that House. 
 
 In any case, whatever interpretation w^e take of the 
 passage, three facts (as Lightfoot urges) must be kept 
 in mind — (1) " In the Old Testament Jehovah is ' the 
 Eock;'" (2) "In the New Testament, in like manner, 
 Christ is the solid basis on which the Christian Church 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 69 
 
 rests ;" (3) " Obviously, Peter cannot be the rock in 
 any sense which trenches upon the prerogative of 
 Christ." Whatever ''primacy" be claimed for Peter, 
 it must be only " the primacy of historical inaugura- 
 tion."* Then, " his primacy was completed." 
 
 Petros and Petra. 
 
 But, it is said by Komanists, and by some Protestant 
 scholars, that Petros — the name assigned to Simon 
 ("Peter") — is just the masculine and personified form 
 of Petra (rock). I answer it is nothing of the kind. 
 A scholar of both Greek and Hebrew will, at least, be 
 slow to accept that. As a matter of fact, the words 
 Petra =|rock, or cliff (fit to be the basis of a fortress, or 
 house)!, and Petros — a piece of rock,t a stone § (fit to 
 be flung or to be builded upon the petra, \\ are very old 
 Greek words and always quite distinct. The dis- 
 tinction between them is as old as Homer and older. 
 The distinction is as clear in "Hellenistic," or Biblical 
 Greek, as in Classical Greek.H The attempt to make 
 petros equivalent at times to j^etra is treated with 
 scant courtesy by Liddell and Scott (large edition — 
 " there is no evidence,'' &c. j 
 
 But we are told by Dr. Carr that " the demon- 
 strative pronoun this identifies the petra or rock with 
 Peter." I answer that one should be careful in 
 making such assertions, in view of the New Testament 
 and of Hebrew modes of language and gesture. It 
 would seem to me that the "demonstrative" reference 
 of the word " this" to Christ, the speaker himself, 
 is characteristic of His method throughout. In fact 
 this argument about the " demonstrative" force cuts 
 
 * Clem, of Borne, vol. ii., pp. 486-7. f Matt. vii. 25. \ Morison. 
 
 § Lidd. and Scott, &c. ; Thayer on Grimm. 
 
 II Schmidt Syn. 51, 4-6. *i\ 2 Mace. i. 16; iv. 41. 
 
60 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD : 
 
 the other way. For there has never been any 
 adequate answer to the statement of the elder Light- 
 foot : — 
 
 "If he (Christ) had intended that the Church should be 
 built on Peter, it had been plainer and more agreeable to the 
 vulgar idiom to have said — ^^Thou art Peter, and upon thee I 
 u-ill build my Church.''* 
 
 Accordingly, one finds that some of the most liberal 
 and broad-minded of modern British New Testament 
 scholars, such as Plumptre and Morison, affirm that 
 by "this Eock" is meant Christ himself, and others, 
 like Professor A. B. Bruce, that " not Peter's person 
 but Peter's faith (resting on the Eock-i- of the Eternal 
 Truth) is the fundamental matter in Christ's mind. "J 
 
 Predicament of the Eomish Interpretation. 
 
 We shall see that modern Eoman Catholic advocates 
 are, on this question, at hopeless variance with the 
 early Fathers. And Eome stands in this most 
 awkward predicament that she is now, in this matter, 
 propounding as doctrine, not only what has not " the 
 unanimous consent of the Fathers," but what is 
 directly opposed to that " unanimous consent." 
 
 Eoman View Late. 
 
 The Eomanist interpretation was an afterthought, 
 so as to make Scripture square with the notion that 
 Eome was the seat of empire and authority, and that 
 Peter, as Bishop of Eome, was, in his so-called "suc- 
 cessors" (the Eoman prelates), the centre of unity and 
 the source of jurisdiction. It was a hard task to find 
 
 * Light. Works, Ed. Pitman, vol. xi. , p. 225, 
 
 t On the argument that Christ "spoke in Syro-Chaldaic," see 
 Appendix. 
 
 I Training of the Twelve, cap. xi., pp. 163-5. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 61 
 
 any Scripture which could be bent to that shape. But 
 Eome, which had done many astute things, managed 
 this also. In the fifth century, Celestine,* Bishop of 
 Rome, and his strong-willed genius of an Archdeacon, 
 Leo, afterwards Pope Leo the Great, for the first time 
 mooted the theory which Leo, afterwards, so daringly 
 elaborated. For the first time there was invented 
 that anti-scriptural theory of Matthew xvi. 18, 
 which is now in the mouth of every combative 
 Eomanist, viz., that Peter, as Prince of the Apostles, 
 was the one "Rock" on which Christ's Church is 
 built, and that he was supreme over the other Apostles, 
 and that the Bishops of Rome represent him, and 
 speak with his voice of authoritativeness, and from his 
 chair.i* ''St. Peter," says Archbishop Carr, "was 
 invested by Christ with supreme authority over His 
 Church." In my fourth lecture we shall find this 
 theory, championed by Leo, trying to fight its way to 
 acceptance. But we shall see that, from the first, it 
 was determinedly resisted by Christendom. Now, and 
 here, I shall show that the very basis of Scripture 
 interpretation on which it attempted to structure itself 
 
 *"Even the Western Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, 
 such as Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, as also Innocent 
 I., had still interpreted the rrerpa {Fetra) of jNIattheAv xvi. IS, 
 partly of the confession of Peter, partly of the Person of Christ." — 
 Macpherson's Kurtz, vol. i., p. 269. 
 
 t If any "Father" eai-lier than Celestine and Leo seems to 
 approach their notion, it is the obscure Optatus of Milevi, in North 
 Africa, in the close of the fourth century (a.d. 384). His Avritings 
 are much interpolated. "In their present shape we may call 
 Optatus," says Harnack, "the father of that objective theory of the 
 Sacrament which has played so vast a part in Western dogmatics." 
 In fact, we owe to the peculiar mood of North Africa much, both of 
 the despotic and of the superstitious and sacerdotal spirit, which has 
 stamped the Western or Roman Church." 
 
 See also, as to the views of the "Fathers," Schaff — Nicene and 
 Post-Nic. Chris., vol. i. , p. 303. Lightfoot — St. Clem., vol. ii., 
 pp. 482-485. 
 
62 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD: 
 
 was a thing unknown to "the Fathers," for at least 
 three and a-half centuries after our Lord's ascension. 
 Archbishop Carr ventures to say: — 
 
 "Indeed, Sfc. Augustine is perhaps the only one amongst the 
 Fathers who aj3pears in two passages to interpret in a literal 
 sense the petr a or rock of Christ." 
 
 This is, to say the least of it, daring. For, a little 
 above, the Archbishop had to confess that there are : — 
 
 "passages from St. Cyril, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. 
 Ambrose, and Origen which are usually relied on by our 
 adversaries to minimise the force of the text of St. Matthew. * 
 
 Archbishop Carr, true to the Eoman method, is 
 "equal to the occasion." He makes a fine-spun 
 distinction between "a primary" and an "accom- 
 modated" or "secondary sense of the same text or 
 texts." After this preliminary, we are not astonished to 
 find the Archbishop continuing : — " In this way we can 
 easily reconcile the passages from St. Cyril, St. Augus- 
 tine, St. Jerome," &c. Oh, certainty ! I do not doubt 
 that, "iji this way,'" you can reconcile the most glaring 
 contradictions in any " passages." By this Eoman 
 method of " reconciling passages," by putting a 
 " primary sense" upon one, and a " secondar}^ sense" 
 or "accommodated sense" upon another, you can, in 
 the region ',of interpretation, (just as, by the Eoman 
 doctrine of " intention," you can, in the region of 
 Ethic) get astonishing results. Hence, Archbishop 
 Carr can, apparent^, satisfy himself by having to 
 confess : — 
 
 "These Fathers in particular passages interpret the rock of 
 Christ, as well they might, for Christ is, as St, Leo says, the 
 fundamental and independent rock, while Peter is the secondary 
 find dependent rock." 
 
 Now I never went to school in this kind, either of 
 architecture, or of exegesis. These hair-splitting dis- 
 
 * Carr. Six Lectures, pp. 84, 85. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 63 
 
 tinctions between " primary sense" and " secondary 
 sense," between " fundamental rock" and "secondary 
 rock," do not appeal to me. The Archbishop's words 
 seem to yield, sorely against his will, the very thing 
 Protestants sa}', and against which he seeks to con- 
 tend. 
 
 Eome's View not known to Early Fathers. 
 
 What I want to get at is, not the ingenious " recon- 
 ciling ofpassages," but actual facts. Now the actual facts 
 are that the " Early Catholic Fathers,'' east and west, 
 are as widely at variance with one another regarding 
 the interpretation of Our Lord's words to Peter, (in 
 Matt. xvi. 18) with respect to the iioc/j, as Protestant 
 scholars are to-day. "Uniform" or "infallible" 
 basis for an infallible Church, in the interpretation of 
 this passage by "the Fathers," we can find nowhere ! 
 " Unanimous consent of the Fathers" we can find 
 nowhere ! Naj^ more. Archbishop Carr's assertion — 
 " Indeed St. Augustine is perhaps the only one 
 amongst the Fathers" to " interpret in a literal sense 
 the petra or rock of Christ" — is quite contrary to fact. 
 
 As a matter of simple historic truth, the interpreta- 
 tion which makes the Petra (Piock) mean Christ, and 
 the other non-Eomish interpretations, meet us in the 
 earliest Fathers who allude to the passage. And they 
 recur and reappear through all the early centuries. 
 Tlie only interpretation whicJi does not meet us in the 
 early Fathers is the Romanist interpretation. 
 
 Four Views in Fathers. 
 
 AVe find in the " Early Fathers" /oitr* distinct in- 
 terpretations given to Christ's words — " Upon this 
 
 * This analj'sis will, I venture to think, be found, by scholarly 
 readers, more adequate and exact than the hvo categories into 
 which Lightfoot groups the views. 
 
64 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD: 
 
 Rock I will build my congregation." (1) ''The Rock" 
 is Christ Himself. This meaning is expressed as early 
 as Tertullian.* It recurs afterwards, again and again. 
 It is affirmed by the great Latin Father, Augustine, and 
 even by Cyril. 
 
 (2) The Rock has reference to the faith of Peter, as 
 spiritualty illumined to confess Christ " the spiritual 
 Rock," and as representative of every believing man. 
 This is the view^ of Origen, the great Alexandrian 
 exegete in the third century, and he expressed it 
 beautifully : — 
 
 "If we also, like Peter, say Thou art the Christy the Son of 
 the living God . . . the Spirit from heaven having illumined 
 our heart, ice become a Peter, and it would be said to us through 
 the Word 'Thou art Peter,' and the rest. For every disciple of 
 (Jhrist is a rock" 
 
 So, further, declares Origen — every Apostle is as much a 
 foundation for the Church as Peter, and has the keys 
 of the Kingdom's door as much as he : — 
 
 "But, if thou supposest that the whole Church is built by God 
 on that one Peter alone, what would'st thou say concerning 
 John the Son of Thunder, or any one of the Apostles ? Other- 
 wise, shall we dare to say that against Peter the gates of Hades 
 shall not prevail, but that they shall prevail against the rest of 
 the Apostles ?"t 
 
 He goes on to say that the same "promises" spoken 
 to Peter are given "to every one" who has Jaith like 
 Peter. " For all become namesakes of the rock who 
 are imitators of Christ the Spiritual Rock. "J 
 
 • Tert. Adv. Marc. iv. 13. "Again He changes the name of Simon 
 to Peter. . . . But why Peter ? . . . Was it because Christ 
 was both a Bock and a Stone ? For we read of his being placed for a 
 Stone of Stumbling and for a Rock of Offence." It is odd that 
 writers on the subject seem not to have noted this striking passage, 
 for its distinct echo is in Augustine's famous treatment. 
 
 t Orig. Comm. on Matt. xvi. 13-20; c.f. also Lightfoot, Clem., 
 vol. ii., 483. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 65 
 
 (3) The "Eock," according to other " Fathers," has 
 reference to Shnon Peter m his personal jwsition as 
 earliest to confess Christ's Messiahhood, and earHest 
 in throwing oj^en, at Pentecost and at Caesarea, the 
 door of Christ's New Testament Kingdom to beheving 
 men. In that sense, Peter was the Jirst stone in the 
 building of Christ's historic Spiritual House, as no 
 one else can be. This is the interpretation given by 
 Tertullian in two different works * of his, one of them 
 written while he was still a foremost spokesman of 
 " the Orthodox Church," and before, as Jerome rue- 
 fully declares, the jealousy and tyrannical treatment 
 of the Pioman clergy drove him into Montanist revolt, 
 Peter, says Tertullian, is called rock. But in the next 
 sentence John is put on perfect equality with him as 
 " the Lord's most beloved disciple," and "whom He 
 commended to Mary as a Son in His own stead." 
 
 Tertullian on Paul's Piebuke of Peter, &c. 
 
 In the next chapter (23) Tertullian finds it necessary 
 to defend Peter's apostleship, and equality, in view 
 of Paul's rebuke of Peter. In the next chapter (24) 
 he finds Peter's thus damaged claim, to equality and 
 apostleship, vindicated again by the fact that he too 
 as well as Paul, had died a martyr's death. 
 
 " It is a happy fact that Peter is on the same level with Paul 
 in the very glory of martyrdom." — {De Praescr. Haer. 24.) 
 
 In his other writing, where he makes the word 
 " rock" refer specially to Peter, Tertulhan shows that, 
 by this was meant only that the Church at Pentecost 
 hegati with Peter, and with his throwing open its 
 
 * Dc Praescr. Hapr. 22 ; De Pudic. 21. It is substantially the 
 view of Alford and Lightfoot. It is finely put by Briggs — Messiah 
 of the Apostles, p. 28, blending with it the Origen view. 
 
66 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND METHOD I 
 
 message of repentance and remission of sins to 
 believing men. 
 
 " [Peter] himself , therefore," says Tertullian, "was the first 
 to unbar, in Christ's baptism, the entrance to the Heavenly 
 Kingdom." 
 
 ''This is," says Tertullian, "the Key." And the 
 " loosing," he declares, meant the taking away and 
 lifting off the restrictions which, like a yoke, had been 
 imposed by the legalism of the Past. 
 
 "T/i-e power of loosing and binding, committed to Peter, 
 had nothing to do with the capital sins of believers,""*^ cries 
 Tertullian. 
 
 That is a noble protest from this Latin Father in the 
 opening of the third century, to which, had the Church 
 of Eome in later centuries listened, there would have 
 been no need of a reformation. For there would 
 have been no Popery. 
 
 (4) A fourth interpretation of the early Fathers 
 was that Peter, in his confession, is spoken of as 
 *'rock," as spokesman and representative of all the 
 Apostles, in their common faith and equal authority, 
 " with a like partnership hotJi of honour and poiver.'* 
 This is the view advocated, in the middle of the third 
 century, by Cyprian,i- the influential North African 
 bishop. By this theory of the equality and unity of 
 the Episcopate, Cyprian is the true father of, what 
 we may call, an incipient "Old Catholicism;" all 
 bishops, as representing the Apostles, equal, and the 
 unity of the faith voiced through them, just as all 
 the Apostles were equal. Their equality and unity 
 is affirmed in what Christ said to Peter as spokesman 
 for them all. This is the passage of Cyprian which 
 Kome so strikingly interpolated ; I but its meaning 
 stands out clear through all. 
 
 * De Pudic. 21. f Cyp. de Unit. EccL, 4. Also Epist. Ixxv. 
 I See Part I. Also Lightfoot, Clement, vol. ii., 484-485 [and 
 Brigkt's Roman See, 42. 43]. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 67 
 
 ^^ And altliougli He fjiues equal authority to all the Apostles 
 after His resurrection." 
 
 And again — 
 
 "The rest of the Apostles verily were, what Peter was, 
 endowed with an equal partnership of honour and power, but 
 the beginning proceeds from unity," &c. 
 
 Kesult — KoMAN View Unknown. 
 
 Now, I have been at pains to set out all these actual 
 facts. Look straight at them. The interpretations of 
 that passage in Matthew's Gospel differed as widely in 
 the close of the second, and in the third centuries, as 
 now. But, differ as they might, there is not a trace, east 
 or west, of theEomish notion of Peter's supremacy, or 
 of a Eoman bishop's supremacy as successor of Peter. 
 This very Cyprian, who for the first time spoke this 
 theory of an absolute unity of the Church as stand- 
 ing in the ''inspired Episcopate," spoke in terms of 
 absolute equality to the Bishops of Eome, for no 
 one bishop was higher or lower than another. As 
 we shall sec in a later lecture, Cyprian was con- 
 sulted as to whether Cornelius, Bishop of Eome, was 
 a proper bishop. And he resisted Stephen, a forceful 
 and later Bishop of Eome, on a question of Church 
 administration and discipline, and carried the day 
 against him. The Eoman clergy, writing to this 
 Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, call him "Papa" 
 (Pope),* Ep. XXX. 
 
 Everywhere, in those early centuries, we search in 
 vain for the Eomish interpretation. As late as the 
 fourth century, even the Latin Fathers nearest Eome, 
 such as Ambrose of Milan, and even Jerome himself 
 
 * In their letters they (Cyprian and the Bishops of Rome) wrote 
 in terms of perfect equality. " Cyprian to Cornelius, his brother, 
 greeting," ''Cornelius to Cyprian, his brother, greeting, "Cyprian 
 to Stephen, his brother, greeting," &c. Ep. xl. — Ixvi. 
 
68 THE KOMAN CLAIM AND METHOD: 
 
 knew nothing of Peter's supremacy. Jerome says: — 
 
 "The Rock is Christ, who bestowed upon His Apostles that 
 they also should be called 'rocks.'" — Amos vi. 12. 
 
 Ambrose calls the "prmiacy" of Peter only a ^'primacy 
 of confession y not of honour ; a primacy of faith, not of 
 rankJ"^ 
 
 In fact, with Ambrose it is still, what Lightfoot 
 happil}^ terms, "a primacy of historical inaugura- 
 tion." Even Jerome, as Schaff and others have 
 shown, "vacillates in his explanation of iYiQpetra, now, 
 like Augustine, referring it to Christ, now to Peter and 
 his confession.'^ 
 
 Augustine. 
 
 Then we are met by Augustine's judgment in his 
 matured years. 
 
 "For the reason why the Lord says 'On this rock I will 
 build my church' is that Peter had said: 'Thou art the Christ, 
 the Son of the living God.' 'On this rock which thou hast con- 
 fessed,' says he, 'I will build My church." Petra euhn erat 
 Christus (for Christ was the rock) upon which also Peter himself 
 was built ; ' ' for other foundation can no man lay than that is 
 laid which is Jesus Christ, "f 
 
 That is said by the greatest Father of the Western 
 Church . 
 
 Elsewhere Augustine says : — 
 
 "For it was not said to him : — ' Thou art a rock {pttra), but 
 thou art Petrus (Peter) and the ' Rock' was Christ, through 
 confession of whom Simon received the name of Peter.' "t 
 
 Even Cyril of Alexandria, in the fifth century, 
 flatterer of Eome for his own purposes though he 
 was, yet says in his Expos, on Isai., that the words 
 "On this rock" mean "Our Lord Jesus Christ. "§ 
 
 * De Incur. Dom., cap. iv, f Tract, in Evang. Joannis, 124. 
 
 + Retract. I., i.21. 
 
 § Schaff points out that even Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), " the 
 greatest Pope of the Middle Ages," endorsed Augustine's interpre- 
 tation. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 69 
 
 Here then is a strange spectacle. I do not care 
 to follo\Y Archbishop Carr into his laboured casuistry 
 in answer to the charge that the modern Eomanist 
 interpretation violates the principle of the Tridentine 
 Confession of Faith, viz.: — 
 
 "Neither will I ever take and interpret them (the Scrip- 
 tures) otherwise than according to the lUianimous consent of the 
 Fathers." 
 
 I will leave Dr. Carr to his ingenious apologetic 
 against his "Anglican antagonists," Dr. Littledale, 
 and the rest, on this matter. 
 
 Rome Against Rome. 
 
 What I want to emphasise is that Rome's boast 
 of uniformity of doctrine and of interpretation is a 
 pompous phrase, having no reality of fact to correspond 
 with it. And the phrase about " unanimous consent 
 of the Fathers" is equally unmeaning and convenient. 
 Rome, when it suits her purposes, as a great German 
 scholar puts it, simply sets aside Scripture under the 
 plea of " tradition ; " and icJio is to interpret tradition? 
 — The Pope ! So " the Fathers," whose interpretation 
 is awkward for Rome's purposes, are set aside ; and 
 even the solemn decisions of earlier Popes are set 
 aside when inconvenient. One Pope denounced the 
 withholding of the cup from the laity as sacrilege. 
 A later Pope and Council decreed that "sacrilege." 
 Similarly if there is one interpretation of Scripture 
 more than another which is contrary to " the unani- 
 mous consent of the Fatliers,'' it is the modern Romanist 
 interpretation of Peter's sole supremacy and Rome's 
 supremacy based on Chrisfs saying about the rock. 
 
 No Father and no Bishop of Rome knew anything 
 of it till the close of the fourth century. The Bishop 
 of Antioch was then, amusing to relate, called 
 
70 THE ROMAN CLAIM AND 3IETH0D I 
 
 '' Successor of Peter," and Antiocli had " the throne 
 of Peter"— that is ''his faith." If by ''the Fathers" 
 be meant the faith of Christendom in the first four 
 centuries, then certainly the modern Eomanist doctrine 
 of Papalism and of the supremacy of the Bishop of 
 Eome is contrary to the unanimous consent of the 
 greatest Fathers east and west. It is a small thing 
 to Eome to say that it is against ScrijJture. For the 
 priestly arrogance which has not hesitated to force the 
 Apocrypha into the canon of inspired Scripture, 
 though Jerome excluded it, and to strike the second 
 commandment out of the Decalogue, splitting the 
 tenth into two commandments, is easily equal to the 
 task of resting the huge fabric of the modern Papacy 
 on a wild theory of Peter's sovereignty over all other 
 Apostles, founded on a forced interpretation of "key," 
 and "Gates of Hades," and "rock," and "binding 
 and loosing," which (were it true) would condemn 
 the greatest of the Fathers as arch-heretics. 
 
 " What a gigantic system of spiritual despotism," 
 says Professor A. B. Bruce, "and . . assumption 
 has been built on these two sentences concerning 
 the rock and the keys ! How nearly by their aid 
 has the Kingdom of God been turned into a Kingdom 
 of Satan."* Yes, that name — " Satan" — remember, 
 Simon bore too. The Eomanist interpretation is 
 additionally hampered b}^ this startling fact that in 
 the same hour when our Lord called Simon " Petros" 
 for confessing His Messiahhood he also called him 
 " Satan," and bade him get behind Him, for being 
 blind to the fact that His Kingdom was not one 
 of worldly force and temporal power, but was to be 
 won through redeeming love and sacrifice. " Get 
 thee behind me, Satan," just as He did to the 
 Tempter, in the wilderness, who offered Him " the 
 
 * Training of the Twelve, cap. xi., p. 165. 
 
PETER AND THE ROCK. 71 
 
 kingdoms of the world" and their glory. The attempt 
 of the Douay version to explain those words away, 
 and to get rid of the fact that if the Eoman Chm^ch 
 is built on Petros it is also built on Satanas, is of the 
 sorriest description and can satisfy no candid mind. 
 
 "The Holy Fathers expound them otherwise ; that is, Come 
 after Me, or folloiv Me ; and" . . &c. 
 
 Peace to the ''Holy Fathers! " We have seen how 
 they and Eome square. But the worst of all the evil 
 is that, by building thus an external hierarchy on this 
 external " rock" at Piome, there has been hidden from 
 the view of the peoples that living Christ who, in His 
 Spiritual Messiahhood, without any external power of 
 world-kingdom, was once so nobly confessed by the 
 Eockman, Simon Peter. Once, in the spiritual sway of 
 His gospel over the souls of men, He could come into 
 the world's cities — when His Church had no altar or 
 High-Priest except Himself — and could say, ''Come 
 unto Me." And all who did come repentant, taking 
 of His Spirit into will and heart, He made " kings 
 and priests unto God." All His ministers He made 
 (as St. Peter himself declares) not " lords over God's 
 heritage," but simply teachers and ensamples to His 
 flock." 
 
72 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 LECTURE SECOND. 
 
 The Roman Legend of Peter.— The Ques- 
 tion AND Modern Scholarship. -Was 
 Peter '' Bishop of Rome?" 
 
 " Behold how much wood is kindled by how small a fire." — St. 
 James iii., 5 (Rev, Vers.) 
 
 The first proposition of the Eoman claim was, as we 
 saw in last lecture — 
 
 "That St. Peter was invested by Christ with Supreme 
 authority over His Church." 
 
 The second proposition is, and it is this we are now 
 to examine — 
 
 " That St. Peter finally fixed his See in Rome."* 
 
 So the " rock" has got transferred, by some strange 
 geographical shift, from the east to the west, from the 
 great limestone plateau of Zion to the slope near 
 Janiculum by the yellow Tiber at Rome. The married 
 fisherman of Galilee, Simon Peter, was destined to a 
 strange fate, topographical, sacerdotal, political. He 
 was to become the legendary head of a vast system 
 of celibate monks and priests, bishoi^s, archbishops, 
 and prince-cardinals, and of a line of papal monarchs 
 reigning in a great palace at Rome and at Avignon, 
 and carrying both " the keys" that admit into the 
 heavenly gates, and also the sceptre-staff under which 
 
 * Carr. Primacy, p. 8. 
 
OF PETER. 73 
 
 peoples, parliaments, kings, and emperors should be 
 commanded to bow. Poor Peter, had he but known 
 it ! From the substance of his teaching and his 
 epistle I judge he w^ould not have been gratified. To 
 Cornelius, the Latin centurion, who bowed down at 
 his feet, he said: — "Stand up, I myself also am a 
 man!"* The Elders away in his wide field of 
 missionary work in Asia and " by the shores of the 
 Black Sea""!- he, as their fellow-elder, counselled not 
 to "lord it over their charge" but to "make them- 
 selves ensamples to the flock." And he told them 
 there is only one " Chief Shepherd," therefore they 
 should be lowly, and "serve." For, adds he, "God 
 resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."! 
 Now, I need not stop to show the huge anachronism 
 involved in the Eomanist assertion that "St. Peter 
 fixed his See in Eome." Here, again, there is that 
 fatal "ambiguity of terms." The word " see" meant, 
 originally, simply "seat," the sedes, or seat, of a 
 teacher. How words alter their meaning; the simple 
 gets ghostly; the noble, through Time's wear, gets 
 vulgar! The word "silly" once meant ^'hlessecV On 
 the other hand, one awesome priestly garment, much 
 in vogue at present, meant originally, as Max Miiller 
 and Dean Stanley have shown, a kerchief iov the nose. 
 Another, the " dalmatic," was a common piece of 
 raiment of a Dalmatian peasant. So the simple word 
 "see,"§ at first innocent of any priestly meaning, now 
 suggests awesome and lordly things of Diocesan 
 crozier, mitre, and despotic authority. As Professor 
 
 * Acts X., 26. t " Harnack" on 1 Pet. i. +1 Pet. v., 1—5. 
 
 § Thus Our Lord, in denunciation, says : — " The Scribes and the 
 Pharisees sit in Moses' seat." (Douay — Rheims version — following 
 Wycliffe, translates it ^' chair.") The French word for pulpit is 
 chaire, which is shortened for Cadera, Greek Kathedra, as above. 
 The history of this word, till at last it became the pompous 
 Cathedra Petri, is significant. So "a Professor's chair." — Cf. 
 Morison on Matt. 
 
74 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 Sanday, treating of the once simple word "bishop," 
 says: — '' We arc slaves ofwoi'ds."' 
 
 But apart from this, in Archbishop Carr's lectm-es, 
 two quite different things are shrewdly mixed to- 
 gether — the question, viz.: Did Peter ever visit 
 Rome? and the quite different question, which in- 
 volves a glaring anachronism: Was Peter bishop of 
 Rome, as the Roman legend affirms, for twenty-five 
 years? — Did he, as the Roman claim affirms, found 
 the Roman Church, and institute a line of Popes who 
 have descended in unbroken succession from him? 
 
 Now, those two questions we must keep distinct. 
 They have really little to do the one with the other. 
 Even if you could prove that Peter ever was at Rome, 
 (and I wish you could prove it), this would not in the 
 least prove that Peter founded the Church of Rome, 
 or ever was a ''bishop" there. There was no such 
 thing in those days as a single bishop ruling a church 
 an}^ where. And a wandering Missionary Apostle was 
 just as unlike as could be to 3'Our modern hierar- 
 chical notion of " a bishop." 
 
 Did Peter Visit Rome? 
 
 Now, the Archbishop, like Roman advocates gener- 
 ally, says it is ''for controversial purposes many Pro- 
 testant scholars find difficulty in assenting to the 
 affirmation that Peter visited Rome." I answer that 
 it is certainly for nothing of the kind. A supposed 
 visit by Peter to Rome would not in the least give any 
 basis for the Roman claim, or imply a hisltopric of 
 Peter at Rome, any more than a visit of Paul or of 
 Timothy or of John to Rome would imply, that they 
 were " bishops of Rome." As Bishop Lightfoot, an 
 eminent Anglican scholar (who thought that, for a 
 few months, Peter probably did visit Rome) says, the 
 question is to be pursued simply "as a historical 
 
OF PETER. 75 
 
 study." And, from the facts of history, he not only 
 rejects as an anachronism the notion that Peter 
 could be '' bishop of Rome," but further declares — 
 
 "Now I cannot find that any writers for the first two 
 centuries and more speak of St. Peter as bishop of Rome.""^ 
 
 Sieffert and Schaff, eminent Presbyterian scholars, 
 who also thought it probable " that Peter died in 
 Rome as a martyr under Nero," say further — 
 
 "For the Roman Catholic fiction of a twenty-five years' 
 Roman bishopric of Peter there is no foundation. The New 
 Testament is surely against it."t 
 
 So that, evidentl}^ Protestant scholars, have no con- 
 troversial prejudice in dealing with this question — 
 ''Did Peter visit Rome?" 
 
 Carr on Calvin. 
 
 Even the Archbishop of an infallible Church may 
 err. Even Popes, as we shall see, have badly erred. 
 Here is what Archbishop Carr said in 1893 : — 
 
 "That St. Peter resided in Rome, and died there, and that he 
 was Bishop of Rome, are historic facts, which were never dis- 
 puted before Calvin's time."t. 
 
 That is an amazing sentence ! Someone, in the 
 meantime, has been priming the Archbishop. Now, 
 in his Primacy lectures of 1896, he says — 
 
 " Before the fourteenth§ century no one, however hostile to 
 the Holy See, had ever ventured to deny the fact of St. Peter's 
 sojourn in the imperial city. It was reserved for Marsilius, of 
 Padua, in furtherance of political purposes, to assert that St. 
 Peter had never been at Rome, &c." 
 
 * S. Clem., vol. ii., p. 501. 
 + Professor Sieffert in Schaff's Herzog. 
 X Carr, Origin of the Church of England (1893). Append, p. 83. 
 § In a footnote Dr. Carr confesses that the Waldenses in the 
 thirteenth century denied it. || Primacy, p. 9. 
 
76 THE KOMAN LEGEND 
 
 And Dr. Can* goes on to say : — 
 
 ' ' Their cry was taken up by Wycliffe and by Luther. Calvin 
 evidently did not care to risk his reputation for learning by run- 
 ning counter to the universal testimony of fourteen centuries. 
 ' There is nothing repugnant in the statement that Peter died 
 at Rome" is, however, the extent of his (Calvin's) admission.'"* 
 
 Here, again, Archbishop Carr leaves quite an in- 
 correct impression. But he is making progress. 
 He has now learnt that on this matter (as on all 
 matters of historic investigation and of exegesis) that 
 great Augustinian thinker and scholar, Calvin, whom 
 even flippant Kenan called the greatest and " most 
 Christian man of his century," was careful always not 
 to "risk his reputation for learning." He had certainly 
 a great reputation for that ; and kept true to truth. 
 He always looked facts straight in the face, and never 
 shirked them even when it made against his own 
 theology. And nowhere in literature will you find, for 
 calm and fair historic analysis, and for quiet yet 
 brilliant humour, anything finer than Calvin's 
 criticism of Peter's so-called Eoman Episcopate. 
 After showing the strange contradictions of early 
 writers as to Peter and Eome, Calvin says : — 
 
 I do not dispute that he died there (non piignof qnin lllic 
 mortnus flier it), but that he was bishop, particularly for a long 
 period, I do not believe. I do not, hoirever, attach much impor- 
 tance to the point, since Paul testifies that the Apostleship of 
 Peter pertained specially to the Jews, but his own (Paul's) 
 specially to us. . . . We ought to pay more regard to the 
 Apostleship of Paul than to that of Peter, since the Holy Spirit 
 destined Peter for the Jews, and Paul for us. Let the 
 Romanists, therefore, seek their primacy somewhere else than 
 in the Word of God, which gives not the least foundation for it. 
 
 [Note. — Dr. Carr's foot-reference is here — as often —unmeaning. 
 The following are some of Calvin's sentences: — "By what 
 
 • Id., p. 9-10. 
 + I suppose this is what Dr. Carr funnily translates l)y " there is 
 nothing repugnant." + Instit. Bk. iv,, cap. vi., 15. 
 
OF PETER. 77 
 
 authority do they annex this dignity to a particular place, when it 
 was given without any mention of place?" " Let us see how 
 admirably they reason. Peter, they say, had the first place among 
 the Apostles. . . . But where did he first sit ^ At Antioch, 
 they sa.y. Therefore, the Church of Antioch justly claims the 
 Primacy." "Nay, in the Epistle to the Philippians (written from 
 Kome) ... he (Paul) complains that all seek their oxon. And 
 to Timothy he makes more grievous complaint that no man was 
 present at his first defence — that ' all men forsook' him (2 Tim. iv., 
 16). Where, then, loas Peter / If they say that he was at Rome, 
 how disgraceful the charge which Paul iDrings against him of being 
 a deserter of the Gospel." " But these authors are not agreed as to 
 who was his (Peter's) succes.sor. Some say Linus ; others, Clement, 
 And they relate many absurd fables concerning a discussion between 
 him and Simon Magus." (Bk. iv., cap. vi., 11-12-15.) Oh, rare 
 John Calvin ! 
 
 In fact, a course of Augustinian John Calvin and of that daring 
 Marsilius of Padua, Rector of the University of Paris, who, as early 
 as A.D. 1323 in Rome's days of greatest splendour, dared to tell the 
 Pope that " the Priest should have no secular power ;" that " the 
 New Testament knows no difference between a presbyter and 
 a bishop, and no difference between Peter and the other Apostles;" - 
 and that " the sole head of the Church is Christ," would be good 
 for Archbishop Carr. And then, if he comes to be Pope, as I hope 
 he will (for most ungratefully they have never yet elected an Irish- 
 man as Peter's successor) there will be some chance of the reunion 
 of Christendom.] 
 
 I need not make comments on these wonderful self- 
 contradictory readings of history spoken by Arch- 
 bishop Carr on Calvin and others, nor on the spirit of 
 them. Calvin, just like Harnack and other scholars 
 of our later day, saw no reliable proof that Peter ever 
 visited Eome. He saw the huge legends that sur- 
 round the Eoman assertion regarding it. But he 
 personally had no objection to the theory ; and he 
 seems to have been inclined to accept the statement 
 made by certain "Fathers" that Peter died at Eome. 
 
 I myself would like to believe that if I could ; and 
 I have tried hard to find some evidence. I would 
 gladly prove, if it were possible, that Peter came 
 to Eome. Unfortunately I am not able to do it. My 
 reasons for wishing it are two ; (1) There are some 
 interesting questions about the New Testament gospels 
 
78 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 on which the decision of this question, one way or the 
 other, might cast some light; (2) secondly, I should 
 at once hecome famous. And this, for a hard-worked 
 Australian parson or professor, W'Ould be a pleasant 
 thing. Any man who can prove that the Apostle 
 Peter actually visited Eome will awake next morning 
 and find himself famous, in the world of scholars, 
 writers, and publishers. The publishers and magazine 
 editors will be running after him then, as they now 
 run after some latest discovery of a "novelist," wdio 
 will describe in artistic fashion a hypnotised washer- 
 woman's unclad foot, or make " idylls" in which rural 
 persons sob and sin in a little less natural way than 
 ourselves, and in a largely unintelligible dialect. 
 
 Modern Scholarship and Peter in Eome. 
 
 The stud}' of the whole question has been revolu- 
 tionised, in our da}^ by the profound investigations 
 into the subject made by Professor Lipsius,* of 
 Germany. He holds the very highest place of fame 
 as a historian and archaeologist. As the result of his 
 investigations, he declares that the Eomish tradition 
 of the twenty-five years' bishopric of Peter at Eome is 
 a fable, the result of the growth of legend. He also 
 shows how that legend arose. We shall, later on, 
 trace that legend. Then, as to the other and different 
 question — " Did Peter ever come to Eome?" — Lipsius 
 decides against it. The historic facts and probabilities, 
 he holds, are all opposed to such a belief. This view 
 other modern scholars of the foremost rank have 
 taken — such as De Wette, Winer, Baur, Mayerhof, 
 Holtzmann, Hausrath, Zeller, and Schwegler. The 
 
 * Lipsius, Chronologie der romischen Bisch'dfe, and various other 
 works Hort, Harnack, Duchesne, and others engaged in thfr 
 disciission. See the literature given in Lightfoot, S. Clem., vol. I., 
 201-2. Lightfoot sets the very highest value on Lipsius and 
 Harnack. 
 
OF PETER. 79 
 
 force of the facts adduced by these scholars shook 
 even Neander, formerl}^ an eminent champion of the 
 other view. 
 
 On the other hand, a number of eminent modern 
 scholars, such as Wieseler, Ewald, Bleek, Hilgenfeld, 
 Sieffert, Lightfoot, Eenan and Sanday have inclined 
 to the opinion that Peter did probably come to Eome 
 for a brief time to encourage the Jewish Christians 
 there, in the epoch of the Neronian persecution. 
 But they admit that for this there is no clear and 
 distinct contemporary proof. And his stay in Eome 
 could have been at most only for a few months. 
 Harnack, probably the greatest living scholar on the 
 religious histor}^ of the early centuries, suspends his 
 judgment. He declares that *'the probabilities of 
 the case are evenly balanced." But the notion of 
 Peter as having founded the Church of Eome, or as 
 having been bishop of Eome, is impossible. These 
 scholars unanimously declare the Eomanist tradition of 
 Peter as founder of the Eoman Christian Church, or as 
 claiming "primacy," or as having established in Eome 
 an " apostolic succession," or as having been bishop 
 of Eome for twent3'-five 3^ears, or "bishop of Eome" 
 at all, to be bej^ond belief.* The more learned and 
 candid of even Eoman Catholic theologians have now 
 yielded so far, to the force of facts, as to admit that 
 Peter's visit to Eome, to use Farrar's words, "could 
 only have been very briefly before his martyrdom."! 
 Here arises a huge difficulty for the Eoman Catholic 
 
 * Lightfoot holds that if Peter came to Rome at all it could only 
 have been after Paul Avas set free from his "first imprisonment." 
 "8. Peter would then arrive in Rome in the latter part of 63 or the 
 beginning of 64. The Neronian persecution broke out soon after- 
 wards (summer of 64), and he (Peter) would be one of the most 
 prominent victims." *S'. Clem., vol. ii., p. 497. 
 
 + Farrar gives a list of R. C. writers to the same effect. Dollinger, 
 one of that list, abandoned Rome when the dogma of infallibility was 
 carried. Other Roman Catholic theologians, e.g. Ellendorf, have 
 cast doubt on the whole scheme of Peter's " bishopric " at Rome. 
 Cf. Bleek and Weiss. 
 
80 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 position. The twenty-five years' episcopate of Peter 
 at Eoroe is inwoven with Eoman tradition since 
 Jerome's clay, and with the "Pontifical list," and is 
 part of the warp and woof of the authoritative 
 Eheims-Douay Komanist Bible. Papalism depends 
 upon it, yet it is an absolute impossibility. And 
 any visit at all to Eome by Peter is a matter of 
 the greatest uncertainty. It is awkward for an 
 " infallible" Church and Pope to be built on what, at 
 best, is an utter uncertainty. For "more tlian. a 
 hundred years'' after the death of Paul, and of what 
 must have been in the ordinary course of nature the 
 approximate date of Peter's owm death, as Harnack 
 points out, not a single item of clear contemporary 
 proof can he found in favour of the notion that Peter ever 
 was in Rome. The earliest writing in which it is 
 stated is the letter of Dionysius of Corinth * (cir. 170) 
 in the latter part of the second century. Apparently 
 the sacerdotal mind has no notion of what the lapse 
 of a century means in the growth of legend and of wild 
 imaginings of all kinds. 
 
 The "Fathers" and Legend. 
 
 As we shall see later, the "testimony" of "Fathers" 
 like Dionysius, Irenaeus, and Tertullian in the close 
 of the second century, regarding matters such as 
 this, more than a hundred years before their time, 
 is worse than worthless. For they "testify" too 
 much. They testify what is self- evidently ridiculous. 
 Meanwhile, during that second century, both from 
 wdthin and from without the Christian community at 
 Eome, there had taken place the swift growth of 
 what all scholars admit to be a fantastic legend, com- 
 bining and interlacing together the two Apostles, 
 the Apostle of the Jewish Christians, Peter, and 
 
 JEuseb. H.E., ii., 25. 
 
OF PETER. 81 
 
 the Apostle of the Gentile Christians, Paul. When 
 Clement of Eome, probably in the last decade of the 
 first century,* writes his letter to Corinth, he knows 
 nothing of the Paul-Peter legend. At least he says 
 nothing. Paul is, with him, the important fact. 
 Eighty to a hundred years later, when Dionysius, 
 Irenaeus, and Tertullian wrote, with no contem- 
 porary' facts to check them, the Peter-Paul legend 
 fills the whole air at Piome. In their Apologetic 
 of the Christian faith against hostile and clever 
 Jew and Pagan attacks, — and especially against 
 a swarm of heresiarchs, each one using some one 
 Apostle's name for shihholeth, — these Fathers are 
 busy vindicating the unity of the Apostles ; busy 
 proving that Paul did not very strongly conflict with 
 Peter at Antioch. St. Paul himself, writing to his 
 factious Corinthians, had shown his real unity with 
 Cephas and Apollos ;"f* but that had nothing to do with 
 Piome. The second century "Fathers" had to justify 
 that unity to the outside icorld, and to the heresiarchs 
 in the distant west. And they did it strongly. They 
 did it too strongly. That is their weakness. They made 
 use of a fantastic legend about Peter's journeyings, 
 which had caught hold of the pious imagination, 
 to strengthen their argument for the faith's unity. 
 When a modern historical critic, like Lipsius or 
 Harnack, tests their statements by facts (as Calvin 
 tried to do long ago) then the second century legend 
 can be easily peeled off, and split away from the^rs^ 
 century kernel of Apostolic truth. 
 
 Hast thou not read the French version of Waterloo, 
 or the French story of their warship Vengem\ 
 destroyed by the villainous British ? The gallant 
 Vengeur will not strike her flag ! . . . . " Ocean 
 
 * Lightfoot saj's 95 or 96 a.d., Harnack 96. 
 t This is really one root of the later imagination that Peter and 
 Paul together founded the Church both in Corinth and in Italy. 
 
82 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 yawns abysmal: down rushes the Vengeur, carrying 
 Vive la Repuhlique unconquerable, mto eternity," with 
 all her officers and men refusing to yield. How 
 beautiful the story ! All France believed it soon, and 
 would have continued to believe it, had not contem- 
 porary facts existed to refute it. But Carlyle turns 
 the page — applies the historic lancet. 
 
 "Alas, alas ! the Vengeur, after fighting bravely, did sink 
 altogether as other ships do, her captain and above two hundred 
 of her crew escaping gladly in British boats. ""^ 
 
 That is a small matter compared with the second 
 century Apocryphal writings regarding Paul and 
 Peter, which had birth and growth between the time 
 of Clement of Kome (95 a.d.) and the time of Irenaeus 
 (cir. 190). t I shall look at those legends immediately. 
 Just now let me put the result as to the " Roman 
 Visit of Peter tlms : — To all candid students of history 
 the Peter-Paul founding of the Church of Eome is pal- 
 pably and provably a legend. The contemporary facts 
 of Paul's, and Peter's, and Luke's, and the other New 
 Testament writings are all against it. And Peter's 
 visit to Eome, I very much fear is a legend ] also. There 
 
 * French Bevol., vol. iii., bk. v., cap. vi. 
 + Lightfoot date for Adv. Burr. 
 
 I Prof. Ramsay's new theory is the only one which Av^ould make it 
 feasible. He thinks that Peter's " First Epistle" was not written 
 till " about A.D. 80," § instead of in (63 or) 64 to which Lightfoot, 
 Harnack, Westcott, Farrar, &c., assigned it. Else he thinks it 
 would be spurious. So Peter might live in Rome after PauVs 
 death, and till 80. Some north-east Scotchmen live, and deserve to 
 live, a very long time, and have great faith in the vitality and 
 toughness of the Apostles, mentally and jDhysically. Prof. Ramsay's 
 book was received with special honour at the Vatican. It gives a 
 chance to Peter in Rome ! But the Vatican has made many 
 blunders. This is surely one. For this new theory would obliterate 
 the whole Roman chronology, Jerome, the "papal lists," and the 
 Douay Bible. It would make an end of Linus and the main part of 
 Cletus — the two first so-called Roman "bishops" ; would vindicate the 
 historic worth of Clement's letter to James, and drive us back on the 
 queer tlieory of Rufinus as to Linus and Cletus. I am greatly 
 indebted to Prof. Ramsay for much ; but the only reason for his new 
 theory is to preserve Peter's authorsliip of an epistle. 
 
 § ChurcJi in the Bom. Emp., p. 282. 
 
OF PETER. 83 
 
 is for it no contemporan/ proof. There is a good deal 
 of contemi^orary disproof." 
 
 The Koman Tradition : Early " Papal Lists." 
 
 A *' chain" of "infallible" inspired successors of the 
 Apostle Peter, Vicar of Christ, ought to have no uncer- 
 tainty about its links. Esj^ecially its first links/ If 
 the Komanist theory had any truth, the Church of 
 Eome would, from the beginning, have made sure 
 that no mistake, contradiction, or gap would cause 
 utter uncertainty and confusion about tlie earliest 
 so-called links, — the "bishopric" of the blessed Peter, 
 and then of the so-called "bishops," who (on that 
 theory) were to " succeed" Peter. But, alas, for the 
 whole theory, we find the Koman Church herself, and 
 the weightiest early Fathers, and the early "lists" in 
 hopeless contradiction on this subject. 
 
 There are various " Fathers" who speak about the 
 early Pioman " presbyters" and "bishops." And there 
 are various " Catholic lists,'' or catalogues, of the early 
 " bishops" of the Christian Church in Ptome. These 
 Fathers and these lists vary badly. TJiey contradict 
 each other. And, do what you will to "straighten 
 them out," they contradict each other still. It is 
 dreary work. Lightfoot himself made a most kindly, 
 most heroic effort to straighten out these contradictory 
 statements of "Fathers," like Tertullian, and Irenaeus, 
 and Hippolytus, and "lists" like the "Irenaean," the 
 "Eusebian," the " Jeromean," and the "Liberian;" 
 and he, too, has failed.* In the first place, the 
 
 * I heartily agree with Professor Ramsay's criticism, Church in 
 Roman Emp., p. 284 n., on Lightfoot's dealing with Tertullian's 
 statement regarding Clement's "Ordination." Tei-tullian knew 
 Rome far better than Irenseus did, and his statement is a flat 
 contradiction to the ' ' list" of presbyter-bishops in Irenaius. I am 
 greatly strnck also with Professor Bright's conclusion to the same 
 effect: Roman See (just received), pp. 11-12. He shows the two 
 striking differences between Tertullian and Irenteus. 
 
84 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 Snccessio)i itself you cannot straighten. The very first 
 names are, as Professor Sanday calls them, "shadowy 
 figures." We cannot, as Lightfoot confesses, con- 
 fidently call them "bishops" at all. Harnack speaks 
 more strongly still. Then, secondly, the Chronology, 
 or dates for these so-called early "bishops" of Eome, 
 with the legend of Peter at the top, presents a tangle 
 more self-contradictory. A politician (in England), 
 I am aware, made out for himself a genealogical 
 succession from Alfred the Great, and also from two 
 famous, female Scottish martyrs who had no descen- 
 dants. But that is as nothing to the difficulties pre- 
 sented by the effort to get Peter into Eome, as its first 
 founder and "bishop," and then to fix dates and 
 names for the successive infallible Peters who follow^ed 
 him in the "Popedom." Now, I cannot, in a popular 
 lecture, go into this thing in detail. I will sketch the 
 exact facts in their general lines. 
 
 The Early Bishops of Piome. 
 
 1. As to the so-called early " bishops" themselves, 
 Tertullian of Piome and Carthage, in the close of the 
 second century, presents Clement as first bishop of 
 Eome, declaring that he w^as ordained by Peter.* But 
 Irenasus of Gaul, near to the same date, says that 
 " Peter and Paul preached and founded the Church at 
 Eome," and then those " blessed Apostles entrusted 
 the ministration of the Church to Linus {Haer. iii., 3, 
 2, 3, and Lightfoot, Clem. vol. ii., 495; vol. i., pp. 63, 
 64). Now% what do you think of that stark Eoman 
 contradiction in those two blessed "Fathers?" But 
 that is onl}^ to begin with. In all these earlier 
 
 * Tert., De Praescr. 32 [see Bright, p. 11]. In the later shape 
 of " the Clementine fiction" Peter says, " I lay hands upon this 
 Clement, as your bishop, and to him I entrust my chair of dis- 
 course." Epis. of Clement to James. 
 
OF PETER. 85 
 
 "Fathers" neither Peter nor Paul is ever spoken of 
 as " bishop." They are "Apostles" and " founders." 
 Then farther Irenaeus says, both Peter and Paul 
 entrusted the episcopate to Linus. Tertullian says, 
 Peter ordained Clement, and further tliat this was the 
 view of " the Church of the Eomans" itself, and he 
 makes no reference to Paul ordaining anyone.* That 
 only commences the trouble. — We have, I said, several 
 earty " lists" or "catalogues" of the so-called Roman 
 bishops. We have one called the Liherian catalogue 
 greatly honoured at Rome. It may be called the 
 truly "papal catalogue." It was made out under 
 Pope Liberius in the fourth century, and came into 
 authoritative painting in the later Catacombs through 
 his successor Damasus. It seems to rest on Hippolytus 
 in the beginning of the third century. Of him we 
 shall hear again. Its order of so-called Earl}^ Popes is 
 followed in " the famous series of mosaics in the 
 basilica of St. Paul at Rome." It gives the order, 
 Linus, Clement, Cletus, Anacletus, &c., putting 
 Clement second. Then there is the catalogue given in 
 the tradition of Iren?eus and which Eusebius in his 
 histor}^ in the fourth century follows. 
 
 The succession in Eusebius is Linus, Anencletus, 
 Clement, Sec, thus putting Clement as tJi ir dBisho'p of 
 Rome, and extirpating poor Cletus altogether. This 
 is supposed by Lightfoot to be the "traditional" order. 
 In the numbering of the bishops, Eusebius (as Light- 
 foot and others point out) always omits the names of 
 the Apostolic "founders," and begins with Linus; and 
 
 * Lightfoot, though it makes for Dr. Sahiion's view, confesses 
 " Even Tertullian speaks of Clement as the immediate successor" of 
 Peter the Apostle. If Ramsay's view ever gets accepted as to the 
 late date of Peter's death, it will strangely tit into this, and make 
 Clement first presbyter bishop at Rome. But then, as Sanday 
 shows, till Hernias (145) the jpresbyterial government continued in 
 Rome. 
 
86 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 he always gives the precedence to Paul before Peter in 
 speaking of the founders.* 
 
 Then we have Jerome presenting a shape of this 
 hst, with Peter alone set at the top of it. But Jerome 
 has not forgotten that Tertullian spoke of Clement as 
 immediate successor of Peter, f And although Jerome 
 gives the list in the ''Irensean" way, yet he says the 
 other, viz., with Clement topmost, was believed by 
 " most of the Latins." 
 
 Now what do you think of that contorted and dis- 
 puted, and (all of it) hugely questionable succession 
 for your Eock of an infallible Church, and yet each 
 of those lists has been endorsed by infallible 
 Popes t or eminent saints. Great scholars — Lipsius, 
 Mommsen, Harnack, and Lightfoot, have been in- 
 vestigating, trying to explain these catalogues. Light- 
 foot, the most favourable, says we have to choose 
 between "a tradition (the L'en?ean), a fiction (the 
 Clementine), and a blunder (the Liberian)." He 
 thinks we should choose the tradition. But, oh ! 
 remember the Liberian was fondly endorsed by infall- 
 ible Popes and "most of the Latins." And then 
 underneath them all is that huge legend, unknown to 
 the first Fathers — Peter's bishopric at Eome. So 
 I think we had better not choose any of them, but say 
 with Professor Sanday, of Oxford, that Hernias in the 
 second century (cir. 145 a.d.) ''marks the point at 
 which the Presbyterial form of government is passing 
 into the Episcopal." Here let me set a synopsis of 
 the "lists" in simplest condensed form : — 
 
 * Lightfoot, Clem., vol. i., p. 206. 
 
 t De Vir. Illust., i., 15 (c.f. Bright, p. 15.) 
 
 X Lightfoot says of the papal Liberian list — "Its details are con- 
 fused." Its notices of time irreconcilable. Vol. i., pp. 65-6. 
 
OF PETER. 
 
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88 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 [Note. — Archbishop Carr (p. 163), under the guidance again of the 
 Rev. Luke Rivington, seeks aid out of Eusebius' Chronicle inUts 
 Armenian Version (5th cent.), where Peter is called in the Latin 
 translation Antistes Ecclesiae (pi-esident of the Church). This had 
 been answered by anticipation in Lightfoot (pp. 207, 215) ] and 
 others [also Bright]. But the amusing thing is Dr. Carr's courage 
 in venturing on this. The Armenian Chronicle not only presents 
 what Lightfoot calls "very patent errors," but it makes Peter 
 Bishop of Antioch before he " proceeds to the city of the Romans" 
 (or as Jerome has it, " is sent to Rome"). Also his stay in Rome 
 it makes tw^enty years, beginning in the year 39 ! Also there are 
 two Bishops of Rome called " Linus," one beginning in the twelfth 
 year of Nero and one in the second of Titus. Also Bishop 
 Aggripinus (who according to other lists was a Bishop of Alex- 
 andria) here holds office after Soter as "Bishop of Rome." No 
 wonder that Archbishop Carr says below this (p. 163) : — " The 
 value of these versions of the Chronicle of Eusebius is independent 
 of their chronology, so far as the Roman Episcopate of St. Peter is 
 concerned," &c. Certainly ! tJiat is quite manifest. The value of 
 the whole Roman scheme is independent of chronology, and of 
 Scripture too. And that is what Harnack — that adept in 
 clironologj' as to these things— in his dealing with the dressed-up 
 lists of the "Bishops" of Antioch and of Rome, says: — "A 
 cautious critic will be just as slow to accept the chronology of a 
 list of Antiochian Bishops first appearing in the third century as to 
 admit that Linus was first Bishop of Rome." {Iqnat. Epp. Exp., 
 1886.)] 
 
 The above contradictions are small, however, com- 
 pared with what meets you when you come to the 
 dates connected with the Komanist " bishopric " of 
 Peter. Here the utter defiance of historic reality, the 
 superb contempt for Time's flight and years, is of the 
 most marvellous description. In order to leave any 
 room for Peter as Bishop of Kome, and for the other 
 successive "shadowy figures," whom Catholic tradi- 
 tion has produced as "Bishops" of Eome in the 
 first century, and in order to get Peter martyred at 
 Eome, the catalogues have to bring Peter into Kome 
 at an impossibly early period. Thus the Liberian 
 papal list brings Peter to Eome a.d. 30, and places 
 his death in a.d. 55. Linus succeeds him, a.d. 56. 
 Another list gives him a twenty years' bishopric at 
 Eome, beginning in the year 39 a.d., during the reign 
 
OF PETER. 89 
 
 of the third Emperor, CaHgula. The earlier lists left 
 his bishopric out altogether. Another set of lists gives 
 hira a bishopric of twenty-five years, beginning in the 
 year 42 a.d., in the second year of the fourth Emperor 
 Claudius. This is the tradition followed by Jerome — 
 the authoritative Latin Father — on whose vulgate 
 translation of the Bible the Catholic version of the 
 Scriptures, including the Kheims-Douay version, is 
 founded. That Douay version, with its marvellous 
 notes, affirms that Peter wrote his first epistle 
 
 "at Rome, which, figuratively, he calls Babylon, about fifteen 
 years after our Lord's ascension," 
 
 The Douay version affirms also that the second 
 Epistle of Peter 
 
 "was written a very short time before his martyrdom, which 
 was about thirty-five years after our Lord's ascension." 
 
 Now, the date of our Lord's crucifixion is fixed by 
 the best of modern chronologists as the year 30 a.d.* 
 Thus the Douay version, in a heroic attempt to square 
 with Jerome, makes Peter to have written his first 
 Epistle in Kome about the year 44 or 45 A.D.i* Yet 
 we had supposed that 44 a.d. was the year of his 
 imprisonment in Jerusalem by King Herod Agrippa. 
 Peter's martyrdom the Douay version makes to have 
 been at Kome about the year 65 a.d., during the 
 Neronian tyranny, two years before the date named 
 for it by Jerome, f 
 
 The Liberian papal catalogue had given this badly 
 mishandled Peter the qitietus of his bishopric ten 
 years before, viz., in 55 a.d. (Light., Clem., i., p. 253). 
 
 * Cf. Wieseler, Lightfoot, &c. 
 
 t The Douay note-writers probably meant to follow Eusebius, 
 who placed Our Lord's ascension in 33 a.d., and Jerome, who gave 
 it as 32 A.D. See Douay Chronology in Appendix. 
 
90 the roman legend 
 
 Paul and Peter. 
 
 But that is only to begin with. The Eoman tradi- 
 tion, in its early shape, joined Paul and Peter together 
 in the founding of the Pioman Church. They both 
 together — those two "blessed Apostles" — says, e.g., 
 that Irengeus over whom Archbishop Carr has spent 
 so nianj^ words — "having founded and built up the 
 Church" " entrusted the ministration of the bishopric 
 to Linus."* But this is not all — the great snowball 
 of legend gathers as it goes. One shape of it made Paul 
 and Peter suffer martj^dom at the same time. One 
 form of the legend represents them together ; another 
 form a^Dart. One shape of it pictures Peter as fleeing 
 from the Gate of Eome along the Appian way and 
 meeting Christ, who, in answer to Peter's startled 
 question, " Domine quo vadisT'' (" Lord, whither goest 
 thou?") made answer, "I go to be again crucified." 
 In the little church of Domine Quo Vadis, on the 
 Appian-road, built to keep this legend in remem- 
 brance, I have sat and pondered. Along another 
 Eoman road, outside the Latin gate, and nigh to the 
 Ostian way, there are the Trc Fontane — three foun- 
 tains which sprang up where St. Paul's head, the 
 legend saith, fell and rolled in martyrdom. Also, and 
 in the earlier sha23e of the legend, we meet with 
 Peter's wife as having part in the suffering and 
 honour. Peter is seen encouraging his wife as she goes 
 to martyrdom. A little later the legend represents 
 the Apostle Peter as crucified with his head downward. 
 It only wanted, as Eenan characteristically says, some 
 narrator to work all these touching items into some 
 beautiful narrative — " a man at once of genius and a 
 simple mind." But he was not forthcoming. Instead 
 of a beautiful narrative, the legend was made the 
 
 * Haer. iii., 3, 3, 3. 
 
OF PETER. 91 
 
 basis in Rome for a gigantic system of priesthood, 
 dominating with this once simple name, " Peter," the 
 reason and the faith of Christendom. 
 
 II. — Proof for Peter's Roman Bishopric. 
 
 When we ask what proof is given by Roman advo- 
 cates that Peter founded the Chm'ch at Rome, or that 
 he was ever Bishop of Rome, or, again, any proof 
 e^en for the quite different assertion that Peter, 
 perhaps, visited Rome for a brief time, the answer 
 is amusing by its meagreness. The proof consists of 
 these three elements : — 
 
 1. In the close of John's Gospel it is indicated that 
 Simon, who had betrayed Christ, should suffer 
 inprisonment and death for His sake.* Even in the 
 drinking of that " cup" of suffering Peter had no 
 " supremacy." James, the brave " Son of Thunder," 
 dnnk it before him.-|* Stephen, a greater than 
 eiiher — though no Apostle — drank it first. j " But 
 of the time and place of that death" of Peter (as 
 Hirnack says) "we know nothing with even approxi- 
 mite probalDility." 
 
 2. In Peter's Epistle, written to (probably Jewish) 
 Clristians, "sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, 
 GJatia, Cap]3adocia, Asia, and Bithynia,§ he says : — 
 " Che co-elect that is at Babylon saluteth you, and 
 (s« doth) Marcus, my son."|| Romanists, in common 
 wih some Protestant scholars, take this word 
 "3abylon"1[ to be a hidden name for Rome. This 
 
 * John xxi., 18,19. f Acts xii., 2. | Acts vii., 60. 
 
 § IPet. i., 1. II Id.y., 13. 
 
 [ Sandaj' says this would be the "most decisive" proof " if it 
 
 hed good." Yes, it would be the only proof, as Harnack shows. 
 
 Saiday confesses — " There is a natural reluctance in the lay mind 
 
 totake Babylon in any other sense than literally." 
 
92 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 would, of course, be likely enough had Peter been 
 writing a symbolic Apocalypse, but unlikely in a 
 simple, practical prose letter. Besides, w'ere " Babylon" 
 a symbolic word, it might just as readily mean 
 Jerusalem, from which Christ had warned His disciples 
 to come out and " flee" (as from Babylon long before) 
 when the conquering armies drew near, or it might mear 
 '' Antioch," the Eoman headquarters in the East.^ 
 In the Apocalypse, Jerusalem is called both " Sodon 
 and Egypt." f But, in sooth, there is in Peter's 
 beautifully direct " immediate" manner nothing of 
 the Apocalyptic method or spirit. J 
 
 Clement of Piome. 
 
 3. The third§ element of " proof" is that in tie 
 Epistle of Clement, the Presbyter of Eome, sent to tie 
 Corinthians in the close of the First Century (thi^, 
 about 95 or 96 a.d., is the earliest known Christiai 
 writing after the New Testament) reference is male 
 to Peter : — j 
 
 " Who, by reason of unrighteous jealousy, endured, not oie 
 nor two, but many labours ; and thus, having borne his tes[i- 
 mony, went to his appointed place of glory." \\ 
 
 That is all. It does not say a word about the place, 
 or the date, or the circumstances of Peter's deati. 
 It never hints, in any way, that he was ever in Eome, 
 or ever suffered there. Nay, the context slion's tint 
 
 * Lightfoot, Clem, i., o55. t Apoc. xi., 8. j 
 
 + See Harnack on this below. | 
 
 § I will not spend time on "the hint" some think they see jin 
 what Papias quotes from "'JUie Presbyter" about Peter's connectin 
 with Mark. Harnack says: — "He says nothing of the, place %t 
 which they were together." Nor need we pause regarding Ignatits, 
 who gives not the slightest hint of Peter's connection with Ronfe, 
 Harnack and Sanday pass both by. 
 
 II Clem., c. 5. 
 
OF PETER. 93 
 
 such a thought is quite foreign to the mind of the irriter. 
 He is writing, in the name of the Christian congrega- 
 tion at Rome, to the Christian congregation at Corinth 
 deprecating the jealous}^ and division, and "making 
 of parties" which characterized the Corinthian con- 
 gregation, and which had led them to oppose some of 
 their faithful presb^^ters (or " bishops"), and even to 
 j'emove them from office. Clement points out that 
 God's best servants in all ages have been opposed 
 through jealousy " through which also death entered 
 into the world.''* Abel was opposed through jealousy; 
 so was Jacob, so was Josejih, so w^as Moses, so was 
 David, t 
 
 " But to pass from the examples of ancient clays, let us come to 
 those champions who lived very near to our time. Let us set 
 before us the noble examples which belong to our generation. 
 By reason of jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous 
 pillarsl of the church (congregation) were persecuted, and con- 
 tended even unto death. Let us set before our eyes the good 
 Apostles — Peter, who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured, 
 &c." 
 
 Such is the connection ; and Clement then goes on 
 to speak of Paul : — 
 
 "By reason of jealousy and strife, Paul, by his example, 
 pointed out the prize of patient endurance." 
 
 I have been at pains to set out the exact words and 
 meaning of this letter of the Christians at Piome to 
 the Christians at Corinth (written by Clement's hand) 
 for two reasons: — 1. Archbishop Carr funnily calls it 
 the "authoritative" letter of "Pope St. Clement" of 
 Pome, who, Dr. Carr is good enough to state, " was 
 
 * C. 3. C. 4. 
 
 J Observe that word ^'pillars" used equally of Peter and Paul, 
 just as Paul used it of " James, Cephas, and John." Clement has 
 no knowledge of Peter's " primacy." 
 
94 THE ROIMAN LEGEND 
 
 third Pope in succession from St. Peter." He 
 also is good enough to inform us that, in this letter, 
 we really had no right to expect — 
 
 ' ' Such clear-cut evidence as it aflords of the exercise of 
 supreme jurisdiction on the part of the reigning Roman Pontiff 
 in the affairs of a distant and Apostolic Cliurch," 
 
 Dr. Carr on Lightfoot's "Discreditable" Evasion. 
 
 Also, Archhishop Carr launches out fiercely at 
 Liohtfoot for tellino- the truth about the contents of 
 
 o o 
 
 this epistle of Clement, and for his (Lightfoot's) 
 demonstration that the letter " does not proceed from 
 the bishop, but from the Church'' in Eome. As 
 coming from — 
 
 "the representative of a Church which is constantly flaunt- 
 ing its claims to an Apostolic descent, the contention [of 
 Lightfoot] is," says the Archbishop, "at once destructive and 
 discreditable." 
 
 Also, Dr. Carr declares that Lightfoot's 
 
 "transparent object is to evade the strong proof of the Primacy 
 contained in the whole Epistle of St. Clement" ! (p. 29). 
 
 But Archbishop Carr surely did not suppose any 
 educated people were present at his lectures when he 
 ventured on the following : — 
 
 "It would seem that a few unruly members [of the Church in 
 Corinth] had driven out probably their bishop and some of hi& 
 priests or presbyters, and the Church of Rome cawie to the rescue" 
 (p. 25). 
 
 That is good ! If that should ever happen to get to 
 the eye of Professor Sanday, or Professor Bright, of 
 Oxford, I can imagine the Oxonian smile. 
 
OF PETER. 95 
 
 Archbishop Carr further m forms his auditory that, 
 in this epistle, " Pope St. Clement" laj^s — 
 
 * ' claim to submission and obedience on the ground that his 
 words were the words of God, and were dictated by the Holy 
 Ghost." 
 
 Also, he affirms that in this letter the Pontiff " St. 
 Clement" teaches — 
 
 ' ' the absolute necessity of Apostolical succession for a legiti- 
 mate ministry, mentioning explicitly the threefold order of 
 bishops, prriests, and deacons.'' 
 
 Finally, Dr. Carr surpasses himself by informing his 
 audience that the " Sovereign Pontiff, Pope St. 
 Clement," sent — 
 
 ' ' his own legates in order to secure the acquiescence of the 
 Church of Corinth to his will !" 
 
 After all this, it is rather disappointing to find that 
 he feels it necessary to explain to his hearers the sin- 
 gular fact that Clement omits all reference to himself, mid 
 never even mentions his own name ! So wholly unlike a 
 modern Pope. He suggests two explanations: — 1. "/i 
 may have been his humility.'' This, which would be 
 quite a rare quality in a " Sovereign Pontiff's" en- 
 cyclical, sounds an odd explanation, seeing that 
 "Pope St. Clement," according to the Archbishop, 
 had just been declaring that " his words were the 
 words of God, and were dictated by the Holy Ghost !" 
 So Archbishop Carr tries another explanation : — 
 
 "It would be very unsafe to give the name of the head of 
 an organised Christian community in Rome 1"* 
 
 It is very astonishing this. Here is "the opening para- 
 graph" of Clement's letter, and there is not a hint of 
 any reminder about " unsafeness" or the withholding 
 of an}^ name : — 
 
 * Carr, p. 38. 
 
96 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 "The church (ecclesia = congregation) of God which sojourneth 
 in Rome to the church (ecclesia) of God which sojourneth in 
 Corinth, to them who are called and sanctified by the will of God 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace from 
 Almighty God, through Jesus Christ be multiplied. By reason 
 of the sudden and repeated calamities and reverses which are 
 befalling us, brethren, we consider that we have been somewhat 
 tardy in giving heed to the matters of dispute tliat have arisen 
 among you, dearly beloved," &c.* 
 
 There is here smiply a sahitation from one sister 
 Church to another, with an apology for not having 
 written sooner. Clement never mentions his own 
 name, or speaks with any authority of his own, or 
 claims any jurisdiction whatever. "The very exist- 
 ence of a bishop of Kome itself could nowhere be 
 gathered from the letter," says Lightfoot.-t* It is a 
 letter from the congregation at Kome to that at 
 Corinth, with counsel and advice, and with no appeal 
 to any constraint but that of the common love and 
 faith of Christ. Just so, a congregation in Edinburgh 
 might write to one in Glasgow; or, so a convention, or 
 presbytery, or gathering of churchmen in Mel- 
 bourne might write to one in Sydney. Twice during 
 recent months I myself have written to distant 
 churches two letters more authoritative, and more 
 decisive of the case, than this letter of Clement. One 
 letter was to a church in another colony; one was to 
 the Christian people of a group of South Sea Islands. 
 They even asked me to nominate their sole minister — 
 a far more "popely" act than was ever done by 
 Clement or by Clement's Epistle. And yet Arch- 
 bishop Carr has never thought of calling me ''His 
 Holiness the Pope." The seamd reason for my 
 emphasis of this passage of Clement is that, as Pro- 
 fessor Harnack, of Berlin, says — This passage of 
 
 * Clem. 1. Lightfoot's Trans. 
 
 t Lightfoot, Ctem., vol. i., p. 852, &c. 
 
OF PETER. ' 97 
 
 Clement is " the only historical mention we have of 
 Peter for more than a hundred years" after the date 
 of the death of Nero and of Paul. 
 
 Now, I ask sane men, looking at that passage 
 quoted by me from Clement, Avhat has it to do with 
 Peter's presence in Piome? Was "Abel" in Rome? 
 Was " Jacob " in Eome? Was " Moses" in Rome? Was 
 " David" in Rome? Was " Peter" in Rome? All that 
 Clement says is that all these were opposed " through 
 jealousy;'' but he does not connect any of them in 
 any way with Rome. He does not connect Peter with 
 Rome. * 
 
 Later on in that chapter Clement speaks of the 
 Apostle Paul, but in what different terms! Paul, 
 also, he says, had to face jealousy and strife; and 
 after he 
 
 " had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached 
 in the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which 
 was the reward of his faith, having taught righteousness unto 
 the whole world, and when he had come to the boundary of the 
 West {to Tcpfxa TTjs Syo-ews), and when he had borne his testi- 
 mony (suffered martyrdom) before the prefects (rulers), so he 
 departed from the world, "t 
 
 If that language indicates that Paul suffered at Rome, 
 certainly it gives no hint that Peter did, or that he 
 was ever in Rome, or in the West at all. 
 
 Origin of the Peter Legend. 
 
 But the fact of the two names, Peter and Paul, 
 having been mentioned together in the same chapter 
 of this ej)istle, written by Clement, from the Christians, 
 at Rome, to the Christians in Corinth (just as St. Paul 
 himself had mentioned them together in Ids Epistle to 
 
 ' Clem. 4, 5. f Clem. 5. f Compare Lightfoot's & Donaldson's 
 translations. 
 
-98 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 the Corinthians, less than forty years earlier, as an 
 evidence of the unity of the Church of Christ) was 
 quite enough to set the ball of patristic imagination 
 and legend rolling. This was one direct source of the 
 Peter-Paul legend. But other legendary elements of 
 fantastic kind, and drawn from Judaeo-gnostic sources, 
 soon mingled with those impressive Apostolic names, 
 and during the second century swiftly developed. In 
 various apocryphal writings, Peter's journeys were 
 dressed up into a romance to rival Paul's, then to 
 blend with Paul's. By the close of the second 
 century, the story has grown and consolidated into a 
 huge legend.* Dionysius, of Corinth,-!" in the close of 
 the second century, is the first Father to say that 
 Peter visited Kome. But his words carry their own 
 dis^^roof. In large imaginative language he talks o 
 the unity of — 
 
 the trees of the Romans and Corinthians planted by Peter and 
 Paul. For they both alike came also to our Corinth, and 
 taught us ; and both alike came together to Italy ; and, having 
 taught tliere, suffered martyrdom at the same time. J 
 
 Every one can see that this "planting of trees" is 
 just a legendary echo of Paul's words to the Corinth- 
 ians, '^ I planted." Somewhat later, Iren8eus§ of 
 Gaul surpasses this. He describes Peter and Paul as 
 "preaching and founding the Church in Kome."|| 
 Tertullian of Carthage makes the ball larger still. 
 He describes Peter as baptising in the Tiber ; and, 
 not content with this, he adds the Apostle John also. 
 Peter and Paul, he says, suffered martyrdom at Eome, 
 and the Apostle John, "after being plunged in boiling 
 oil without suffering any harm, is banished to an 
 
 * See Appendix for special note. 
 
 t 170 A.D. , Lightfoot. Harnack places it later. 
 
 X Euseb. H.E. iii., 25, as in Lightfoot. 
 
 § 190 A.D. , Lightfoot. 
 
 II Haer. iii., 1,1, and 3, 2, 3. Irenaeus will meet us later on. 
 
OF PETER. 99 
 
 island."* Oh, these Fathers! What an infalhhle 
 voice of authority to trust to — '' the consent of the 
 Fathers." How could they tell the facts as to what 
 happened 100 or 130 years hefore?f Think of even 
 Clement and "the Phoenix !" Stick to your New Testa- 
 ments, you laymen ; there, at least, you will be sure 
 you are not being befooled by some gnostic legend that 
 got accepted by "the Fathers." There you will not 
 build on a foundation of sand. There is not an item 
 in all this traditional stuff written by Dionysius, 
 Irengeus, and Tertullian, that is not provably er- 
 roneous. This same Irenaeus tells that Christ lived 
 to be an old man, and that his public ministry lasted 
 nearly twenty years. {Haer. Bk. ii., xxii., 5, 6). And 
 the Eomans, Tertullian says, could not hoil John. All 
 the value that can be set on these statements of 
 Fathers on the verge of the second and third centuries 
 is just this : — They show that, at the end of the 
 second century, there was a prevalent tradition that 
 Peter, as well as Paul, had been at Eome in the first 
 century, and had died there in martyrdom. 
 
 Four Recent Scholars. 
 
 Now, take the opinions of perhaps the four 
 most eminent of our recent scholars, who have 
 specially studied this question — Was Peter ever in 
 Rome? Lipsius says "No." Lightfoot and Sanday 
 think he probably did come for a brief visit, to 
 encourage the Jewish Christians in Rome at the time 
 of the Nero persecution. | Harnack regards the 
 balance of j)robabilities on both sides as equal. But 
 three things he says are weighty against the opinion 
 
 * De Bap. 4. Scorp. 15. De Praescr. 36. 
 
 t Between the years 58 or 61-63 and 170 there is quite time for 
 legend to grow up — 8anday. 
 
 I In 64, Lightfoot S. Clement, vol. ii. , p. 490 sq. So also Sanday. 
 
100 THE ROMAN LEGEND 
 
 that Peter ever was in Kome — 1. There is for it v<> 
 contenipovarii eridoice, no testimony " for more than 
 a hundred years." The interpretation of "Babylon" 
 as meaning Eome, in a matter-of-fact epistle, he 
 characterises as unlikely ; beyond that there is no 
 proof of any kind. '2. The tradition of Peter's presence 
 in Rome was not umform in the Early Church. It is 
 in direct conflict with the other stream of tradition — 
 
 "which represents 'Peter as havmg worked in Antioch, 
 in Asia Minor, in Babylonia, and in the country of the bar- 
 barians, on the northern shores of the Black Sea.'" 
 
 Peter was the ''Apostle of the Circumcision," to the 
 Jews of the " Dispersion." His own epistle is in 
 keeping with this, and so is the statement that his 
 letter was written from Babylon, which 
 
 "is best understood, not as a crytographic expression for 
 Rome, but, like the geographical names of the epistles of 
 the New Testament, in a literal sense.'' 
 
 So says this great scholar.* 
 
 Then, further, the tradition of Peter in Piome is 
 discredited because it is — 
 
 "Almost inextricably bound up with a story of Avhose 
 legendary character there can be little doubt — that of the Simon 
 Magus of the Clementines." 
 
 So Harnack, while on the one hand he recognises 
 that "it is difficult to suppose that so large a body of 
 tradition (speaking of Peter and Rome) has no 
 foundation in fact ; " on the other hand sums a 
 weighty array of facts " which render the ordinary 
 patristic statements doubtful" — the want of all con- 
 temporary proof, "the complete silence as to Peter 
 (and Rome) in the Pauline Epistles," the legendary 
 character of the "patristic" statements, and the fact 
 that the Roman legend is directly contradicted by 
 
 * Dr. Marcus Dods says so also. 
 
OF PETER. 101 
 
 strong tradition, which places Peter's ministry wholly 
 in the East. 
 
 In short, the whole thing is so legendary, I would 
 not stake on that notion of Peter's having visited 
 Eome the value of a sparrow's life, never to speak of 
 the value of men's everlasting souls, and the undying 
 destinies of Christendom. But, in any case, all these 
 scholars agree that Peter's '' bishopric" in Piome is 
 fabulous. 
 
 IV. — The New^ Testament Disproof. 
 
 Was Peter for twenty-five years Bishop of Eome, 
 as Jerome conjectured and Komanists allege, viz,, 
 from 42 a.d. until 67 a.d.? 
 
 Here the evidence is no longer negative, but of the 
 most positive and undeniable kind. It is history versus 
 fable. In the year 42 Peter had not left Palestine. 
 In the year 44 he was imprisoned by Herod Agrippa in 
 Jerusalem. About the year 51, at the Council in Jeru- 
 salem, Paul and Barnabas met James, Cephas, and 
 John, who were " reputed to be pillars" of the Churches 
 in Judea. They agreed that Paul should go as Apostle to 
 the Gentiles, and the others to the Jews. A short time 
 later Paul conflicted with Peter in Antioch, Then 
 followed Paul's second and third great missionary 
 journeys. Then, in the spring of the year 58 a.d., 
 from Corinth Paul wrote his great Epistle to Eome. 
 That epistle makes no reference whatever to Peter 
 having ever been in Eome, or having founded the 
 Church there. That fact of itself, as Harnack, Light- 
 foot, and Sanday all say, proves the Eoman tradition 
 to be impossible. Later still, in 61 a.d., Paul himself 
 arrives in Eome. In his Philippian and other letters, 
 and in Acts, we know the history of that Eoman 
 Church down to the year 63, on the eve of Paul's trial 
 and the outbreak of Nero's persecution. But Peter is 
 
102 THE ROMAN LEGEND OF PETER. 
 
 never mentioned. Up to this point all modern scholars 
 of any standing are in unanimous agreement. Lipsius, 
 Harnack, Lightfoot, Eenan, all of all shades of 
 opinion, declare that the tradition of Peter's having 
 founded the Church of Rome, and having been bishop 
 of it, is simply incredible. 
 
 If Peter was in Rome at all, says Lightfoot, it could 
 only have been for a few months, '* in the latter part 
 of 63 or the beginning of 64. The Neronian persecu- 
 tion broke out soon afterwards." In that persecution, 
 Peter, if there at all, must have fallen. If Paul then 
 escaped and wrote his three Pastorals — 1 Timothy, 
 Titus, and 2 Timothy — these bring us down to 67 a.d. 
 And still there is no word of Peter having ever come 
 to Rome. 
 
 We have thus seen this huge legend, on which the 
 Titanic structure of the Roman papacy has been 
 gradually built up, crumble piece by piece, under the 
 test of actual historic facts. The result can be ex- 
 pressed in three propositions : — 1. The assertion that 
 Peter was, at any time, in Rome can find for itself not 
 a shred of actual proof. He may have been, or he 
 may not have been. But it is at best unlikely ; and 
 it cannot at all be proved. 2. The assertion that 
 Peter founded the Church of Rome, and was for 
 twenty-five years Bishop of Rome, is absolutely im- 
 possible. 3. Of any " primacy," of rule or authority 
 of Peter over the rest of the Apostles, there is not a 
 trace in the New Testament, or in the Earliest 
 Christian literature. 
 
 Note. — For Peter's Bishopric and Clementine Romance 
 see Appendix, where Dr. Carr's quotations from Harnack will 
 be discussed. 
 
RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER. 103 
 
 LECTURE THIRD. 
 
 RISE OF A Sacerdotal Order in 
 THE Christian Ministry. 
 
 "He [Jesus Christ] is able to save to the uttermost them that 
 draw near unto God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to 
 make intercession for them. For such a High-priest 
 became us — holy, guileless, undefiled, separate from sinners, 
 and made higher than the Heavens — who needeth not daily, 
 like those high-priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His 
 own sins and then for the sins of the people, for this He 
 did once for all ivheii He offered up Himself. ^^ — Heb. vii., 
 25—27. 
 
 " Now, therefore, why tempt ye God, that ye should put a yoke 
 upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers 
 nor we were able to bear." — Peter, in Acts xv., 10 — 11. 
 
 The Christian Faith. 
 
 The New Testament Gospel centres round Christ — 
 the Way, the Truth, the Life, the one Merciful 
 High-priest, whose One sacrifice has for ever made 
 an end of oblation, and has flung aside the " veil of 
 the Temple" that hid God's presence from men. In 
 Him all penitent men may " draw near" now to God 
 — to offer themselves direct unto Him — reconciled, 
 absolved, transformed by new forces of life, their bodies 
 made God's living temple, because the Spirit of God 
 dwells within them. This is the true Skekinah ; and 
 
 H 2 
 
104 EISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 Christ-like men are the Temi^le and priesthood of God. 
 That is the Gospel. It has done away, forever, with 
 all sacrificing priesthood. It calls all believers 
 " priests unto God," a " priesthood and kinghood" 
 in one, all of them " presenting" or " offering up" 
 to God, from hearts of love, in Christ, the sacrifice 
 of thanksgiving, and the service of a changed, 
 Christ-like life. Is not it striking that Peter him- 
 self so vividly declares that all Christ's people are 
 God's Spiritual Temple, all of them God's priests, all 
 of them able to ofter up " spiritual sacrifices ?"* 
 
 From that great fact, of the one sufficient Sacrifice, 
 offered by Christ Jesus once for all, there follow three 
 things which characterize the Gospel, and the Church 
 of the New Testament, and the New Testament 
 Scriptures. These three things mark the unlikeness 
 of the Gospel to all that went before it, as well as to 
 all pagan and mediaeval Priesthood. 
 
 No Order of Priesthood. 
 
 1. In the congregation or church of Jesus Christ, 
 there is but one Atoning Priest, or High Priest, viz., 
 Christ Himself. In Him all believing men are brought 
 into direct relation to God. 
 
 2. There is, therefore, no sj)ecial caste or order of 
 priesthood in the Christian Church. All believing 
 men and women, atoned and set free from condemna- 
 tion in Christ, brought near to God in Him, and 
 dwelt in " by His Spirit," are, in the New Testament, 
 called " Priests unto God" and the Father. All of 
 them can "ofter" to God from loving, grateful hearts 
 their only "sacrifice" on which God sets value — the 
 living sacrifice and offering of thankful lips, and of 
 loyal trust, and of unselfish and pure lives, respon- 
 
 * 1 Pet. ii., 5-9; Rom. xii., 1 ; Rom. i., 6. 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. , 105 
 
 sive to the love of God. There is no sacerdotal order 
 in the Ministry of God's New Testament Congregation 
 or Church — ^just because all God's people, in common 
 and equally, are God's priests.* This fact fronts us 
 all througli the New Testament, f It stands 
 out plain in the Apostle Paul's Epistles, in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, in John's Epistles. It 
 is asserted in the strongest way in the writings 
 of St. Peter himself — that very Apostle whom, 
 by a strange perversion of history, the Church 
 of Kome has chosen as its legendary foundation and 
 source. Of all believers in common Peter says: — 
 *' But ye are an elect race, a kingly priesthood." 
 The sacrifices they offer up are no material victims, 
 and no material bread and wine on any material 
 altar, but the "living sacrifices" of the heart's love 
 and the life's pure doing — the deeds not of darkness, 
 but of Christ-like light, t That is the only priest- 
 hood, except Christ's High Priesthood, the Apostle 
 Peter or the New Testament knows anything about, 
 under the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 3. To the Christian Ministry — the Ministry of the 
 New Testament Church — no sacerdotal title is ever 
 aj^plied in the New Testament, no priestly name 
 is ever given, no priestly function is ever ascribed, 
 except the titles and functions ascribed to all believ- 
 ing men — the whole company of Christians. 
 
 Now this great fact, as Lightfoot proves, is seen 
 vividly if we examine the description of the Christian 
 Ministry, and the titles bestowed upon it in the New 
 Testament, e.g., in the Book of Acts, or in St. Paul's 
 Epistles, or in St. Peter's. 
 
 * Lightfoot, Phil, pp. 181 sq. and 264-6. 
 
 t Lightfoot truly says the entire Epistle to the Hebrews would 
 be meaningless on any other supposition. 
 
 \ 1 Pet. ii., 9-12; Rom. xii., 1; Heb. xiii., 15, &c. 
 
106 RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 A Christian Ministry in the New Testament. 
 
 There is an order of Christian Ministry recognised 
 clearly in the New Testament ; no organisation, civil 
 or religious, could exist without " order and govern- 
 ment." But the " Christian Ministry," as Lightfoot, 
 himself a great prelate, frankly said, is ''no part of 
 the essence of God's message to man in the Gospel," 
 but is indispensable only for the Church's efficiency ; 
 for practical convenience ; for the requirements of the 
 spiritual growth of the members of the Christian 
 Society or Church. 
 
 "For communicating instruction and for preserving public 
 order, for conducting (public) religious worship, and for dis- 
 pensing social charities, it became necessary to appoint special 
 officers."* 
 
 Men of special training, understanding, and know- 
 ledge, who can devote their time to it, are necessary 
 for this great thing — the proclaiming of the Gospel, 
 the guiding, "upbuilding," and energising of the 
 Church of God. But, all through the New Testament, 
 the Christian Ministry is pictured as simply repre- 
 sentative of all God's congregation ; it is never 
 sacerdotal. In the New Testament, as Lightfoot puts 
 it — "the priestly functions and privileges of the 
 Christian people are never regarded as transferred or 
 even delegated to these officers. They are called 
 stewards or messengers of God, servants or ministers 
 of the Church and the like; but the sacerdotal title is 
 never once conferred upon them."! 
 
 You can prove for yourselves, from your New Testa- 
 ment, that this is so — that no special sacerdotal 
 function or title is given to the Christian Ministry other 
 than those given to each and every Christian believer. 
 
 * Chris. 3Iinis. Phil., p, 184. Lightfoot was Professor at Cam- 
 bridge when he wrote this, but up to the close of his life declared he 
 had not altered in any way his standpoint. 
 
 t Cf. Lightfoot, Chris. Min. Phil, p. 184. 
 
in the christian ministry. 107 
 
 Paul's Picture of the Church. 
 
 E.g., St. Paul pictures the Church — under the figure 
 of a living body and its unity — Christ the one and 
 only Head,* and all believers the members of His 
 body, with diversity of administration. In that unity 
 (as Lightfoot lucidly proves to us) Paul sums into 
 two great categories the Christian Ministry. In the 
 one category he places "apostles, prophets, &c." — 
 those men who, in the first age of Christianity's 
 outburst of life, had a non-local ministry of 
 "founding," of "witnessing" to the facts of their 
 Lord's mission and resurrection ; and who had also 
 supra-natural "charismatic" gift for the initial 
 guidance of the entire Church. These Apostles, 
 prophets, and inspired "teachers" went from place to 
 place planting and "encouraging" the new Church of 
 God. In another category St. Paul puts the stated 
 and local ministr}^; he gives to them such titles as 
 these — "pastors, help, governments."! We find them 
 again called by St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Luke, 
 "presbyters" or "bishops," and "deacons." 
 
 Bishop and Presbyter in the New Testament. 
 
 I may say in a word, because the thing is no longer 
 disputable, that by these stated ministers of the Early 
 Church, is just meant the "presbyters or bishops" 
 who, in each congregation, guided and taught the 
 Christian people, and along with them the "deacons," 
 who helped them in the administration of the Church's 
 charities and financial requirements. I The "apostles 
 
 * 1 Cor. xii.; Eph. iv., 15, 16. 
 
 t Lightfoot, Chris. Mm. Phil, p. 185. 
 
 X This is very clearly worked out by Professor Sanday and other 
 
 modern scholars. It is accepted even by Canon Gore that in the 
 
 New Testament, and even in Clement of Rome, presbyters and 
 
 episcopoi are the same. 
 
108 I^ISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 and prophets and inspired teachers" necessarily 
 passed away. From the nature of the case, and from 
 St. Paul's description of what ^vas necessary to 
 constitute "Apostles," there could be no "apostolic 
 succession" — they could (as Lightfoot shows) have 
 no successors. But the stated and ordinary ministry 
 remained. The "pastors" or "shepherds," with 
 the two-fold function of oversight and of teach- 
 ing, are entitled "presbyters," which is just a 
 Greek translation of the Hebrew word meaning 
 "elders" — those connected with the rule* of the 
 Hebrew^ synagogue, or congregation. In that syna- 
 gogue, as distinguished from the Temple, there 
 was no "priesthood." St. James, the spokesman 
 of the Jewish-Christian Church at Jerusalem, calls 
 the Christian people, or congregation, the siuiagoge\ 
 (synagogue), which is equivalent to ecclesia con- 
 gregation, ]3i'0ving unmistakeably how, simply and 
 necessarily, the early Christian Church, in its stated 
 life, government, and worship, retained the shape of 
 the Hebrew congregation. Amongst Gentile Christians 
 and Hellenistic-Hebrew believers, another name was 
 employed as a synonym for that w^ord "presbyter," 
 or elder; that name was "e^oiscopos," overseer 
 or superintendent, or bishop. Now I need not stay to 
 prove that in the New Testament these words " pres- 
 byter," or elder, and "episcopos," or bishop, are quite 
 identical in meaning. They are exact equivalents the 
 one for the other, as equivalent, e.g., as the words 
 "Minister" and "Pastor" are in a Christian Church 
 to-day, or as equivalent as the w^ords "Master" 
 
 * The (TvvedpLov or Council of Elders, was attached, even for civil 
 jurisdiction, to every synagogue. The ordei' of the Society was 
 represented there. 
 
 t Jas. ii., 2. In Heb. x., 25, the compound of this word (epi- 
 sunagoge) is used for the Christian congregation. St. Paul uses the 
 verb for the same. 1 Cor. v., 4. 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 109 
 
 and "Warden" are in relation to Ormond and 
 Trinity Colleges. Two passages of the New Testa- 
 ment, out of many (if we accept the genuineness 
 of the New Testament writings), are enough to 
 prove this identity. In Acts xx., 17 — 28, St. Paul, 
 on his way to Jerusalem, calls at Miletus, on the 
 coast, and there the " elders" of the Christian Church 
 at Ei^hesus meet him, as time presses and he cannot 
 go to Ephesus to visit them. Paul calls them all 
 "bishops" (as both the Greek and the Kevised have 
 it). " Take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock in 
 the which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops 
 (episcopous), to shepherd (or 'be pastor over') the 
 congregation of God." Again, in Titus i., 5 — 7, elders 
 (presbyters), in every "city" or town, are also called 
 "bishops" — several of them in each Christian con- 
 gregation or church, and each of them a bishop, 
 needing to be " blameless as God's steward, the 
 husband of one wife," not of several, like the heathen. 
 So evident is this that all great scholars of these 
 subjects in our day admit that, in the New Testa- 
 ment, the two names, presbyter and bishop, are 
 identical in meaning.* The persons to whom these 
 titles were given — and there were several such in every 
 congregation — were just the same in function, in office, 
 and in dignity. 
 
 * To deny this (as Haruack confesses) we should have to reject 
 the genuineness of Acts and St. PauVs Pastorals. We should also 
 have to reject 1 Peter. Even Gore admits the identity of "pres- 
 l)yter" and " episcopos" in the New Testament, and in Clement, at 
 the close of the First Century. Even after the elevation of one 
 presbyter, as sole episcopos (bishop), he was for some centuries only 
 pastor of one congregation, or community, like our parish minister. 
 In the Apostolic Ordinances it is declared that even a congregation 
 with less than twelve male members may have a bishop. Cf. 
 8anday, &c. 
 
110 RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 No Episcopal Ordination. 
 
 The j^eojjle "elected" their Ministry. The presby- 
 ters ordained them. 
 
 Then another startling fact is evident. Even an 
 Apostle, when present for a time in a chm'ch, or dis- 
 trict — so far as the ordinary stated government of the 
 Chm'ch went, was simply a presbyter like the other 
 presbyters. The act of " ordination," for example 
 (the appointing of ministers to office), that act round 
 which such vast mysterious jargon has gathered, 
 as if the whole Apostolic Church of God depended 
 on it, was performed by the jweshyters in common. 
 If an Apostle was present, he simply took his 
 place as one amongst the presbyters. Two passages 
 prove this indubitably — (1) St. Paul says that 
 Timothy was ordained by " laying on of my hands." 
 But, in another place, he explains that it was '' Jnj 
 the laying on of the hands of the presbytery''^ — all 
 the presbyters in common — Paul himself taking his 
 place amongst them. (2) The Apostle Peter him- 
 self writes to all his churches of Asia : — " The elders 
 among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder . . . 
 Tend (shepherd) the flock of God which is among you 
 [exercising the oversight (episcopate) thereof. fj " This 
 utterance of Peter to the presbyters of all his churches 
 is the more significant and pathetic, seeing that the 
 
 * 1 Tim. iv., 14; 2 Tim. i., 6. 
 
 t The Rheims-Douay translates ' taking care of it." This word 
 episcopountes is omitted in Codd. t^B. It is present in the other 
 oldest MSS. and versions. The inclusion or omission of it makes no 
 change in the meaning of the passage, which proves incontestably 
 that tlie government of the Church was by presbyters. In the 
 Shepherd of Hermas (145 a.d. ), says Harnack, the presbyters 
 exercise control over the individual bishop. Lightfoot has shown 
 that in Alexandria, as late as the middle of the third century, the 
 bishop was nominated and ordained by the presbyters. Lightfoot 
 Phil, p. 226-229. Sanday, Expos., Jan., 1887. 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. , 111 
 
 word "tend," or "shepherd," is just the same verb 
 which Christ used to Peter himself, when restoring 
 him after his shameful denial and fall — " Tend (or 
 shepherd) my sheep" (John xxi., 16.) 
 
 This ought to be sufficient. It is absolutely certain 
 that, according to the New Testament, in the age 
 when the Book of Acts and 1 Peter and the later 
 Pauline Letters were written, the words " presbyter" 
 and "bishop" were sj-nonymous; and the stated 
 ministry, the spiritual government, of the Church 
 was, to use Lightfoot's expression, " that of the 
 presbyterate ;" or, to use Jerome's expression, it was 
 " by the Common Council of Presbyters," or Bishops, 
 in each Christian centre or community. And these 
 two words, "presbyters" and "bishops," meant just the 
 same thing. There were no " successors of the 
 Apostles" higher than these. Nay, even Jerome 
 himself, the great Latin Father, on whose translation 
 of Scripture the Pioman Catholic Bible rests, declared 
 that in Scripture and 
 
 *'with the ancients, presbyters were the same as bishops; but 
 gradually all the responsibility was transferred to a single 
 person that the thickets of heresies might be rooted out." 
 (Jer. m., i. 5). 
 
 Such was the condition of the ministry in the early 
 Christian Church. I have been at pains to set it quite 
 clearly forth, for this one purpose — it shows that not a 
 single priestly, or sacerdotal title was given to the 
 ministers of that Church during all the New Testa- 
 ment age, and throughout the whole of the first 
 century. 
 
 II. — Evolution of a Priesthood. 
 
 When one thinks of the shape the Church of Christ 
 took in after ages, and of the pretensions of its clergy 
 — great patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, and 
 bishops, often making deadly war upon one another, 
 
112 RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 and under them a vast order of priesthood, and 
 what not, clamimg to be a separate caste from 
 the rest of God's people, and to have the power, 
 by sacrifices of the mass, to open the gates of pm-ga- 
 tory for souls imprisoned there after death, or (here 
 in this life) to grant plenary or other " indulgences" 
 for sins done — and then, when one looks back at the 
 stated ministry of that early Christian Church in the 
 first and the early part of the second centuries, one 
 may well ask in wonder how tlie one ever grew out of 
 the other ? 
 
 It is a long story. I can sketch only a few of the 
 chief stages and factors in the process. Here, to 
 begin with, we must note that small commencings, 
 as in a river's flow, may have vast volume by-and-bye. 
 We must also note — what Lightfoot* draws attention 
 to — that, unfortunately, " the word ' priest' in Eng- 
 lish, and in some other modern languages, has two 
 different senses," which are expressed by two quite 
 different words in the Greek and Hebrew of the Bible. 
 Our English word "'priest," in its derivation, is just 
 the same as the word "presbyter," or elder. "It 
 meant originally," says Lightfoot, " the minister who 
 presides over and instructs a Christian congregation." 
 But, by lapse of time and change of signification, it 
 came to be " equivalent to the Latin sacerdos, the 
 Greek 'tepevs, the Hebrew pD (Kohen), the offerer 
 of sacrifices, who also performs other mediatorial 
 offices between God and man." Lightfoot laments the 
 vast confusion, which has arisen in Church life, by the 
 use of the same word to express two wholly dift'erent 
 ideas — as, for example, in the Book of Common-Prayer, 
 the word "priest" should only mean "presbyter." 
 The sacerdotal idea has been " imported" into the 
 
 * Philip, p. 186. He confesses his large indebtedness to both 
 Rothe and Ritschl. 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 113 
 
 word ; it is not original.* That word, whose wholly 
 changed meaning now bulks so large, and is used as 
 equivalent to the Latin sacerdos (a mediator and 
 absolver between God and man), meant at first only a 
 presbyter, or elder, in Christ's congregation, all the 
 members in which were equally priests to God. This 
 term for the Christian minister was at first wholly 
 devoid of sacerdotal meaning. The only " ofi:*erings" 
 Christ's ministers, in the New Testament, ever ''pre- 
 sented" to God were just the ofterings presented by the 
 whole congregation, viz., " the sacrifice oi praise and 
 prayer, giving thanks to His name, ""I' the bestowing 
 of alms, and the showing of love to God by a changed 
 and holy life. In the case of the Lord's Supper, it is 
 specially significant that no priestly term is ever con- 
 nected with it. The Lord's Supper is regarded in the 
 New Testament as part of the ordinary service of 
 " thanJcsgiving.'' The whole life of the Christian was 
 regarded as equally sacramental.f Present, says St. 
 Paul, "your bodies" a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable 
 to God. This is your " rational ceremonial service." — 
 (Eom. xii., 1.) That was spoken in common to all 
 God's people. And of all God's people, St. Paul 
 (Phil, iii., 8) beautifully used the cognate verb — " who 
 serve God by the spirit." As Lightfoot puts it — "We 
 offer the true latreia — the service not of external rites, 
 but of a spiritual worship." 
 
 Early Fathers. — No Sacerdotalism. 
 
 Now, up to the closing years of the first century, as 
 we can prove, two great facts are prominent — (1) 
 that no sacerdotal function and no sacerdotal title 
 were as yet given to the Christian Ministry ; (2) that, 
 after the death of the Apostles, the presbyters were the 
 
 * Lightfoot, PML, pp. 245 et 186. t Id., p. 265, sq. 
 
 t Id., pp. 262-266 ; notes. 
 
11-1 RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 highest order of the abiding ministry in the Christian 
 Church. No one presbyter had as yet (at least out- 
 side "Asia Minor") Hfted himself up, as a special and 
 single bishop or presbj^ter, above the others. The 
 modern Episcopate, as Lightfoot says, has arisen by 
 evolution out of the presbytery. Naturally, as an 
 Episcopalian, he would like to find that evolution as 
 early as possible, and to join it on to Apostolic times. 
 He adopts the theory of the eminent German Presby- 
 terian scholar Eothe, viz., that the first appearance 
 of incipient episcopacy was in John's Churches in 
 Asia Minor. But he confesses he cannot get proof of 
 that. At the close of the first century we can find no 
 trace of a separate Episcopacy — no trace of one single 
 " bishop" — in Rome, or in Corinth, or in Greece, or in 
 Italy, or in any city or land of Europe. 
 
 Clement of Eome. — No Priesthood. 
 
 Of that we have the clearest proof. We have in our 
 hands the letter of Clement of Piome at the close of 
 the first century (96 a.d.), after all the Apostles were 
 dead. But that letter has not a trace either of Ejnsco- 
 IKicy or of a Sacerdotal order. Archbishop Carr rashly 
 (as it seems to me) appealed to that letter, and to the 
 later writings of Ignatius and of Hermas.* Here they 
 are in our hand. In Clement (cap. xlii., xliv., xlvii., 
 Ivii.) we find that in Corinth there were a good many 
 bishops at one and the same time in the church or 
 congregation there. All of them Clement calls "pres- 
 byters" and also " bishops." He knows of no higher 
 office in the Christian Ministry than that of " pres- 
 
 * Professor Sanday, of Oxford, inclines to agree with Ritschl that 
 the writing of Hermas (145) in the middle of the second century, 
 in its assertion of the rights of the presbyters, " marks the time 
 Avhen the Presbyterian form of government was passing into the 
 episcopal." 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 115 
 
 byters*' — and he calls their office eiTLSKoir-q (bishopric).* 
 He knows of no single Bishop of Corinth, and no single 
 Bishop of Kome, much less Pope of Piome. He knows 
 of no sacerdotal functions belonging to presbyters or 
 bishops. In Clement, Jesus Christ is the only 
 "High-priest of our souls," and "High-priest of our 
 offerings" (C. 61, 36). The " sacrifice" is offered by 
 all the people. It is " the sacrifice oi praise'" (C. 35). 
 And again, " sacrifice unto God is a contrite spirit" 
 (C. 18). The only orders of priesthood known to 
 Clement — " high-prist, priest, levite" — are those of 
 the Old Testament, done away in Christ (C. 32, 40, 
 16). (See Lightfoot on cap. 40; also PliiL, p. 249.) 
 If we had Clement now as the Creed of the 
 Church (barring that wild story he tells about the 
 Phoenix living 500 years, and at its death giving origin 
 to a new bird from its own decayf), w^hy, we might 
 have the " re-union" of Christendom to-morrow. 
 There would be no "historic Episcopate," and no 
 sacerdotalism, and no sacrifice of the mass, and no 
 prelacy, and no purgatory, and no invocation of 
 Saints, and no Mariolatry, and no monkhood, to bar 
 the way. We should have just the Eeligion of the 
 New Testament. 
 
 KoMANisT Mistranslation of Clement, &c. 
 
 Before passing from the first century into the 
 second, it is necessary to glance at a characteristic 
 instance of the maltreatment these "Fathers" have 
 received in the interests of Sacerdotalism. Thus in 
 the 57th paragraph, or brief "chapter," of Clement's 
 
 * Lightfoot, S. Clem., vol. ii., p. 127 sq. 
 
 t Clem. , cap. xxv. See Lightfoot's valuable note. The most in- 
 telligent of the pagans believed this ; also Tertullian, Ambrose, &c, , 
 also the Jewish Rabbis. 
 
116 RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 letter, the faction-makers in the Christian community 
 in Corinth are urged : — 
 
 "Ye therefore that laid the foundation of the sedition, submit 
 yourselves to the ^^reshyters (preshnterois). . . . For it is 
 better for you to be found small and esteemed in the flock of 
 Christ than to be had in exceeding honour, and yet be cast out 
 from the ho2)e of Him." (Cf. Lightfoot's, with Roberts' and 
 Donaldson's renderings.) 
 
 But Archbishop Carr rendered it to the public: — 
 " Submit yourselves to your priests !" And Clement's 
 word iXiridos {elpiclos) hope he rendered ''fold;'' and 
 Clement's beautiful word ''flock'' he rendered "sheep- 
 fold!" And this is all the worse, because that Greek 
 word iroifivLov (flock) is the direct translation of Hebrew 
 words in the Old Testament which mean "flock." In 
 the New Testament it is applied, as Thayer's Grimm 
 or any competent modern Lexicon could have told him, 
 to "bodies of Christians (churches) presided over by 
 Elders. Acts xx. 28, 1 Pet. v. 3." How " Komanist" 
 it all sounds as Dr. Carr speaks it ! How Christlike, 
 and universal in its simple beauty, it is, as Clement 
 spoke it: — "flock" of Christ, and "hope" of Christ, 
 and "presbyters" of Christ's Congregatian. Poor 
 Clement, to have his beautiful words so mishandled 
 as to back up the un-Christian notion of a great, 
 palisaded, uniform, autocratic Church, with priests 
 and pontiff, whose anathemas cast men out of 
 the " Fold ! " But, as Dr. Stacey Chapman has dealt 
 with that instance lucidly, we need not dwell on it 
 further.* 
 
 Archbishop Carr, however, answers that he relied 
 upon "Allnatt's Cathedra Petri.'' I am aware of 
 that ! That is the cause of the trouble — All- 
 natt, and the Eev. Luke Eivington, and the Eev. 
 Father Eyder, and all these handbooks of " Catholic 
 
 Alleged Papal Supremacy, pp. 15-17. 
 
IN THE CHEISTIAN MINISTRY. 117 
 
 Controversy," written in defence of the Cathedra Petri^ 
 and drawn up for the mihtant forward movement of 
 the " CathoHc Campaign." This is but one instance 
 out of the many. When we come to Ignatius and the 
 rest, the handbooks are kin in quahty. 
 
 One could not wish a better service done to 
 Protestantism and Christianity than to have Clement's 
 letter widely printed and read. In cap. xlvii. he 
 urges the Corinthians to read the Epistle of " Paul 
 the Apostle" — 
 
 " Of a truth he (Paul) charged you, in the Spmt, concerning 
 himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because that even then ye had 
 made parties. Yet that making of parties brought less sin 
 upon you, for ye were partisans of Apostles that were highly 
 reputed, and of a man approved in their sight." 
 
 This alone would be sufficient proof of the base- 
 lessness of the Komanist claim for a supremacy for 
 Peter, or for Eome. Clement puts Paul in front of 
 Peter — "himself (Paul), Cephas, and Apollos." He 
 calls the two — "Apostles that were highly reputed." 
 He says not a word of Kome having " Apostolic" 
 authority as descending from any one of them. On 
 the contrary, he says those who made faction then, 
 as partisans of the more distinguished Apostles, were 
 less culpable than those who make factions now, when 
 Apostles no longer exist. 
 
 I have already sufficiently pointed out, that in cap. 
 xlii., xliv., &c., Clement makes it clear that ^' i^reshy- 
 ters'' and " bishops" are the same, and that in every 
 Christian congregation there were several of these. 
 And these "presbyters" were then the highest oj^der in 
 the Christian Ministry. There is no trace in Clement 
 of ANY ONE Bishop in any Church anywhere. And 
 there is no trace of sacerdotalism. 
 
118 rise of a sacerdotal order 
 
 Second Century. — The "Thickets of Heresies." 
 
 The second century brings us into the midst of an 
 altered and tragic spectacle. It is what Jerome, later 
 on, called " the thickets of heresies." The Christian 
 faith had spread widely amongst the Gentile peoples ; 
 but it got interwoven thick and deep with the peculiar 
 notions of the pagan cults, and theosophic specula- 
 tions. It was the era known by the general term 
 "gnosticism." It was the age also of successive 
 harassing persecutions. The Church was torn and 
 distracted by endless "heresies," distorting the faith 
 into a hundred diverse shapes, and breaking into 
 countless factions the Church's unity. It was 
 necessary to the existence of the faith, and of a 
 Church of God at all, that it should be consolidated, 
 centralised, and should have rapid inter-correspon- 
 dence between its chief centres. To this movement, 
 as all great modern scholars on this subject are 
 agreed, was due the first development, of what is 
 called " monarchical episcopacy " — the lifting of one 
 presbyter or bishop, in each congregation, or place, 
 or Christian community, above other presbyters, 
 to voice the faith and common fellowship in 
 Christ, in the unity of the Church's hope, as that 
 faith had come down from the Apostles of Christ. 
 It was not at all the unity of shajye they were con- 
 cerned about, but the unity of the gospel. This fact 
 is admitted in the frankest and clearest way by 
 Jerome, the great Latin Father : — 
 
 ''Before factions were introduced into religion by the 
 promptings of the devil," says Jerome, "the Churches were 
 governed by a common council of presbyters" (elders*). When 
 afterwards one presbyter was elected that he might be placed 
 over the rest, this was done as a remedy against schism, that 
 
 * Jer., Tit. i., 5. 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 119 
 
 each man might not drag to himself, and thus break up, the 
 Church of Christ."* 
 
 Or, as Bishop Lightfoot says : — 
 
 *'To the dissensions of Jew and Gentile converts, and to the 
 disjDutes of gnostic false teachers, the development of episcopacy 
 may be mainly traced. "f 
 
 Origin of Bishop. 
 
 There was another reason for the lifting of one 
 presbyter, or bishop, above the other presbyters. 
 In fact, the tendency is seen in every committee 
 or society when it needs an effective "voice" as its 
 president or chairman. In those times of persecution 
 and of varied perplexities, it was needful that the 
 various Christian Churches should have communication 
 with one another. This could be done, as we see 
 already in Clement's letter, only by the Church in one 
 city writing to the Church of another city through the 
 hand of its best-known presbyter, and by sending, 
 where possible, delegates. Especially was this done 
 when the Christian community in a wealthy city, like 
 Eome or Alexandria, felt impelled to send aid to some 
 poorer Christian community. The eloquent preaching- 
 presbyter who was wont to " conduct the thanksgiving 
 worship," which culminated in the Lord's supper with 
 its "Love-feast" (Agape) and its "giving of alms," 
 became, in association with the deacons, specially 
 identified with this loving duty, the correspondence 
 between the Churches, and the "communication," to 
 beneficence . I This tendency was further necessitaed 
 
 * Epist. cxlvi., ad Evang. See on this Alford, Acts xx. ; 
 Sanday, Expos., Jan. 1887. 
 
 t Phil. 206-229, sq.; also Creighton's H tsi. of Papacy, p. 4. 
 
 X This is the main element of truth, it seems to me, in the Hatch- 
 Harnack theory, which traces the development of the sole-episcopus 
 to the congregational ivorship and its alms-giving, which alms were 
 distributed by the "bishop" through the "deacons." 
 
 I 2 
 
120 RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 when times of persecution set in. The civil law 
 compelled the Christian society in each city to be 
 registered, and accountable to the civil authorities, in 
 the name of some one presbyter who was thus known 
 to them by the Gentile name " episcopos,'' else the 
 Christian society would have been deprived even of 
 common burial rights.* 
 
 The Ignatian Letters. 
 
 In the middle of the second century, from such 
 various causes, we can trace this tendency to let one 
 presbyter, called definitely ^' episcopos" (bishop), 
 speak in the name of the church, or congregation, in 
 each town or city. It is significant, also, that this is 
 first heard of just in those districts where the gnostic 
 heresies first sprang up into power, viz., in the region 
 of Syria and Asia Minor.! It is first articulately 
 presented in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch in his 
 journey along the border of Asia Minor— those strange 
 letters over whose spuriousness or genuineness the 
 heavy cloud of doubt will always hang. For they stand 
 alone in the first half of the second century. 
 
 This " Saint Ignatius," on his way to Eome to be 
 martyred, shed round him letters broadcast, to various 
 cities as he passed, urging the Christian congregation 
 in each place to be united and steadfast in the faith, 
 honouring their " ejnscojws (bishop) with the presby- 
 tery and deaco7is.'' He uses very wild and whirling 
 words, and he is interesting, as every vivid personality 
 is, but chiefly as the earliest man who speaks of a distinc- 
 tion (in the stated Ministry) between the p>resbyters as 
 
 * This is brought out vividly by Prof. Kamsay. 
 
 t Lightfoot points out, also, that the spurious Clementine Hom- 
 ilies show us one of the earliest assertions of episcopacy. 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 121 
 
 a whole, and one presbyter called '^ episcopos.'"* These 
 letters Harnack places about 140 a.d., Lightfoot 
 earlier (and I think wrongly) about 118. [I fancy 
 scholarly opinion will swing round again to reject all 
 these letters as spurious.] 
 
 But what I draw attention to, in the whole matter, is 
 this — the one letter which Ignatius wrote to Eome — 
 is just the only letter which he wrote to a Church 
 outside Asia Minor. And it makes not the slightest 
 reference to a bishop in Eome. It is addressed 
 simply to the church — " which hath the presidency 
 in the place of the region of the Eomans."i* 
 
 Other Fathers in Second Century. 
 
 Later still, in Hennas, we have it declared of the 
 Christian community in Eome that it is "the presbyters 
 who preside over the Church.'' In keeping with this is 
 the light thrown by the recently-discovered Didache (or 
 Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), which shows us still 
 existing in the second century tivo (not three) "orders,'' 
 or "functions," in the Christian Ministry, viz., elders 
 or bishops, and deacons. And it is the people who 
 elect or appoint these presbyters. 
 
 * These writings have, as all confess, been greatly forged and inter- 
 polated. They are extant in three main forms : — (1) the shortest, or 
 Syriac (three letters) ; (2) the Short Greek, or Vossian (seven letters) ; 
 (3) the Longer Greek, and Latin (thirteen writings). The Short Greek 
 is the only form that can be genuine. Many great scholars regard 
 all as spurious. Zahn, the eminent Presbyterian scholar, vindi- 
 cated ably the genuineness of the short Greek letters. In this he 
 has been followed by Harnack and by Lightfoot. Harnack's main 
 reasons for regarding these letters as possible in the first half of the 
 second century are : — "(1) Their author does not name the bishops 
 as successors of the Apostles — it is Irenaeus who first invents 
 that ; (2) he says nothing about an institution of bishops by the 
 Apostles ; (3) he deems the bishop, as representative of the truth 
 of God and the faith of Christ, to be the head of only one particular 
 congregation or community." 
 
 t Ign. ad Horn. 1. 
 
122 RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 "Appoint, therefore, for yourselves bishoj^s and deacons 
 worthy of the Lord ; men that are meek and not covetous, and 
 truthful, and approved, for they also perform for you the 
 service (or minister tlie ministry) of the Prophets and Teachers." 
 — Did.,'*' c. XV. t 
 
 Do yoii think, had there been any Bishop of Eome, 
 not to sa}" Pope of Eome, in 142-145, Hernias could 
 have written that way ? 
 
 First Trace or Bishop of Eome. 
 
 That is remarkable ! The process of change to 
 " episcopacy" was slower in Europe than in the East. 
 But, when it set in, it came with a rush. There were 
 sjDecial reasons for the uprising of a single bishop 
 in Eome. RoDie was then the metropolis of the 
 world, — centre of wealth and influence. It was the 
 Imperial city — the city of the Emperor's court and 
 palace. Many members of the Eoman Church had 
 relations soon with the Emperor's household. Before 
 the close of the first century some of the Emperor's 
 near relatives were Christians. Every Church that 
 was impoverished by famine or persecution sent an 
 appeal to the wealthy Church at Eome. The promi- 
 nent martyrs were sent to suffer at Eome. The 
 Christian traders gravitated towards Eome. 
 
 In the closing years of the second century we find 
 '' ei^iscopacy" almost everywhere. But what was that 
 *' episcopacy ?" Certainly not anything like diocesan 
 episcopacy. The " episcopos," as Sanday shows, 
 corresponded to a modern parish minister or the 
 
 * Prof. Sanday says that the discovery of the Didache has 
 dissipated the doubt expressed by Lightfoot whether the rulers 
 in Hermas might not mean ' ' bishops' ' in the later sense. Harnack 
 says Hermas is proof that "episcopacy" had not yet arisen in 
 Rome. 
 
 + cf. Sanday, Expos., Jan., 1887. The inexpensive book. Church 
 of Snb- Apostolic Age, by Prof. Heron, of Belfast, deals lucidlj- with 
 this. 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 12S 
 
 incumbent of a town church, or (shall I say?) a 
 Wesleyan ch'cuit leader, with his presbyter-helpers, 
 and his deacons or stew^ards round him. There was, 
 as yet, no sacerdotal caste, and nothing like diocesan 
 episcopacy, or any separate ordination for " presbyters'* 
 and for "bishops."* 
 
 The Message of Peace bet^veen the Churches. 
 
 We are, as Sanday says, alas, " slaves of W'Ords." 
 The metaphorical Old Testament language about 
 '• High-priest, Priest, and Levite" has dominated, as 
 Lightfoot vividly shows, our Christian imagination. 
 Similarly the w^ord " bishop," with its mediaeval 
 pompous sound, has led our historical reason captive. 
 For the "bishop" of the close of the second century 
 was a very limited and humble personage.f Sanday 
 says truly: — 
 
 ' ' Every town of any size had its bishop ; the whole position 
 of the bishop was very similar to that of the incumbent of the 
 parish church in one of our smaller towns." 
 
 He says further, and beautifully : — 
 
 *' The Christian Church consisted of a number of scattered 
 congregations islanded, as it were, amongst the masses of an 
 alien population." 
 
 Further still he declares: — 
 
 "In some respects the Non-conformist communities of our 
 own time furnish a closer parallel to the primitive state of 
 things than an Established Church can possibly do. Christianity 
 itself was an instance of non-conformity." 
 
 That is fine, as coming from a scholar who himself 
 prefers the modern Episcopal system, when reformed. 
 And I, who was born within an "Established and 
 
 • The distinction is not clearly drawn, Lightfoot shows, till the 
 fourth century. 
 
 t Expos., Feb. 1887. Cf. Lightfoot, Phil. 231 et Ignat. i. 397. 
 
124 RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 Presbyterian Church," heartily endorse it. And this 
 is still finer : — speaking of the Church's earliest 
 stages, when the Christian communities first got 
 dotted down, here and there, and then gradually came 
 to be cared for by presbyters, he says : — 
 
 *'The Church passed through a congregational stage, and 
 ... it also passed through a presbyterian stage." 
 
 The hearty recognition of these facts, he declares, 
 ought " to result in an eirenicon between the 
 Churches." 
 
 Earliest Traces of a Priestly Caste. 
 
 Towards the close of the second century we come 
 upon three new features. It is significant that they 
 occur simultaneously: (1) the earliest assertion that 
 "bishops," as distinct from "presbyters," are succes- 
 sors of the Apostles ; (2) the earliest distinct assertion 
 of special priestly titles as belonging to the Christian 
 Ministry ; (3) the first distinct claim made by the 
 Pioman Church to precedence, and to a kind of more 
 authoritative voice than other Churches. This meant 
 the atmosphere and mood of Eoman, pagan Imperial- 
 ism, invading the Congregation or Church of Jesus. 
 Irenaeus is the first to voice the first of these notions, 
 viz., that "bishops" are successors of the Apostles. 
 Ignatius, fifty years earlier, with all his whirling 
 rhetoric, had never uttered this. The original iden- 
 tity of bishops and presbyters as presiding over the 
 Church is still visible, even in him. Thus, in his 
 vehemence for the Church's faith and harmony, he 
 speaks of the bishop as — 
 
 * ' Presiding in the place of (or, after the likeness of) God, and 
 your presbyters as in the place of for, after the likeness of^ the 
 assembly of the Apostles. "* 
 
 * Ign. ad M agues., cap. vi., Trail. 2, 3, Smyr. 8. 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 125 
 
 "But be ye obedient to the Presbytery as to the Apostles 
 of Jesus Christ, our Hope." And, again, he urges respect for 
 "the presbyters as the Council of God, and as the College of 
 Apostles." 
 
 "The presbyters, not the bishops," saj^s Lightfoot 
 {Ignat. vol. i., p. 397), "are here the representatives 
 of the Apostles." 
 
 So that if there is any external " Apostolic succes- 
 sion" it would inhere in the Preshytevs! That is 
 certainly the one order of the stated Ministry which 
 has continued all through, from the earliest hours of 
 the Christian Church and down till to-day. By 
 the law of "the survival of the fittest" the order 
 of presbyters will, apparently, continue after bishops 
 shall have passed away. For, as a witty friend of 
 mine in the Old Land said: — "According to John's 
 Apocalypse, in the Vision of the Church perfected, the 
 presbyters (or elders) have a large and honoured 
 place. But there is no mention whatever of bishops ! " 
 If any Church can claim external "continuity," those 
 Churches which have the Presbyterial system can 
 surely claim it. But, let us all thank God, " succession" 
 and " continuity" depend on a factor more certain 
 than any externalisms of human appointment, or of 
 men's hands resting on heads, whether the hands 
 be bishops' hands or those of presbyters, viz., 
 on the abidingness of Christ's truth and gospel, 
 and of God's redeeming grace, on the never-failing 
 presence of Christ's living Spirit in the hearts of men, 
 who make confession and thanksgiving together before 
 God, in the unity of the love of their common King 
 and Saviour. This is the Kingdom of God. This is 
 the Congregation, or Church, of Jesus. Let us honour 
 it, and its ministry, in all its forms, however simple, 
 however stately, if only it be true, in living love and 
 in unselfish beauty of the life, to the Spirit and the 
 presence of Jesus. 
 
126 rise of a sacerdotal order 
 
 Priesthood Born in North Africa. 
 
 It is well that this has been shown by a great and 
 learned prelate, viz., Bishop Lightfoot, so there can be 
 no charge of bias. The first time we find the name 
 "hiereus" (sacerdos) "priest" applied to Christian minis- 
 ters is by a heathen writer.* The first Christian Father 
 " to assert direct sacerdotal claims on behalf of the 
 Christian Ministry" isTertullian, of Carthage, in North 
 Africa, and of Kome. He calls the bishop the chief 
 priest, " summiis sacerdos," and says that the 
 right of baptism belongs to him.-f That is the first 
 clear note of Sacerdotalism in Christian history, more 
 than 160 years after Christ died. And yet he 
 modifies this thought greatly by saying that Christian 
 laymen also are priests, and where no clergy are at 
 hand, laymen "present the euchaiistic ofierings, and 
 baptize, and are (their own) sole priests. For where 
 three are, a Church is, though they be laymen." 
 
 It is the same Tertullian, as I showed in last 
 lecture, who said that Peter was baptising in the 
 river Tiber, at Kome, and that St. John was plunged 
 in a caldron of oil at Kome, and yet came forth 
 unhurt. 
 
 At the same epoch Victor became Bishop of Kome, 
 the first man of Latin birth who ever held that 
 office. A Koman, accustomed to the Koman mood, of 
 dominating all the rest of the world, and having 
 " relations with the Koman Imperial Court," he 
 attempted to assert a specially decisive voice 
 amongst the Churches, on a question of Church 
 order. But his claims were at once forcibly and 
 bluntly repudiated. Irenaeus, of Gaul, who had 
 hitherto flattered the Koman bishop, at once strongly 
 protested. Tertullian, of Carthage, the very Father 
 
 * Lucian, see Lightfoot. f Light., Phil., p. 255. 
 
IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 127 
 
 who had asserted a sacerdotal order as belonging to 
 the Christian Ministry, and who had enlarged the 
 story of Peter's preaching at Kome, stood against this 
 growing arrogance of the Koman bishop. 
 
 "The Chief Pontiff, forsooth, has issued his com- 
 mands!"! laughs Tertullian, a little later. Little 
 dreamt Tertullian that this very name " Chief Pontiff," 
 the name of the highest pagan priest, would by and 
 bye ''be claimed for, and granted to, a later and far 
 more ambitious Bishop of Eome!" 
 
 These things belong, however, to our concluding 
 lecture. 
 
 Seeing what Eome was, the sjnrit of the Papacy was 
 born so soon as the assertion of a separate priestly 
 caste, in the Ministry of the Church of God, was once 
 accepted. The form of the Papacy was not yet born, 
 for many a day. 
 
 Spirit of Papacy Born. 
 
 Its spirit was born, at any rate, from the third 
 century, and onward, from the time Cyprian 
 made the bishops to be successors of the Apostles, 
 and specially inspired of God, Lightfoot proves 
 that the priesthood in the Christian Ministry 
 first arose from heathen influences. But, so soon 
 as the episcopate and the presbyterate got looked 
 upon as distinct orders, so soon as men began to 
 dream of a threefold order of bishops, presbyters 
 {or priests), and deacons, then the Old Testament 
 notion of high-priest, p^riest, and levite came to be re- 
 garded as the type of the Christian Ministry. In that 
 lay germs of the hierarchy and the Pioman Papacy. | 
 
 • It is probable that it was of the baleful Callistus Tertullian 
 thus spoke. Others say Victor, or Zephyrinus. 
 t Lightfoot, f/«7., p. 262, sq. 
 
128 
 
 RISE OF A SACEEDOTAL ORDER 
 
 In the beginning of the third century : — 
 
 *'The solitary bishop represented the solitary high priest; 
 the principal acts of Christian sacrifice ^yere performed by 
 the presbyters as the principal acts of Jewish sacrifice by the 
 priests ; and the attendant ministrations Avere assigned in the 
 one case to the deacon, as in the other (case) to the levite."* 
 
 Thus the analogy seemed complete. Bishop, pres- 
 byter, deacon was made to run — high priest, priest, 
 levite. 
 
 The Analogy Disloyal to Christ. 
 
 "To this correspondence," however, as Lightfoot 
 points out — 
 
 "There was one grave impediment. The only High Priest 
 under the Gospel recognised by the Apostolic writings is our 
 Lord Himself." 
 
 But the growing spirit of ecclesiasticism soon 
 pushed that scriptural and spiritual "scruple" aside. 
 And, with a growing external pomp and " observation," 
 a hierarchy of priestly rank above rank rose. It took 
 the place of that Kingdom of Christ and of Heaven, of 
 whose secret and spirit Christ, who brought it, said — 
 "The Kingdom of God cometh not with ohservation; 
 neither shall they say 'lo, here! or, there;' for lo, 
 the Kingdom of God is within you." Amidst the 
 din of Cyprian and Novatian-|- contending about the 
 validity of the ordination of Cornelius as Eomari 
 bishop, and of Stephen, Bishop of Rome, contending 
 with a greater than himself, Cyprian of North Africa 
 (who was called by the Eoman Church "Papa" — ■ 
 Pope) about the re-baptism of "the lapsed" — amidst 
 the far fiercer contendings of the Councils, which 
 followed, regarding hair-splittings of doctrinal pro- 
 
 * Light. Phil, p. 263. 
 t Cf. Harnack's masterly paper in Herzog u. Plitt. 
 
IN THE CHEISTIAN MINISTRY. 12^ 
 
 positions — there was lost out of sight what the Master 
 had said, what even Tertulhan had reaffirmed — 
 " Where two or three are (fathered together in My namCy 
 there am I in the midst of them J*^ 
 
 Dr. Carr on Altar, &c., in I(4natius. 
 
 Note. — Dr. Carr's attempt to deal with the startling fact that, in the 
 New Testament, no special sacerdotal titles or functions are ascribed 
 to the Christian ministry, or to the Lord's Supper, and that even 
 in the Earlier "Fathers" up to Tertullian's day, the " presbyters," 
 and stated ministers of the Church generally, are not regarded as 
 priests, save just as all believers are "priests to God," is surely 
 flimsy. He tries to take refuge in High-Anglican Blunt and his 
 suggestion that " it was the object of the Apostles to wean the 
 mind of the Jew from the external associations of his ancient faith. " 
 Is this meant as humour ? The fact is that the whole New 
 Testament is full of Apostolic reference to "the external associa- 
 tions of the ancient faith," and to priesthood too. And all 
 Christians are called "priests," and Christ is called High-Priest, 
 and all this is contrasted sharply with the "ancient faith." But 
 no special priesthood is ascribed to the Christian minister. And 
 there is no external "altar" of any kind in the Apostolic and sub- 
 Apostolic Church. 
 
 Dr. Carr does not, himself, think much, evidently, of poor Blunt's 
 desperate exegesis. So he tries for himself. He says that to argue 
 from 
 
 " the mere absence of the word hiei-cus ("priest) from the Apostolic and sub- 
 Apostolic -writers betrays a manifest unfamiliarity with their teaching. For 
 instance, in the works of St. Ignatius, who was bishop in the lifetime of the 
 Beloved Disciple, the term hiereus does not occur," &c. 
 
 But Dr. Carr goes on to argue that 
 
 " Power over the natural body of Christ, in which the essence of the Christian priesthood 
 consists" — 
 
 is actually " clearly expressed" by Ignatius. Also, says Dr. Carr, 
 *' the term thusiasterion or sacrificial altar is frequently found in 
 his works." And Dr. Carr proceeds to quote a passage from 
 Ignatius " To the Philadelphians," which (with precise reference and 
 loyal translation) I will set here : — 
 
 "If any man walketh in strange doctrine he hath no fellowship with the 
 passion.* Be ye careful, therefore, to observe one eucharist [eucharistia=thanks- 
 giving] ffor there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup unto union in 
 His blood ; there is one altar, as there is one bishop [episcopos] together with the 
 presbytery and deacons, my fellow servants) that, whatsoever ye do, ye may do 
 it after [the will of] God." {Philad. iii., iv., Lightfoot's trans. See, also, Roberts 
 and Donaldson). 
 
 * I.e., the suffering of Christ. 
 
130 RISE OF A SACERDOTAL ORDER 
 
 Dr. Carr translates: — ^^ One chalice tohich unites us to His blood." 
 And his foot-reference is, "See Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, part ii.^, 
 p. 257-8." (This is better than a great many of the foot-references 
 in his book, but none, save a student who had made this whole 
 subject a special study, would in the least know what that reference 
 may possibly mean. And the actual passage of Lightfoot, when 
 looked up, is in direct contradiction to Dr. Carr's exegesis). Also, 
 when Dr. Carr goes on to quote Harnack about this matter of 
 "priesthood," he is again equally remote from what is relevant or 
 exact. 
 
 Now, briefly, let me answer: — (1) The word hiereus (priest) does 
 occur in Ignatius. Nay, more, it occurs in the very letter from 
 which Dr. Carr undertook to quote. Thus : — " The priests, likewise, 
 were good ; but better is the High-priest, to whom is committed the 
 holy of holies." — Philad. ix. 
 
 Lightfoot here explains (what is surely scarcely necessary), that 
 "the contrast here is between the Levitical priesthood and the 
 Great High-priest of the Gospel," viz., Christ. He also shows how, 
 in a later century, the interpolator of Ignatius had altered the passage 
 so as to make a reference to the three orders of the Christian Ministry." 
 And this has misled Roman Catholic writers (Lightfoot Apos. Fath 
 part ii.; S. Ignat. et S. Polyc, vol. ii., pp. 273-4). 
 
 (2) Wherever thusiasterion {OvaLacrTrjpLov) occurs in Ignatius, it 
 never refers to the Lord''s table, or to any material altar in the 
 Christian Church. No such ' ' altar" existed anywhere in that age. 
 Thus Lightfoot (on the very pages to which I suppose Dr. Carr's 
 foot reference points) says : — 
 
 " It would be an anackronism to suppose that Isrnatius, by ' the altar,' here 
 means 'the Lord's table.' Even in Irenaeus, though he is distinctly speaking of 
 the Eucharist in the context, . . . yet only a spiritual altar is recognised." 
 
 Lightfoot, also on that page, says, "The 'one flesh' here is the 
 one Eucharistic loaf, betokening the union of the one body of 
 Christ." {ut supra, p. 258 1. Lightfoot also proves that by "altar," 
 where God's people are gathered, is meant, in Ignatius, " the con- 
 gregation gathered together" in Christ's salvation, corresponding to 
 the "court of the altar," or "court of the congregation," where 
 God's people assembled in Old Testament times. Even the collected 
 "body of widows" was called " God's altar" (Lightfoot id.; Ignat. 
 ad Eph. v., ad Trail, viii.). Again, very strikingly, in his letter to 
 the Roman Christians, Ignatius calls the amphitheatre at Rome, 
 where he will have to suffer before the assembled people, "the 
 altar." 
 
 " That I be poured out a libation to God, while there is still an altar ready." 
 (Ignat. ad Rom. i.) 
 
 3. In all this, as scholars have shown long ago, Ignatius is full 
 of Pauline thoughts and metaphors. Paul's thought of his own 
 approaching martyrdom as a Zitafiow " poured out on the sacrifice 
 
IN THE CHRITTIAN 3IINILTRY. 131 
 
 and service" of the Church's faith is in Ignatius' mind. The thought 
 of Heb. xiii. , 10 — 13, is also all through his letters— the thought of 
 Christ's faithful ones " going forth without the camp" where Christ 
 suffered, bearing His reproach and partaking, in spiritual fellowship, 
 of the " altar" of His cross, where He suffered and so gave life and 
 strength to us. Surely Dr. Carr knows that great Roman Catholic 
 interpreters like Thomas Aquinas and Estius, as well as great 
 Protestant ones — Bengel, Bleek, de Wette, Delitzsch, Lightfoot, 
 Alford, A. B. Davidson, &c. — have declared that thusiasterion there 
 means not the Lord's Supper, but the Cross of Christ, through which 
 redemption comes to all believers, uniting them as God's people into 
 one ; one in faith, service, and suffering. 
 
 As to Harnack on Cyprian, of course, " in the second half of the 
 third century,''^ in North Africa, there is 'priesthood strongly 
 developed. That is just what I say. And yet, even in that third 
 century, Origen and others have to reply to the pagan taunt that 
 " the Christians have no altar, and no temple.'^ Origen's noble 
 answer is that ^' every good man^s spirit" is "an altar from which 
 arises an incense," spiritual and true, viz., prayer and the offering 
 of the gifts of loving character and of unselfish life. For Christ is 
 there. And all Christians are 'Hiving stones" in a "spiritual 
 temple." They are all "a holy priesthood." (Orig. adv. Cels. 
 Bk. viii., 17, 18, 19.) 
 
 But, in the earlier age, Harnack shows clearly that the lohole life 
 of the Christian was regarded as sacrificial. "It was a fixed prin- 
 ciple that only a spiritual worship is well pleasing to God, and that 
 all ceremonies are abolished. . . . The Christian worship of God 
 was set forth under the aspect of the spiritual sacrifice." Though the 
 language of Ignatius might, at first sight, seem "realistic," yet 
 "many passages show that he ivas far from such a conception. " Thus, 
 " in Trail. 8, faith is described by him as the flesh, and love as the 
 blood of Christ." And so in many passages. With Ignatius, as 
 with John, "the concept 'flesh of Christ' is a spiritual one. (Har- 
 nack : Hist, of Bogm., Eng. ed., vol. i., pp. 204, 211-12.) Of course I 
 doubt not we shall see tiny fragments of Harnack figuring in books 
 of Catholic controversy in favour of sacerdotalism. But " take, 
 read!" (May I explain that Lightfoot 's great work, Apostolic 
 Fathers, Part II. — ,S. Ignatius, S. Pulycarp — is in three big volumes. 
 The pages to which Dr. Carr's reference should point are in vol. ii., 
 pp. 257-8.) I need not stay to scatter the legend that Ignatius was 
 the disciple of the " Beloved Disciple," John. There was no end to 
 the legends about Ignatius and his martyrdom, or about Peter. 
 
132 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 Lecture fourth. 
 
 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY 
 ITS EARLY STAGES. 
 
 " The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation 
 
 for, lo, the Kingdom of God is within you." — S. Luke 
 xvii., 20—21. 
 
 " Jesus answered — ' My Kingdom is not of this world ; if My 
 Kingdom were of this world then would my servants 
 fight."— St. John xix., 36. 
 
 At the end of the first century, when Clement of Eome 
 wrote to Cormth, it was the congregation, the church* 
 that spoke through its presbyters. There was no hint 
 then of any "Bishop of Kome." When Hermas wrote, 
 later than the year 140 a.d., even then in Eome it is 
 the ijveshyters who preside over the Church. -f 
 
 " The later Homan theory supposes" (says Lightfoot) "that 
 the Church of Rome derives all its authority from the bishop of 
 Rome, as the successor of St. Peter. History inverts this 
 relation, and shows that as a matter of fact, the power of the 
 bishop of Rome was built upon the power of the church of Borne. 
 It was originally a primacy not of the episcopate, but of the 
 church. "J 
 
 * This form was continued for a good time, as Lightfoot shows, 
 t Hermas, cap. IV. Harnack Dogm. Gesc/i., cap. iii., § 7, &c., 
 Sanday Expos. Jan. 1887, p. 3. 
 
 I S. Clem., vol. i., p. 70. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 133 
 
 The Christian community in the central metropoHs 
 of the Empire, naturallv, lent special importance to its 
 representative presbyter. The Early Church was, to 
 use Professor Sanday's phrase, " essentially urban." 
 It existed mainly in cities and large towns. The 
 dwellers in the country and villages (pagani) were 
 as yet untouched, a fact vividly evidenced by the 
 word "pagan" (a "villager") which we still apply 
 to non-Christian people. And of all cities Eome 
 had the princiimtus — " the first place " the " pre- 
 eminence." It is in kee]3ing with human nature 
 that, first, the Christian Church in Eome should 
 think itself entitled to the pvincipatns ; and, secondly, 
 that its " hishop' should by degrees come to think 
 himself entitled to the principatus also. Hence 
 all this trouble about " flie Primacy \" Hence the 
 huge ambition, reached up to after the lapse of 
 centuries, of clutching, and forcing to unheard of new 
 meanings, Christ's figurative words to Peter about the 
 Eock on which His Church should rest ! It is earth's 
 way, and Time's, the way of the Kingdoms of the 
 world, that " come with observation," with external 
 show of power : — 
 
 " For why ? Because the good old rule 
 
 Sufticeth tJiem, the simple plan 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 
 And they should keep who can." 
 
 The odd thing is — but this is human nature too — 
 that those who do " take," and keep for a while, get 
 to think that it has been so arranged by God and by 
 the fiat and inspiration of His Spirit. This is the 
 secret of all " Toryism" and of all "Clericalism," in 
 State and in Church. The holders of " tJie poiver" 
 come, quite sincerely, to believe that it was God who 
 made them a special "caste;" they conveniently for- 
 get (till some Luther or some Puritan age roughly 
 
134 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY I 
 
 shakes them mto honest exammation of facts and of 
 God's truth) that " the power" was gamed, m part by 
 accident and misconception and W' eight of circumstance, 
 in part by strong, selfish exercise of force. They forget, 
 above all, that Christ said, in opposition to all these 
 (for His Church at least) : " My kingdom is not of 
 this w^orld, else would my servants use force." 
 
 First Note of Eoman Assumption. 
 
 Several things conspired to the assumption of 
 superior influence, on the part of the Christian con- 
 gregation in Eome. The forceful do, usually, find 
 things '' conspiring" towards their purposes. The 
 need to centralise and consolidate the Christian com- 
 munities, during that second century as against " the 
 thickets of heresies"* w^as one great factor. The new 
 distinction in the Christian Ministry of "bishop" in 
 each congregation or town, as distinguished from his 
 fellow-presbyters or bishops (so that there should now 
 be sounded forth the ear-filling triad of titles — 
 "bishop, presbyter, deacon"), — this distinction, first 
 heard of in gnostic-vexed Asia Minor, invaded \ the 
 Church everywhere. x\nd it helped towards the 'up- 
 lifting of the bishop in each great city, and of a 
 priestly gradation of "orders." These things sweep 
 the field rapidly. "Anglo-Catholicism," for example, 
 has, more swiftly than this, changed, in two genera- 
 tions, the face of the modern Church of England. 
 And the second century was an age of rapid ferment- 
 ation of all kinds — "apocryphal writings," manifold 
 "martyr legends," Apostolic "journeyings," leaders 
 of "heretic schools," countless new shapes of blended 
 Christian truth and non-Christian speculation. Words 
 of metaphor in the Old Testament, or in the Apostles' 
 
 * Jerome. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 135 
 
 writings, were grasped at, and twisted into a new 
 literalism of meaning. Above all, that new dis- 
 tinction in the local Christian Ministry in its 
 stated congregational worship — "bishop, presbyter, 
 deacon" — was made to chime with the Old Testament 
 notions — "high-priest, priest, Levite."* The step 
 from that was swift to another distinction, which arose 
 not as (w'hat Archbishop Carr mihappily calls) "the 
 irresistible outcome of the facts of history," but as the 
 half unconscious outcome of human ambition and self- 
 assertion — viz., the lifting of the Church in a great 
 cit}^ into importance as above the Church in a smaller 
 city, and, by-and-b_y, the lifting of the bishop of the 
 Church in a w'ealthy and powerful city above the 
 bishop of a Church in a city that was remote and 
 unimportant. If, in the second century, the distinction 
 grew in — "bishop, presbyter, deacon," — just as in- 
 evitpobly the bigger distinction would grow in, during 
 later centuries — " Archbishop, bishop, presbyter, 
 deacon." Finally, over the "Archbishop" or "Metro- 
 politan," a " Patriarch""!* would be lifted up. Finally, 
 at top of all, the bishop of the greatest City of the 
 West would claim to be Prince of all bishops and of all 
 archbishops, and even of apostles. He could even 
 claim to speak with the voice of Peter, — Simon of 
 Galilee, transformed into the Church's foundation- 
 rock, and vice-gerent of Christ in one I That was the 
 tendency and method of it ! 
 
 The Crow Turns Eagle. 
 
 George Washington's simple " coat of arms" — 
 three wooden bars of a fence, and one crow perched 
 apologetically on the topmost bar — within less than a 
 centmT, expanded and evoluted into a great, forceful, 
 
 * This has been vividly worked out by Lightfoot, cf. Phil., pp. 
 261-3. t Schaflf, Nic. and Fo.'^t-Nic. Chris., vol. i., p. 271. 
 
 J 2 
 
136 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY I 
 
 screaming eagle on tlie top of endless ''stripes," and 
 surrounded by all the "stars" of the universe, claim- 
 ing, under spell of some mystic " Monroe doctrine," 
 sole primacy over a whole "American Continent." 
 That is 2^olitic((I assumption of power, and is tolerable. 
 It yields to its citizens large freedom of thought. The 
 Eoman assumption is vastly more startling; the 
 tragedy and self-contradiction of it are — not only that 
 it comes with anathemas — but that its claim to rule is 
 in the spiritual sphere. It is in antagonism to the 
 very principles and spirit of Christ, in constituting 
 His Kingdom. 
 
 It was an unusual junction of what appealed to man's 
 spiritual nature, with the Externalism of centralised 
 wealth and political power that gave the special impetus 
 to the Eoman Church. In Eome, the first memorable 
 martyrdom on a vast scale had been endured. That 
 curious legend, which arose in the second century, 
 and blended together Peter and Paul, making them 
 found the Church of Eome in company and then die 
 as martyrs in company, appealed to the pious 
 imagination, in an age when men (as we see in 
 Ignatius) forced themselves upon martyrdom as a 
 glorious gateway towards Heaven. Ignatius himself, 
 though the more sober narrative of his martyrdom 
 makes him die at Eome, torn by the beasts of the 
 Amphitheatre, as on a rough altar-cross, is re- 
 presented as transported soon to Antioch. The 
 legend makes him, finally, get buried in his own 
 Antioch, all the bones and parts of him quite intact.* 
 Such was the mood of the time. John was plunged 
 into boiling oil at Eome; but the legend-weavers 
 could not get rid of the fact that, in the Apocalypse 
 
 * Lightfoot, who has done his wonderful best to set up a genuine 
 Ignatius, scouts this part of the legend. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 137 
 
 and other Scripture writings, his main career was 
 found at Ephesus and on Patmos. So John is made 
 to escape unhurt from that unique ordeal at Eome, 
 and " is relegated to an island." But Peter and Paul 
 lived not so long. And no Scripture had told the 
 closing scenes of the life of Peter. Legend could 
 work on these two Apostles. It worked this as 
 the result. They, both of them, founded the Church 
 of Eome ; and they, both of them, fell there in heroic 
 martyrdom. 
 
 Now, at the close of the second century — when all 
 the Apostolic facts and realities lay far away in the 
 background of the past — all these various growths 
 meet and intertwine together in Eome. Just then we 
 hear, for the first time, Irenaeus of Gaul propounding 
 the theory that the bishops of congregations are 
 *' successors of the Apostles."* Just then we hear, 
 and for the first time, the notion, suggested by 
 Tertullian of Eome and of North Africa, that the 
 Christian minister (presbyter) is a priest and the 
 bishop a chief priest, " sujumus sacerdos.''' Just then 
 we hear, for the first time, from Dionysius and Ter- 
 tullian and Irenaeus that Peter had been in Eome, 
 and that, with various modifications, both Peter and 
 Paul had joined together in founding the Church in 
 Eome, and glorifying it by conjoint martyr-death. 
 And, just then, arose the first strong man of actual, 
 undoubted Eoman birth, and speech, and predilections. 
 The Eoman dominant mood is upon him — the mood of 
 uniform government, and of a certain indifference to 
 the feelings, and freedoms, and rights of other cities, 
 and of distant provinces. That man was Victor, first 
 Latin bishop of Eome. We shall hesLV from him and 
 o/him. 
 
 • Harnack, ut sup. 
 
138 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 Till his clay, the Christian Church in Eome had 
 been Greek in speech, and in sympathy with the 
 East. The Latin Church had been centred in 
 Carthage of North Africa, in Southern Gaul, and in 
 North Italy, and Spain. Now the Latin regime has 
 begun in Eome. Its Greek epoch is closed. Hence- 
 forth we shall find it purely Latin and Koman in its 
 temper, its genius, its sympathies. Tertullian soon 
 finds himself rebuffed, affronted by the arrogant, 
 dominant waj^s of the Eoman clergy, and revolted into 
 Montanism by their conduct ; Tertullian, the forceful, 
 pure-minded, lonely-hearted genius, whose mood did 
 so much to mould the Latin Church, whose words the 
 later Cyprian read every day, and whose memory the 
 still later Jerome loved, so that he waxed wroth 
 thinking of those jealous clerics of arrogant Eome. 
 What a story it is ! — men like Zephyrinus and 
 Callistus to be the Latin " successors" of the strong- 
 willed but true Latin bishop, Victor. And what 
 figures they all are, to be regarded by a later age, 
 through the hallowing mists of time, as infallible vicars 
 of the merciful and holy Christ on this vext and 
 oddly-arranged earth ! We honour Irenaeus of Gaul 
 (despite his tendenc}^ to the fabulous) for resisting 
 bravely the first note of Eoman assumption, sounded 
 by the first Latin bishop of Eome, Victor, — backed 
 though Victor was by the potent female influence 
 of the pagan Imperial palace.* The softening haze 
 of distance causes us to invest those early ages of the 
 Church's existence, after the Apostles and the Apos- 
 tolic men were past, with a sanctity, both of faith and 
 of conduct, they did not at all possess. Our imagina- 
 tion ascribes to them a uniformity and amit}^ foreign 
 
 * .See the striking details in Hippolytus, Haer. ix., 7 ; Lightfoot, 
 Philipp., pp. 223-4. It gives us a surprised peep into the then state 
 of Roman Christianity and the Roman Court. 
 
ITS EAELY STAGES. 139 
 
 to their actual condition. Eome, that was fed by all 
 streams and influences and peoples, from west and 
 east, received into her Christian community all the 
 contending and heretic elements which were the 
 wonder and trouble of that second century. 
 
 Lightfoot of England, and Harnack of Germany* 
 following up the investigation of Eitschl and others, 
 have, indeed, done much to disprove the theory of the 
 Tiibingen school, that the vexed internal history of the 
 early Eoman Church was due to its being predomi- 
 nantly "Ebionite" or Judaistic, and so thrown into 
 antagonism against the message and spirit of the 
 Gospel brought by the A^postle Paul. It w^as not 
 ;»rr/??7;/ " Ebionite" heresy, or Jewish heresy of any 
 kind, but Gentile heresy and rival personal influences 
 which distracted that Church. "Her early history, 
 indeed," says Lightfoot, "is wrapt in obscurity." 
 "Most of the great heresiarchs . . . taught in 
 Eome." And again he declares : — 
 
 "As late pagan Rome had been the sink of all pagan super- 
 stitions, so early Christian Rome was the meeting-point of all 
 heretical creeds and philosophies."* 
 
 The Church of Eome, during part of the second 
 and of the third centuries, was so torn by internal 
 conflict that many eminent modern scholars hold that 
 there must have been two or more separate Christian 
 communities in the early stages of the Christian 
 movement in Eome, " each with its own separate 
 government." Professor Sanday, in common with 
 many distinguished students of the question, holds 
 that this, in part, explains what Lightfoot calls "the 
 marvellous discrepancies in the lists of the early 
 bishops, which perhaps point to a double succession " 
 
 * Galat., pp. 336-7, 344-5. 
 
140 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 oi presbyters or ejnscojn.^ Akin to that is the startling 
 fact that the *'hishop" of the second century, even 
 after his elevation over the presbyters, was but 
 the head of a Christian congregation. He was a 
 presbyter still, as primus inter pares, first amongst 
 his equals, Moderator, i* one says, amongst the 
 rest. In keeping with this is the other startling 
 fact, vividly proven by Hatch, Sanday, and others, 
 that up to the time of the Council of Nicaea 
 (325 A.D.)]: there might be two "bishops" in one 
 place, and that, for example in Africa, Phrygia, &c., 
 there were apparently as many " bishops" as there 
 were congregations. § In the earlier half of the third 
 century Hippolytus and Callistus (both of them 
 *' saints" now) were bishops in Eome and bitter 
 enemies ; the one was Puritan, the other lax. A 
 little later, in the middle of the century, Novatian 
 and Cornelius (a.d. 251) are both bishops, and rivals 
 in Eome. Cyprian, Bishop in Carthage (the most 
 influential Christian leader then in the west), was 
 appealed to in their rivalry. Apparently for the first 
 time, he (the father of the genuine " episcopal succes- 
 sion" theor}^ enunciated the doctrine which, though 
 as yet in its incipient stage, was the basis of modern 
 episcopacy, viz., that, "when once a bishop has been 
 appointed and approved by the testimony and judg- 
 ment of his colleagues and of the people, another 
 bishop cannot be set up."t But still, there was as 
 yet no such thing as " diocesan episcopacy." 
 
 * Lightfoot in his Galatiavs also held this view. In his Clem. 
 he does not think it necessary, but he has not convinced the 
 greatest scholars, even of his own school, e.g., Sanday. 
 
 t Lightfoot calls Clement this, but even this distinction had not 
 j'^et been made. 
 
 ij; Canon viii. 
 
 § Sanday, Expos., Ser. iii., xlvii.; cf. Lightfoot, Phil., pp. 224-5. 
 
 X Ep. 44 (41) 3; Dollinger, Hippol. and Callist. (E.T.), pp. 
 67-93 ; Sanday, ut sup. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 141 
 
 EoMAN Chuech : Middle and End of Second 
 Century. 
 
 The Eoman Church had welcomed the Clementme 
 and other Ebionite legends of Peter and of Paul, and 
 soon j)rofited by them. But it shook itself free, as 
 other Clmrches did, from the sj^ecial " Ebionite" 
 doctrine, with its low view of Christ's Messiahhood. 
 It was Gentile influence that sw^ept specially upon the 
 Roman Christian community rather than Jewish 
 influence. Lightfoot paints the situation from the 
 middle of that century onward, with its wealth of 
 "romance" about Peter and other eminent Apostles : — 
 
 "The religious romance seems to have been a favourite style 
 of composition with the Essene Ebionites, and in the lack of 
 authentic information relating to the Apostles, catholic* 
 writers eagerly and unsuspiciously gathered incidents from 
 ^OTitings of Avhicli they repvjJiated tJie doctriites.f 
 
 The Forged Decretals. 
 
 A startling illustration of this, in a much later age, 
 is the fact made vivid by Lightfoot that on the basis 
 of this same (apocryphal) Clementine romance re- 
 garding Peter and his "journeys" was built up, in the 
 ninth century, the gigantic fraud of the forged 
 " decretals of Isidore," hj which the papacy got its 
 vastest impulse towards power. To quote Lightfoot's 
 strong words in his latest writing : — 
 
 " Thus the Clementine romance of the second century was 
 
 * By "catholic" in its early signification, and as scholars like 
 Lightfoot and Harnack use it, is meant what pertained to the 
 ivhole Church in all places, as holding the teaching handed down 
 from the Apostles, as contrasted with a local Church. This term 
 Ignatius first uses : — "where Jesus Christ is there is the Catholic 
 Church." 
 
 + Cf. Appendix, — Clementine Romance. Lightfoot, Gal., p. 367. 
 Harnack, Hist, of Dogma, Eng. ed., p. 315, &c. 
 
142 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 the direct progenitor of the forged Papal Letters of the ninth 
 ^a monstrous parent of a monstrous brood."* 
 
 But what concerns us now is the state of the Church 
 in Eome at this early date, when the second century 
 merges into the third. That I may not be accused of 
 exaggerating, let me put it again in Lightfoot's 
 words : — 
 
 ' ' The gleams of light which break in upon the internal history 
 of the Roman Church, at the close of the second and beginning 
 of the third century, exhibit her assailed by rival heresies, 
 compromised by the weakness and worldliness of her rulers, 
 altogether distracted and unsteady, but in no way Ebionite. 
 One bishop, whose name is not given, first dallies with^the 
 fanatical spiritualism of Montanus; then, suddenly turning 
 round, surrenders himself to the patripassian speculations of 
 Praxeas.t Later than this, two successive bishops, Zephyrinus 
 and Callistus (a.d. 202-223), are stated by no friendly critic 
 indeed, but yet a contemporary writer, the one from stupidity 
 and avarice, the other from craft and ambition, to have listened 
 favourably to the heresies of Noetus and Sabellius."^ 
 
 Indeed, to all that age as to the age which preceded 
 it, with the strange oppositions and factions through 
 which the Apostolic witness to Christ had to make its 
 way, w^e may well apply this great scholar's startling 
 but helpful words, reminding us that the divisions of 
 opinion in the modern Churches are far less than those 
 in early ages, which we ignorantly glorify. The 
 pompous talk of "Apostolic Ages" and "Fathers," 
 and of their uniformity, is proven curiously unmean- 
 ing when we look at the reality. 
 
 "However great maybe the theological diflferences and religious 
 animosities of our own time, they are far surpassed in magni- 
 tude by the distractions of an age, Avhich, closing our eyes to facts, 
 we are apt to invest with an ideal excellence. In the Early Church 
 was fulfilled, in its inward dissensions no less than in its 
 outward sufi"erings, the Master's sad warning that He came not 
 to send peace on earth, but a sword !" 
 
 * S. Clem., vol. i., p. 102, et pp. 414-415. 
 
 t Lightfoot Gal., p. 344, Tert. adv. Prax. \. 
 
 + It is St. Hippolytus who saj's this {Haer. ix., 7 seq.) 
 
its early stages. 143 
 
 Irenaeus Eesisting Victor of Eome. 
 
 The earliest distinct step to an^^thing like a claim of 
 special authority for the Church in Eome, amongst 
 the other churches, was taken ^Yhen Victor, hishop 
 at Eome in the close of the second century {cir, 
 190-202), attempted to sever communion with the 
 Churches of Ephesus and Asia — the Churches which 
 held the tradition of the Apostle John — as to the 
 date of the observance of "the Lord's Passover." 
 John's Churches made it chime with the 14th day 
 of Nisan (whatever day of the week it might be). 
 Not day, but date, they said. Tliat was the date 
 of the Jewish passover. Eome, as the Church of the 
 Gentiles (with the Lord's day as the centre of the year), 
 rejected this. And Victor, the first bishop of Eoman 
 blood and of Western partialities, finding his flock 
 distracted on this question, attempted to compel 
 uniformity, and arrogantly to sunder all Christian 
 fellowship with the Churches of Asia. 
 
 Some thirty years earlier, when Anicetus was the 
 leading presbyter or bishop in Eome, the aged 
 Polycarp, of Sn^yrna — " a disciple of the Apostle 
 John" — visited Eome. There was then the same 
 difference on this matter. Polycarp, true to the 
 custom of John's Churches, observed Easter so as to 
 make its date coincide with the Jewish passover. 
 Anicetus observed it differently. And neither would 
 yield to the other. But, instead of the thought dawn- 
 ing upon them that either of them could excommuni- 
 cate the other, they, in a true Pauline spirit, agreed 
 to differ on this matter ; and Anicetus permitted 
 Polycarp " to celebrate the Eucharist (Lord's Supper) 
 in his stead."* 
 
 • Lightfoot, Gal, p. 343; Euseb., H.E., v. 23, 24. Schaff, Ante 
 Nic. Chris., i. 210 seq. 
 
144 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 Victor, in the close of that second century, was of 
 another mood. He was a Roman. Had he lived Jater, 
 he would have made a model Laudian or Star Chamber 
 bishop, in the ill-starred time of the Stuarts. In 
 answer to his arrogant assertion that there should 
 be uniformiiy of practice, Polj^crates, "bishop" in 
 Ephesus, at that time the most venerable Christian 
 figure in the East, and backed by all the " bishops" 
 of Asia,* protested and held to his own way. 
 "Words of theirs are extant sharply rebuking A^ictor," 
 says Eusebius-i* That sounds unlike language used to 
 a "Pope," a lineal descendant of an infallible Peter, 
 Prince of all Apostles and Yice-gerent of God ! 
 Doesn't it ? 
 
 The Asian Churches Quote Peter Against 
 
 EOME, 
 
 The words of Polycrates sent to "Victor and the 
 Church of Piome," whom he (Polycrates) significantly 
 addresses as "Brethren," are noble in their dignity 
 and firmness. He tells Victor that the Roman 
 observance was not the observance of the Apostles — 
 not that of the Apostle Philip ; not that of the Apostle 
 John ; not that of the Holy Spirit who guided the 
 noblest martyrs; not that of ^^ the rule of faith." I 
 Polycrates adds these emphatic words : — 
 
 "I, therefore, brethren, who have lived sixty-tive years m 
 the Lord, and have met with the brethren throughout the 
 world, and have gone through every Holy Scripture^ am not 
 affrighted hg terrifying words. For those greater than I have 
 said — ' We ought to obey God rattier than man.' "§ 
 
 That is wdiat Polycrates wrote to the Church in 
 Rome and its truculent high-tempered bishop-presbyter 
 
 * Euseb., H E., v., 24. f Euseb., id., cap. xxiv., 10. 
 
 J Id., cap. xxiv., 6. § Acts v., 29. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 145 
 
 Victor. I like Poh/erates, and his straightforward 
 scriptural method of argument. It was a hard knock, 
 but a true knock he gave to Victor ! He flung at him 
 not onl}^ the names of the Apostles Philip and John, 
 but especially the "Holy Scripture." And then, most 
 cruel of all, he quoted to him what Peter had said in 
 presence of the Jewish Sanhedrin, in the face of that 
 authoritative council of the ancient priestly Church. 
 It just means this: — '^ You are only fallible men; ice 
 ought to obey God rather than men.''* There is in 
 those w^ords of Polycratesf a genuine ring of the 
 Christian Gospel — a gentiiiie Protestant ring. And the 
 oddest thing of all is that Polycrates is quite ignorant 
 of any Eomish notion about Peter being the head of 
 the Apostles, or about the Bishops of Eome being his 
 successors. 
 
 Now, when Victor, in Latin Eome, received and read 
 those words from Greek Ephesus, he was in a very 
 un-Christlike temper. And he flamed out into a 
 threat, and immediately attempted, as Eusebius says, 
 to cut off all communion with the Cliurches of 
 Asia. 
 
 Irenaeus Admonishes Victor. 
 
 Now, just as the members of the Christian Church 
 in Eome w^ere closely related to those in Corinth (for 
 Corinth was a Eoman military city, and this is the 
 reason, as Lightfoot shows, why Clement of Eome 
 wrote to Corinth a century earlier) so the Churches in 
 the south of Gaul were descendants of Asian Greek 
 emigrants. Irenaeus, now their leading man, was 
 himself from "John's Churches" in Asia. Irenaeus 
 now stands up on behalf of the liberties of the Churches, 
 as against an iron uniformity, and a centralized 
 authorit}^ " He fittingly admonishes Victor," says 
 
 * Actsv., 29, also iv., 19. f Easeb., H.E., Bk. v., cap. xxiv., 6, 7, 8. 
 
146 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 Eusebius. Irenaeus was willing, for himself, to 
 observe the Eoman and Western mode. But he re- 
 minds Victor of — 
 
 " The presbyters before Soter, who presided over the Church 
 ■irhich now thou rnlest. We mean Anicetus, and Pius, and 
 Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and Xystus." 
 
 Yes, that is significant. It is a clear reminiscence 
 of the time when it was Presbyters who presided over 
 the Church of Rome. He tells Victor further that all 
 these had not attempted to impose their mode upon 
 the Christians from Greek Asia, who came to 
 Kome (as great numbers of them did on business) 
 from their cities of Asia. " None of them were ever 
 cast out on account of this form" — says Irenaeus. 
 He reminds him, also, of Polycarp and Anicetus. 
 He also, in that "fitting admonishment" he gave to 
 Victor, tells him the startling fact that the Pioman 
 custom is different from that which Polycarp ''had 
 always observed tcith John, the disciple of our Lord, and 
 the other Apostles with ichom he had associated.''*" 
 Truly that was a sore blow to come from the most 
 learned bishop and Saint of the West against the 
 bishop of Piome, who, according to the modern 
 Piomish creed, is infallible in pronouncing doctrine, 
 and is the head of all the Apostles. Irenaeus tells 
 him that his teaching and pronouncement are wrong, 
 and contrary to the Apostles ; that there are certain 
 things on which difference should be allowed, and that 
 the faith is better for want of uniformity in these 
 indifferent matters. ■[* That is a dash of Protestantism 
 from an unexpected quarter, and Victor, bishop of 
 Ptome, had to yield. 
 
 * Euseb. H.E , v., 24. 
 
 t The forty days of " Lent" were then unknown. Irenaeus says 
 — " Some thought they should fast one day, others two, and others 
 more." 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 147 
 
 In fact the sentence with which Eusebius closes the 
 narrative of this whole matter is, of itself, enough. 
 He says of Irenaeus — 
 
 " And he conferred by letter about this mooted question, not 
 only with Victor, but also "vvith most of the other rulers of the 
 Churches.''* 
 
 Think of that. Both by Irenaeus, on the verge of the 
 third century, and by Eusebius, the Emperor Con- 
 stantine's friend, in the fourth century, Yictor, 
 bishop in Eome, is regarded simply as head of the 
 Christian community in that Italian city, and on a 
 par with " the other rulers of the Churches." All 
 and each of the others have a right to be consulted 
 just as much as Yictor. 
 
 Mistranslation of Irenaeus' Words. 
 
 We come now to a jDassage of Irenaeus, very simple 
 in itself, but which Komanist advocates have made 
 famous, or notorious. Archbishop Carr's second 
 lecture is wdiolly given up to Irenaeus, and at least 
 fifteen pages are taken up with the one passage to 
 which I shall now refer. I will not spend much time 
 upon it, for to translate it accurately, and then look at 
 its simple meaning, is quite enough. Does it not seem 
 evident that if there were any truth in the Komanist 
 position, if Christ's Church and man's salvation 
 depended on Eome and its bishops, this would have 
 been made so clear, in the revelation from God given in 
 Scripture, that Eomanists would not be under this 
 painful necessity of casting about for forced and 
 unnatural renderings of fragmentary passages, in 
 
 * SchafF, Wace, and M'Giffert's rendering. Euseb., H.E., 
 Bk. v., e. xxiv., 18, To Professor Macdonald's line sense for books, 
 and to his recent visit to the Okl Lands, our College library, 
 already well-stocked with " the Fathers," owes this beautiful 
 edition. 
 
148 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 " fathers," here and there, on the verge of the thh'd 
 and m the fourth and fifth centuries ? 
 
 Now Eome, in Italy, was nigh to Lj^ons, in Southern 
 Gaul ; nigh also to Carthage, in North Africa, across 
 the narrow belt of the Mediterranean. With the 
 ■wealth of its members, and its proximity to the 
 Imperial Palace, its Christian Church had frequent 
 opportunities of benefiting the less powerful Churches 
 in the west. It was the Central or " Mother Church," 
 from which, probably, most of the Churches in Gaul, 
 North Africa, and Spain had been first evangelised and 
 " founded."* 
 
 Had the Eoman Church been modest, this influence 
 would have been helpful and beautiful. It would have 
 had, as Lightfoot finely puts it, "a presidency of love." 
 And that it had, dcsjntc tlic heretic factions which vexed 
 it, retained, in common with all the Churches east 
 and west, "the traditions" of the faith held in common 
 by the Apostles, Irenaeus gladly acknowledged. To 
 that tradition of the common faith, preserved in all the 
 Churches by the teaching of the successive presbyters 
 and episcopi, Irenaeus appeals, in his conflict with the 
 chief leaders of " heresies," as shown in his greatest 
 work. Against Heresies. Irenaeus is the first "Father" 
 to ignore, or forget, the fact that presbyters and 
 bishops were in the New Testament identical, t Along 
 wdth this (as Harnack show^s), he was the first to 
 
 * The position of independence affirmed, however, each for itself, 
 by even the Western and Latin-speaking Churches, such as N. Africa, 
 Claul, and North Italy, is very significant. Thus, the Church of 
 Milan (cf. 8chaff) claimed to have been founded by the Apostle 
 Barnabas, and, till the end of the sixth century, had no contact 
 with the Koman Pope. 80 also Aquileia stood quite independent. 
 
 + Alford thinks he was " disingenuous" in this. Lightfoot holds 
 that he and other "Fathers" were beginning to forget the fact (as so 
 many "High Anglicans" conveniently forget it now, and rapidly). 
 When Jerome, in a later age, began exact Bible study, the fact was 
 a^ain brought to light. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 149 
 
 affirm " the successions'' of these congregational or 
 local " bishops" /ro/zi tJtc Apostles. 
 
 In truth it is not a succession of bishops Irenaeus is 
 caring about, but the succession or endurance of the 
 faitlt, the faith in God and in the actual Christ, the 
 faith which the Apostles proclaimed, and which " the 
 heresies" were striving to alter and undo. That this 
 faith is one and the same, says Irenaeus, is proven 
 by the fact that it has been handed down and retained 
 in all the Churches, as evidenced in " the successions 
 of all the Churches."* 
 
 This could be proven, he says, by '' contemplating" 
 any and all of the Churches in the teaching of its 
 successive bishops. But it would be very tedious to 
 go over them all. I will take one example, he 
 therefore says, one that is "universally known/'' the 
 case, viz., of the metropolitan city, Kome. This is 
 the simple and unforced meaning of the argument in 
 Irenaeus from which " the famous passage," • so 
 daringlj^ mishandled by most Eoman Catholic advo- 
 cates, is taken. I say "most," for, to the honour of 
 a few Eoman Catholic scholars, they have translated 
 it quite differently. 
 
 Archbishop Carr says he has been " charged with 
 mistranslation regarding this particular passage of 
 St. Irenaeus," viz., by his "Anglican" critics. 
 
 I do not charge him simply with tliat ; for any 
 man may make occasionally "a mistranslation," 
 innocent of any thought of misleading. Even a few 
 Protestant scholars, ere now, have blundered over this 
 passage. My charge is that Dr. Carr, if fit at all to 
 speak on subjects of this kind, must know that there 
 is a quite different translation ; and, further, that, in 
 the opinion of the best and latest scholars on this 
 question, the translation given by him is clean 
 
 Haer., Ek. iii., cap. iii., 2. 
 
 K 
 
150 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 against the sense. Yet he gives no hint of that. 
 Na.y, further, I am sorry to say, he asserts, re- 
 garding Protestant scholars on this matter, what 
 the facts directly disprove. 
 
 The Passage FPtOM Irenaeus. 
 
 Irenaeus begins his statement in Bk. iii., cap. iii., 1, 
 thus : — 
 
 "It is within the poAver of all, therefore, in every Chin-ch, 
 who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the 
 tradition of the A230stles manifested throiujlumt the whole 
 ivoiid," &c. 
 
 In the next paragraph, or section 2, he points out 
 that this testing of all the Churches severally would be 
 "very tedious." 
 
 "Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume 
 as this, to reckon np the successions of all the ChnrcJies, Ave do put 
 to confusion all those who, in Avhatever manner, whether by an 
 evil self-j)leasing, by vain glory, or by blindness and perverse 
 opinion, assemble in unauthorised meetings, by indicating that 
 tradition, derived from the Apostles, of the very great, the 
 very ancient and universally known Church,"^ founded and 
 organised at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and 
 Paul, as also the faith preached to. men which comes down to 
 our time through the successions of the bishops."! 
 
 * The original Greek text of Irenaeus has mainly perished. It is re- 
 presented to us bj^ a Latin text, into which, of course, very many cor- 
 ruptions may have been introduced. Here is Lightfoot's translation 
 of the latter part of the above (and it makes a startling difference) : — 
 "The greatest and most ancient Churches, well-knoAvn to all men, 
 the Churches of Rome founded and established by the two most 
 glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul [hand down] announced to man- 
 kind that tradition and faith, which it has from the Apostles, 
 reaching to our oAvn day through its successions of bishops." 
 (Clement of Rome, vol. ii., p. 495.) Is not this an instance of 
 "Homer nodding?" 
 
 t Iren. Haer., cap. iii., 2. Bishop Coxe's Revision of Roberts and 
 Donaldson. I have taken care to give the translation of another, so 
 that no charge of bias can be made. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 151 
 
 Then follows immediately "the famous passage," 
 round which ranges such war of words. I will trans- 
 late it as it is translated by a candid Eoman Catholic 
 scholar, and then contrast that wdth Archbishop 
 Carr's rendering — 
 
 " For to this Cliurcli, on account of more potent principality, 
 it is necessary that every Church (that is, those who are on 
 every side faithful) resorb ; in which Church ever, h]i those icho 
 are on every side, has been preserved that tradition which is 
 from the Apostles, "t 
 
 Now the meaning of that, when looked at frankly, 
 seems simple enough. The only drawback to that 
 Roman Catholic translation is that luuliqiie does not 
 mean '^everywhere, or on every side," but ''from all 
 quarters, from every side." Irenaeus is arguing 
 against those (makers of "heresies,") who, he de- 
 clares, "consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition."'"^ 
 Not to be "tedious," he takes Eome, the central city 
 of the west, as one illustration of the "tradition" of 
 the faith handed down from the Apostles, and ^Dre- 
 served in all the Churches. To this Church, viz., of 
 Rome, on account of the more important eminence I 
 I of that City; or, is it, of that CJiurch?] it is a matter 
 of necessity that Christian believers from every 
 Church, far and near, should resort {convenire ad= 
 come together), for Rome was the centre of the world's 
 traffic and business. So we say of London, that Scots- 
 men gather tJiere from every side, iind, I know, it is 
 
 * Berington and Kirk, vol. i., p. 252. f Cap. ii., 'z. 
 
 X The whole passage in the Latin is : — Ad hanc enini ecclesiam 
 propter potiorem [or potentiorem'] principalitateni neeesse est omnem 
 convenire ecclesiam, hoc est cos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper 
 ah Ms qui sunt undique,co\\%ev\Sitdi est ea quae est ab apostolis traditio. 
 There are two readings, potiorem principalitatem and potentiorem 
 principalitatem. It is of no consequence which is right. Princi- 
 palitas is defined in Lewis and Short's Edit, of Freund's Latin 
 Dictionary as "the first place, sn^eviovity, pre-eminence, excellence." 
 
 K 2 
 
152 EA'OLUTION OF THE PAPACY I 
 
 said of the Presbyterian Church in London that its 
 faith and tradition are preserved by outside Presb}'- 
 terian people who come together to it from all quar- 
 ters. So, says Irenaeus, with his Eastern and Gallic 
 sympathies, — ^^By those who are from every quarter fah 
 his qui S2uit undiquej — has been preserved in Kome 
 the tradition of the faith, which is from the 
 Apostles." If the Latin of this passage means any- 
 thing,' it means that, not chiefly b}^ Piome herself, but 
 by the many Christian strangers, who are always 
 coming to Eome from every Christian Church outside, 
 is preserved the pure Apostolic faith — the faith which 
 is the unity of the Church, " the tradition of the 
 Apostles manifested throughout the whole world." 
 iii., III., 1. [See note in Appendix.] 
 
 Archbishop Caer Against Himself. 
 
 I am quite sorry to spend time on this, but the 
 Archbishop has made it the principal thing in his 
 Lectures. Look at the use he makes of this. It is, 
 according to him, a " testimony" to the " Primacy of 
 the Koman See." And that "Primacy" he had 
 defined as absolute sovereignty^ "an authority to teach, 
 to rule, and to correct," a "primacy of jurisdiction 
 over the whole Church," " promised immediatel}' and 
 du'ectty to the blessed Peter the Apostle, and conferred 
 upon him."* 
 
 Here, then, is how Irenaeus is shaped so as, if 
 possible, to fit. "So saturated is he (Irenaeus) with 
 Eoman doctrine," according to Archbishop Carr, that 
 one wonders he cannot get some better passages. He 
 translates him thus : — 
 
 "For ivitU this Church, on account of its superior principate^ it 
 * Carr, pp. 4S-49, et p. 8. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 153 
 
 is necessary that. evern Church agree ;'^ that is, the faithful every- 
 where (every Church), in which by the (faithful) everywhere 
 the Apostolic tradition is preserved." t 
 
 That does not seem to make " sense;" and it is certainly 
 not a correct translation. But the wonder increases 
 when we tm-n to the Advocate (28th March) and read 
 the "in extenso report" of Dr. Carr's Second Lectm-e 
 as he deHvered it to the mixed audienae. There the 
 translation is : — 
 
 ''For to (or with) this Chm-ch, on accomit of its 
 superior principate, it is necessary that every Church 
 should come together (or agree), that is, the faithful 
 who are everywhere." That is at least more accurate, 
 and it gives the truer translation foremost. Now, in 
 " the hook form," that truer translation is cut wholly 
 out. The words conveuire ad, which simply mean "to 
 come together to," are made to mean to "agree irith.'" 
 The word und'uiue, ''from all quarters," is translated 
 as if it were nhique, "everywhere;" and the words 
 " on account of the more important eminence" (or, as 
 the Eoman Catholic scholars say, " on account of 
 more potent principaHty") are translated " on account 
 of its superior principate," making it refer, not to the 
 City of Kome as metropolis, but necessarily to the 
 Church of Eome. 
 
 But, oddest of all, in his Replies, I published a year 
 ago. Archbishop Carr had left out that translation 
 "agree with" altogether, and had translated thus: 
 
 "O' 
 
 "For to this Church, on account of its superior principate, it 
 is necessary that every Church should come together, that is, the 
 
 * The only excuse I can see for this strange translation, viz., to 
 make conveuire ad mean "agree with," is that "the Protestant 
 translators" in Clark's Series so render it. But, then, what do they 
 say below? As to this and Bright, &c., see note in Appendix. 
 
 t Carr, Primacy, p. 49 ; In Dr. Chapman's Papal Supremacy, pp. 
 23-25, this matter is lucidly dealt with. 
 
 1 P. 34. 
 
154 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 faithful -who are everywhere, for in this Church the tradition, 
 which is from the Apostles, has been preserved by those who 
 are everywhere." 
 
 This "chopping and changing," to use Browning's 
 phrase, is not the worst of it. Archhishop Carr was 
 bound, I think, in fairness to give some hint that the 
 majority of recent scholars are quite against his latest 
 rendering, and that the meanings "agree with" and 
 "everywhere," forced by him upon Latin words, are 
 quite erroneous. 
 
 [To make this matter worse still, Dr. Carr declares : 
 
 "Thus, to mention a few out of the many distinguished 
 names, Canon Bright, Regius Professor of Oxford, and Gieseler, 
 admit that the words convenire ml mean io aaree with.""^" 
 
 This strange assertion I meet simply by quoting 
 Canon Bright's own words, which affirm the exact 
 opposite : 
 
 " For co7irenire ad would be a strange Latin equivalent for 
 'agree Avith.' And, further, the ensuing tcords wovld have lost 
 their point if ^agreement with the Roman CJinrch' had been the 
 idea."t 
 
 What are we to say regarding these assertions of 
 Archhishop Carr? And what are we to say of an 
 "infallible Church" that needs such unnatural and 
 constantly shifting translations, from fragments of 
 "Fathers" in the end of the second and later 
 centuries ?] 
 
 Third Century. 
 
 At the close of the second century we have seen 
 L'enaeus resisting Victor, bishop of Rome, in his effort 
 
 * Carr, Primacy, p. 5(3. 
 
 t Bright, Roman See, p. 38. Bright has liad to "heckle" the 
 Bev. Luke Rivington for similar assertions. Rivington tries to 
 make it '"sovereignty," and to refer it to the Roman Church. "Mr. 
 Rivington, who relies a good deal on sheer iteration, renders it 
 'sovereignty' five times within four pages." Bright : id. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 155 
 
 to dictate to the Asian Christians who visited Rome. 
 We have seen, also, Tertulhan, of North Africa, 
 denouncing the bishop of Eome, at once, for arrogance 
 and laxity.* Of course, it is answered that Tertullian 
 had now been driven into Montanism. Yes, Jerome 
 says, hy the arrogance of the Roman clergy; other 
 historians say by their laxity, as is evident from his 
 his own pages. 
 
 St. Hippolytus' Picture of Roman Bishops. 
 
 St. Hippolytus, at any rate, was not a Montanist; 
 but a great "Father" of the third century, and bishop 
 at Rome.f He is a " Saint" besides. Hippolytus 
 was the most learned Father of the west. His 
 great writing. The Refutation of all Heresies, re-dis- 
 covered in 1842, and published in 1851, casts surpris- 
 ing light on the state of the Church in Rome in the 
 early part of the third century. Hippolytus joined, 
 says Lightfoot, the learning of the east with the 
 practical energy of the west. Hippolytus had been 
 Victor's friend. 
 
 He gives us a dreadful picture of the two successive 
 bishops in Rome who followed Victor, viz., Zephyrinus 
 and CalHstus (202-223). Especially is the latter 
 startling. He had been a slave, a peculator of widows' 
 money, had been on the tread-mill, had been banished 
 as a convict to the mines of Sardinia, had by his 
 
 * Tert. de Pudic, 1. Lightfoot thinks the bishop denounced Avas 
 "either Victor or Zephja-inus;" others Zephyrinus; others again 
 Callistus. 
 
 t Dollinger makes him anti-bishop. Sanday and many others regard 
 him, similarly, as bishop of one Christian party, the purer community 
 then in Rome. Lightfoot thinks he was bishop to the Strangers at 
 the port of Rome. 
 
 Schaff 's Herzog-Tertullian. 
 
156 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY I 
 
 iinancial skill got into the liouseliold of Zepliyrinus, 
 then succeeded him as bishop.* He leant to both the 
 Patripassian and Sabellian heresies. Let iis hope 
 that picture is overdrawn -i* But the fact which stands 
 out indubitable from it is — that here 3^ou have at Borne 
 two bishops in the third century. He wdio, in the 
 Boman lists, is called Bishop of Borne, Callistus, is 
 declared by a fellow^ bishop to be both loose in doctrine 
 and loose and blackened in life, and yet the one 
 bishop cannot depose the other. A curious illus- 
 tration of " the successors of the Apostles," and 
 also of Bome's claim that the Bishop of Borne is the 
 Supreme Vicar of Christ on earth, and alone carries 
 " Peter's keys" to open the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 and to declare and pronounce the Church's doctrine 
 and practice. Callistus, bishop of Borne, if we are to 
 trust Hippolytus, believed and pronounced heresy, 
 and his practice was not even good Paganism. 
 Hippolytus, another bishop at Bome, at that same 
 time, whom Archbishop Carr has honoured as " St. 
 Hippolj^tus," who calls himself also "High-priest" 
 and successor of Apostles, declares all this, and 
 denounces Callistus as a heresiarch. Where is there 
 to be found in that third century the notion of the 
 Supremacy of the Bishop of Bome ? 
 
 * Hippol. Haer., Book ix., c, vii. The most impressive fact of 
 all is that when Victor, through Marcia, had the Christian Martyrs 
 (confessors) in the mines liberated, he did not give the name of 
 Callistus. Here is Hippolytus's startling description: — "Marcia, 
 a concubine of Commodus (the pagan emperor), who was a God- 
 loving female and desirous of performing some good work, invited 
 into her presence the blessed Victor, who was at that time a bishop 
 of the. GJiurch, and inquired of him what martyrs were in Sardinia. 
 And he delivered to her the names of all, but did not give that of 
 Callistus, knowing the acts he had ventured upon." — Hippol. ix., 7. 
 
 t Dollinger thinks so; but Hippolytus was one of the best of the 
 "Fathers,"' and not likelv to lie. 
 
its early stages. 157 
 
 " Pope Cyprian" of Carthage : And the Bishop 
 
 OF EOME. 
 
 The next stage is reached, when, in the middle of 
 that same Century, Cyprian, the energetic and versatile 
 Bishop in Carthage, of North Africa, the student of 
 Tertullian, had vigorous relations with Cornelius 
 Bishop in Piome {cir. 251), and afterwards with a 
 much more aggressive Eoman Bishop, Stephen 
 (253-257). Cyprian I have already spoken of, and 
 I shall rapidly sketch the two aspects of his influence 
 which have relation to our question. 
 • Now Cyprian entertained very extreme and high 
 notions of the independence, equality, and "unity of all 
 bishops." The notion of the priestly function and order, 
 which we find first rhetorically imaged in Tertullian, 
 the notion of the ejnscopi as successorsof the Apostles,* 
 first hinted by Irenaeus, now got further developed by 
 the autocratic mood of Carthage and Eome. It got 
 blended with the Montanist notion of direct inspiration. 
 So, in Cyprian, all the '' bishops " then existing, and 
 they were as numerous in North Africa as the larger 
 congregations,! were regarded as recipients of the 
 
 * The after thought of Lidclon and Canon Gore, viz., that, though 
 the presbyters and episcopi of the stated ministry, in Apostolic 
 times, were the same, and though the Apostles in their special 
 ministry had no successors, yet the icandering "prophets" and 
 "evangelists" (such as they imagine Timothy and Titus to have 
 been) got gradually fixed and localised as the first "bishops," is 
 scouted by both Ijghtfoot and 8anday, as well as by German 
 scholars. Sanday dismisses it as " irrelevant." Lightfoot shows 
 that this fantastic notion was entirely unknown in the Early Church. 
 
 t In a council, convoked by Cyprian, there were 87 North African 
 "bishops." In an earlier Council, 90 "bishops." " The enormous 
 number of African 'bishops' a few centuries later," says Light- 
 foot, "woi;ld seem incredible were it not reported on the best 
 authority." There were 690 North African "sees," or bishops' 
 centres of teaching. In fact, any Presbyterian clergyman, or 
 incumbent of a church, or Congregationalist or Wesleyan minister 
 of a church, has a large "primacy" as contrasted with all these. 
 What a fantastic theory that of "Apostolic" succession in 
 " bishops " is ! 
 
158 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY I 
 
 Apostolic gift, and of direct inspiration by God, the 
 recipients speciall}- of the Holy Spirit.* In keeping 
 with this bold and sweeping notion is that famous 
 declaration of Cyprian, to which I drew attention in 
 an earlier lecture, viz., that what Christ said to Peter 
 He said to him for all the Apostles equally. Thus 
 there is both perfect equality and also a symbol of 
 unity. 
 
 " Assuredly the rest of the Apostles were also the same as 
 was Peter, endowed with an equal partnership both of honour 
 and power ; hut the beginning proceeds from unity." 
 
 This statement, as Lightfoot says,i* "was very un- 
 satisfactory to a later age;" therefore Eome interpolated 
 such w^ords as — "And the primacy is given to Peter," 
 &c., which contradict Cyprian's whole meaning, and 
 which all scholars have cut away as spurious. Now, with 
 this strong clean-cut notion of the equality of all bishops 
 in the unity of the Church of Christ, which Cyprian 
 calls "the root and matrix of the catholic church," 
 he was ready for action. So, when the "Novatian 
 Schism" occurred at Eome, on the appointment 
 of Cornelius (251 a.d.), Cyprian in Carthage, 
 over the sea, hesitates about co-operating with 
 him in this equal participation of the episcopate. 
 He will not acknowledge him as brother-bishop, or 
 " colleague" — until he inquires, t Then, when he finds 
 "through his colleagues," who were sent io inquire, 
 proof that Cornelius has been legitimately appointed, 
 he writes him — " Cyprian to Cornelius, his brother, 
 greeting," telling him — 
 
 "Having received letters lately from both parties, Ave read 
 your letters, and intimated your ordination to the episcopate in 
 the ears of everyone. "§ 
 
 * Cyp., Ep. 66, &c. See also Lightfoot, Phil, p. 240-2. 
 t Cl'un. of Borne, vol. ii , p. 485. Bright, Horn. See, p. 42 
 t Cyp. Epp., xl., xli. § Ep. xli. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 151) 
 
 A little later he writes Cornelius, in similar terms, 
 that "lest a schism made in the city should confuse 
 the minds of the absent," he had decided — 
 
 "having got a greater authority for the proof of your ordina- 
 tion"— 
 
 that letters should be sent to Cornelius by all of 
 Cyprian's colleagues in North Africa, " approving and 
 maintaining both you and your fellowship."* So the 
 unity of the catholic Church, and its charit}^ would 
 be preserved. That is odd language to use to " a 
 PontifT." It is language which any senior and 
 respected Congregational minister in Melbourne, and 
 his colleagues in the ministry of Churches, might 
 send to a newly-appointed "brother" minister of 
 an important Church in "pre-eminent" Sydney or, 
 London, "approving and upholding both him and his 
 fellowship." How "we are slaves of w^ords," with the 
 modern vision of a Lord-Bishop in lawn sleeves, or 
 a Cardinal with his hat, haunting and bestriding us, 
 when we read the letters of these " urban bishops" of 
 the third century! Cyprian speaks of " our mother, 
 the catholic Church. "-|- I hope we will all speak just 
 so of the one universal spiritual Church of Jesus 
 Christ — " the Jerusalem which is from above" (as 
 Paul has it) which is " the inotlwr of us all.'' 
 
 But never a word speaks he of the Bishop of Piome 
 as superior to other bishops on account of ai^y special 
 descent from Peter. 
 
 Cyprian's Conflict with Stephen of Eome. 
 
 A little later {cir. 253-7) Cyprian found in Stephen 
 (a new Bishop of Piome) a man fiercer in temper and 
 as autocratic as himself. It was the age of the terrible 
 Decian persecution, the first universal and persistent 
 
 * ¥j\y. xliv. t Ep. xlii. 
 
160 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 attempt to suppress Christianity within the Eoman 
 Empire. The edict was specially against the bishops. 
 Cyprian, a man of elegance and wealth, fled, though 
 in a later persecution he stood firm and died in 
 martyrdom at Carthage. It was in part from his 
 hiding-place he fought his own deacon and others who 
 disputed his right to be bishop, and contended with 
 them about the restoration of the "lapsed." After 
 his return to Carthage, when that particular persecu- 
 tion was past, the Church fell into disputation over 
 the amazing subject whether baptism performed by 
 heretics and schismatics is valid. Stephen said 
 *'Yes." Cyprian, the older and more revered man, 
 said "No." And he and other bishops, east and 
 west, such as Firmilian of Cresarea, knew so little of 
 *' Peter's supremacy," or of the Bishop of Eome's 
 supremacy as representing Peter, that they flung at 
 Stephen's head the example of Paul as if that should 
 settle the matter.* 
 
 Now, here are two things which may astonish 
 us. On the one hand, there is that curious contra- 
 diction in practice which still prevails in the 
 Eomanist Church in an extreme shape, viz., that 
 "in case of need," baptism can be performed by 
 orthodox or heretic, cleric or non-cleric. Yet it is 
 a " sacrament" as solemn as the Lord's Supper. On 
 the other hand, there is the odd fact that these 
 " bishops" who, according to the Cyprianite and 
 Anglo- Catholic and Pioman Catholic notions are 
 " successors of the Apostles," and have " received the 
 Holy Ghost," illumining them above other men, yet 
 took such opposite cleics of trutli and practice, and 
 fought, and excommunicated one the other." This 
 theory of Apostolic succession in "bishops" is so droll, 
 so fantastic! 
 
 * Kp. 74.; Acts xix., 4-5. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. IGl 
 
 Stephen, indeed, made repeated blunders, as arro- 
 gant men do in all Churches. Certain Spanish 
 bishops, who had been removed from their " sees" by 
 the neighbouring clergy and people for unworth}^ 
 conduct, induced Stephen to recognise them as in 
 communion, and possessing the status of bishops. 
 The Spanish Churches appealed to Cyprian, the most 
 trusted bishop of the west. Cyprian* held a council 
 which " struck strongly, and one stroke." They 
 declared that the unworthy and deposed bishops had 
 
 "deceived Stephen, our colleague, placed at a distance, and 
 ignorant of what had been done, and of the truth." 
 
 So it was also in the case of the dispute about Baj)- 
 tism. Cyprian held successive councils. Asia Minor 
 and Spain sided with him.-f* At a council in 256, 
 Cyprian, in his address of welcome, smites thus at the 
 new pretensions of the Bishop of Kome : — 
 
 "None of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or seeks 
 to constrain his colleagues b}^ the terror Avhich tyranny can 
 inspire. "J 
 
 Apparently Stephen sundered all communion with all 
 the Churches which sided with Cyprian, and treated 
 them as heretics. But look at this state of things: 
 " St. Cyi^rian" is the "greatest Father" of the Catholic 
 west in the third century. He died, also, with the 
 " stroke of the sword" in martyrdom, saying, nobly 
 enough, when sentenced to death, — "Deo gratias ! " He 
 is a " Saint." Yet he considers Stephen, Bishop of 
 Eome, onl}^ as one of his "colleagues." He condemns 
 him also for "pride, severity, obstinacy. "§ He resists 
 and defeats for that age his attempt at uniformity, in 
 
 * Ep., 67. 5. 
 
 t Lightfoot Phil., p. 242 sq. [Bright Rom. See, pp. 50-51.] 
 
 X This is apparently the third of Cyprian's Councils on the Bap- 
 tism question, and his sixth Council in all. Hefele. Counc, Clark's 
 Edit., p. 96. 
 
 § Cyp. Epp., 73, 74. 
 
162 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 keeping with the Eoman mode. And Stephen impo- 
 tently tries to revenge himself b}^ cutting off all fellow- 
 ship with most of the Churches in the west and east.* 
 Truly this is an odd kind of " sovereignty of juris- 
 diction" possessed by Bishops of Rome in the third 
 century! And is there anything more grotesquely 
 unlike the guidance of the Holy Spirit than these 
 squabbling bishops, fighting about " goats' wool," 
 such as the question of ''the rebaptism of the lapsed," 
 and the validity of heretic baiDtism ? Truly an im- 
 Apostolic "team" of " successors of the Apostles!" 
 
 Foura'H Century : First Christian Emperor. 
 
 It w^as the Jaiti/, not the Bishops, that saved 
 Christendom. Such is the startling verdict from 
 ■a quite unexpected quarter — John Henry Newman, 
 writing on the struggles of the fourth century ! I will 
 return to this a little later. 
 
 The fourth century was momentous for good and 
 ill. It saw the arrival of the first avowedly Christian 
 Emperor, Constantine, and the stoppage of persecu- 
 tions, and the founding of the New Rome (Constan- 
 tinople) in the East, and the removal to it of the 
 principal Imperial Court, and the practical splitting 
 of the empire into two halves, with its w^eaker 
 half in the west. Thus there came a chance to 
 the Bishop of Rome, for stronger action and larger 
 influence. For Rome was the only great city in 
 all the w^est that claimed to be an ''Apostolic See," 
 and it w'as still the ancient Imperial City, wdiile 
 the cities that claimed to be "Apostolic" Sees 
 in the east — Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria, and the 
 
 * Neudecker, Stephen, in Herzog u. Plitt, Schaff, Ant. Nic. Chris, ^ 
 vol. i... .263-5.. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 163 
 
 rest were fiercely jealous of one another as neigh- 
 bours, and that, too, Greek neighbours are wont to 
 be. None of these cities was the Central or Imperial 
 cit}^ The}^ were too much on a par, and so rivals. 
 Had Constantine fixed his centre of government in 
 Alexandria, it is certain that Alexandria would have 
 been the centre of Christendom, despite the fact that 
 her Church had onl}^ St. Mark, an "Apostolical" 
 man^ as her traditional "Apostle founder." Milan, 
 in North Italy, had got hold of Barnabas somehow as 
 her traditional founder, and for centuries stood out 
 independent of Eome. But Piome, by that rare two- 
 fold legend of Paul and Peter founding the Koman 
 Church, had got hold of two actual martyred Apostles ; 
 and in her ^^ellow Tiber — a quite odd place — Peter 
 had baptised, and within her borders John had 
 resisted boiling, and had been relegated to an island. 
 And now, when the Christian Emperor removed his 
 curbing presence far away eastward, the Koman 
 Bishop, W'ith Kome's backing of wealth, and of 
 autocratic temper, and of legendary glamour, got 
 her opportunity. She had another advantage. The 
 Greek mind was subtle, metaphysic, litigious. The 
 fierce disputes over fine, theoretic, theologic distinc- 
 tions Avere mainly carried on in the East. They kept 
 the energies of the great Greek bishops distracted 
 and antagonistic. Eome had no intellectual troubles 
 of this kind. Her mood is — believe and obey ! She 
 had wdiat served better than intelluctual thought in a 
 long struggle for powder. She had the Western organ- 
 ising, drilling, practical, administrative, wealth- 
 gathering power. She seized hold of, and adapted to 
 herself persistently, the theology and the monastic 
 system wdiich the Christian Greek mind thought out 
 and fought out. She clothed them with more im- 
 perious sanctions; she gave them the coherence of 
 her own forceful mood — "command/ obey!" 
 
164 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY I 
 
 Cardinal Newman truly says : — * 
 
 *'The See of Rome possessed no great mind in the whole 
 period of persecution. Afterwards, for a long time, it had not 
 a single 'doctor' to show. The great luminary of the western 
 world is St. Augustin ; he, no infallible teacher, has formed 
 the intellect of Europe." 
 
 And Augustin was not a Eoman. But Eome had 
 forceful sagacity — she could "divide and conquer." 
 And she could hcep. 
 
 The Council of Nice: And Eome. 
 
 The Fourth Century saw the assembling of the first 
 of those "great Councils" at which the bishops met, 
 and debated, and w^ere violent, and schemed both for 
 the formulation of the Church's faith and for their 
 own individual supremacy. 
 
 The first great Council,* called by Constantine at 
 Nicaea, in Bith3aiia (325 a.b.), for his new capital 
 (Constantinople) on the Bosphorus was not built till 
 five years later, gives no hint of any Primacy of 
 jurisdiction belonging to the Bishop of Eome. 
 
 The object for which the Emperor summoned this 
 first representative Council of all Christendom — east 
 and west — was to decide what is known as " the Arian 
 conflict." The question involved was the true 
 
 * I do not stay here to discuss the Western Council of Aries (in 
 Gaul) which Constantine previously summoned (314) on an appeal 
 by the Donatists against the decision of a small Council in Rome 
 under its bishop, Miltiades (Melchiades). Romanist advocates try 
 to represent this as somehow supporting the notion of Papal 
 Supremacy, because Marinus, the Bishop of Aries, who presided at 
 that Council, and other members reported to the Bishop of Rome, 
 Sylvester (who had "succeeded" that year), the Council's decisions^ 
 .that they might be announced in the metropolis, as in other places. 
 Funny kind of argument to make an appeal from a decision in 
 Rome to a Council of Bishops in Gaul a proof of Rome's infallible 
 Supremacy ! 
 
ITS EALY STAGES. 165 
 
 Divinity of Christ, the Son of God. The question 
 vexed Christendom for many an age. All the other 
 main questions regarding Christ's person, with which 
 the Councils of the fourth and fifth centuries were 
 vehemently agitated, are inter-related with this one. 
 The conflict had begun in Alexandria, between its 
 bishop, Alexander, and the forceful Arius, who repre- 
 sented the tendency of x\ntioch. Behind Alexander 
 stood his gifted deacon, Athanasius, afterwards his 
 successor as Bishop of Alexandria. 
 
 It is no part of the purpose of these lectures 
 to discuss theology. It is enough to say that the 
 decision of that Council emphatically excluded Arian- 
 ism. Our pyese7it duty is simply to trace the successive 
 early steps of the advance of a claim made for the 
 superiority, and finally the " supremacy," of the 
 bishopric of Kome. 
 
 The bishops and presbyters, who gathered at Nicaea, 
 w^ere of all sorts. Some had come from great distances. 
 Some bore on their bodies the scars of sore mutila- 
 tions, endured by them in Pagan persecutions. But 
 they had retained not only life, but a vast vitality of 
 the old Adamite temper. That is inseparable from 
 politics of all kinds, profane and sacred. The 
 Bishop of Kome, Sylvester, was not present. He was 
 represented by two presbyters.* 
 
 When the Emperor, handsome, tall, slim, splendidly 
 attired,yet with reverent mien, entered the Council, a 
 master, and shrewd judge of men, he made a great im- 
 pression. He was welcomed in the name of the Council, 
 probably by Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch, the ''oldest 
 Christian see," the earliest so-called " See of Peter."f 
 
 * Vito^ancl Vincentius. Of the whole *'Nicaeiio-Constantmo- 
 politan Creed," the ordinary English reader will get a succinct 
 account (by Harnack) in SchafF's Herzog ; or Schaff's History. [On 
 the Romanist arguments regarding this Council see Bright Roman 
 See, p, 66 sq.] 
 
 + So Theodoret. Others think it was Eusebius himself. 
 
166 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY I 
 
 Eomanist writers try to make out that the President 
 of that Council \Yas Hosius of Cordova, in Spain. 
 Then they try to paint Hosius as "the Pope's repre- 
 sentative." Others, with much more reasonableness, 
 hold that there were two or three "Presidents," such 
 as Eustathius of Antioch, and Alexander of Alex- 
 andria (who, as backed by his brilliant supporter, 
 Athanasius, was a principal figure in the Council). 
 The Emperor, when present, was President. But he 
 was a shrewd manipulator of men, this Constantine. 
 He delivered the assembly over to the Presidents 
 (irpoedpoLs).'^ It is, I think, probable enough that 
 the aged Hosius, "the Father of the West," and the 
 special friend of the Emperor, sometimes presided, 
 taking his place in turn with the bishops of Alex- 
 andria and of Antioch. i" Hosius had already gone, at 
 the request of the Emperor, to Alexandria to attempt 
 to heal the dispute. If he presided at all, it was as 
 the Emperor's old and closest personal friend. 
 
 * Hefele, the Roman Catholic historian, argues labor ionsly that 
 Hosius presided. . . . Then, with Roman audacitj^ at a later point he 
 assumes and asserts that Hosiiis "presided at the assembly as Papal 
 legate in union with the two Roman priests, Vito and Vineentius." 
 (Hef. Councils. Clark, 2nd edit., vol. i., pp. 37-42, 260, 281.) This 
 is bold, and quite contrary to the facts. Schroeckh., Ernesti, 
 Hinschius, and other investigators, such as Tillemont, the eminent 
 Roman Catholic and Jansenist historian, have shown that the 
 attempt to represent Hosius as the Pope's legate rests on the 
 notorious falsifications of Gelasius of Cyzicus in the latter part ot 
 the Jiftli century ! On his falsification of facts, see Diet. Chris. 
 Biog. ii. , 620. [One could not have a better example of Romanist 
 advocacy than by first reading Hefele (one of the most moderate of 
 R.C. advocates) on this subject, and then reading the criticism of it 
 in Prof. Bright, Roman See, p. 71 seq. , and foot-notes. Bright 
 thinks Hosius presided as the Emperor's trusted friend. Against 
 this the plural "presidents," used by Eusebius, seems conclusive. 
 It is not probable, is it, that a Council meeting in the Ijast, com- 
 posed of Greek bishops and presbyters, with only eight Westerns, 
 would be presided over by Westerns alone ?] 
 
 t 8o Schaft', &c. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 167 
 
 The canons of that Council prove the Eomanist 
 claim to supremacy to have heen quite undreamt of 
 in 1 that fourth century. They assign to the Bishop 
 of Kome, as was natural on account of Eome's politi- 
 cal position in the West, spiritual jurisdiction — i.e., 
 the right to ordain bishops — over Middle and Lower 
 Italy, with the Islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and 
 Corsica, on mi eqiialitii witli*' the bishop of Alexan- 
 dria, who had spiritual jurisdiction — i.e., the right to 
 ordain all the bishops — over Egypt, Libya, and the 
 wide Pentapolis. The arrangement was just according 
 to divisions of the Empire and its great cities. No 
 thought of the bishop of Eome as Bishop of Bishops, 
 and wielding Supremacy over Christendom, had as 
 yet dawned upon men.-f* 
 
 * Even Hefele confesses: — "The Council of Nicaea points out 
 that the Bishop of Rome has also rights analogous to those which it 
 acknowledges for the Bishop of Alexandria and for the Bishop of 
 Ephesus." On Hefele's amusing effort to get out of this absolute 
 disproof of the Roman claim see the whole passage. — Vol. i. , pp. 
 394 — 399. (Bright, Roman See, p. 75 seq.) Archbishop Carr has 
 ventured to accuse me of "a quibble" regarding Renan. How one 
 sees his own reflection ! For, if ever pitiable quibble was written, 
 surely it is Dr. Carr's attempt (p. 202) to get out of the facts about 
 Nicaea. He says, trying to follow Hefele — "The subject of the 
 Primacy was not mentioned at the Council." Quite true ! For there 
 was no such thing then in existence. The Roman bishop is simply 
 called "the bishop in Rome." 
 
 + For a luminous, brief statement of the gradual elevation of the 
 city bishop above the rural bishop, then the elevation of the 
 " metropolitans" above the ordinary city bishops, then of "the five 
 patriarchs," the " oligarchical summit," above the metropolitans, 
 and of the relation of this to the divisions of tJie Roman Empire, read 
 Schaff, Nicene and Fast Nic. Ghristianiti/, vol. i., pp 263 — 274. 
 The Patriarchs were the bishops of " the four great capitals of the 
 empire" — Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople. To these 
 was added, as honorary patriarch, the Bishop of Jerusalem. This 
 development of the Patriarchs was, of course, later than Nicaea. 
 Constantinople was founded 330 a.d., five years later than the 
 Council of Nicaea, and then began a conflict for precedence between 
 the Bishops of Rome, Constantinople (the new imperial capital), 
 and Alexandria. 
 
 L 2 
 
168 EVOLrTION OF THE PAPACY! 
 
 Hosius Eecants : The Pope Turns Heretic. 
 
 The epoch succeedmg the Council of Nicaea presents 
 a smgular spectacle. Alexandria, with its Athanasins, 
 was the centre of orthodoxy. If a "See" means 
 rightly a "chair" of teaching, and if the Nicene Faith 
 he true, then to Alexandria — not Eome at that time — 
 belonged "the Apostolic Chair" and the "Primacy." 
 
 In Julius I., who became Bishop of Eome about the 
 time of Constantine's death, Athanasius had found a 
 hearty supporter. The two sons of Constantine took 
 different sides. Constans, in the west, backed Athana- 
 sius ; Constantius, in the east, Arius. Constantine, 
 alas, had allowed the beginning of a new thing — 
 persecution, the use of force b}^ Christians against 
 those who did not conform.* Both Orthodox and 
 Arian used this new weapon pitilessly. 
 
 At a Council summoned at Sardica (343), the 
 Eastern bishops withdrew and held an opposition 
 Council. The rest, in the interests of Athanasius, 
 who had been deposed by Constantius, resolved that a 
 deposed bishop may "appeal to the Eoman bishop 
 Julius." This expedient of battle against Antioch and 
 the East failed. That "Council" was never accepted 
 as oecumenical. The Emperor refused any sanction. 
 Christendom rejected it. 
 
 But the Sardican move w^as answered in a rougher 
 and tragic way. Constantius, now sole Emperor, 
 and siding with the "Eusebians and semi-Arians," 
 attempted to compel uniformity. The aged Hosius, 
 who had been severe upon the Arians, was flung into 
 prison, and summoned before the Synod at Sirmium. 
 Alas, alas ! — But, indeed, we will not tell it ourselves. 
 
 * At first it was confined to scourging and banishment. After 
 Theodosius, and in the age of the great Councils, the death penalty 
 was also enacted. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 169 
 
 We will let John Henry Newman and others mainly 
 tell it. Hosins, who had presided at Sardica, (who, 
 the Pioman Catholic writers argue, presided at Nicaea), 
 recanted under torture, and hy the Synod of Sirmium, 
 though he would not sign the condemnation of 
 Athanasius, was induced to accept and subscribe 
 a formulary which forbade the mention of the 
 ^'homooitsion,'' and thus "virtually condemned the 
 creed of Nicaea,* and countenanced the Arian pro- 
 ceedings." Yes ; he subscribed a creed forbidding it 
 to be said that Christ is of the same substance with 
 the Father. He retracted again at Corduba.i* 
 
 "And Liberius" — the Pope! — Peter's successor? 
 He began as a vehement opponent of Arianism. But 
 he now joined in condemning Athanasius, rejected 
 the Nicene creed, joined in church fellowship with the 
 Arians ; and, in fact, poor Newman has to quote 
 Jerome's striking sentence, in the Latin of it — 
 "Liberius, conquered by the weariness of exile, and 
 subscribing to the heretic pravity, had entered Ptome 
 as a conqueror."! Newman uses the strong word 
 " apostasy." 
 
 I do not want to dwell on these sad things at all. 
 Only when Archbishop Carr is so severe in speech 
 on Cranmer, might not he feel a touch of ruth in 
 presence of these tragic facts that fill the foreground 
 of Eoman Church History ? 
 
 Cranmer also was old. More than any other 
 
 * Miiller in Herzog u. PUtt. Scliaflf, 635 f. Newman (425, 448) 
 calls it Hosius' "blasphemy" and "fall." 
 
 t Newman's Arians of the Fourth Century, p. 323, et seq. See also 
 Note v., p. 445. Is there anything in literature more striking than 
 the practical condemnation, shown in all that note, of the theory 
 that the Church of God depends on Papalism, or on Episcopacy, or 
 Externalism. Yet he attempts to argue out of this position. 
 
 I Newman, id., p. 449. The case of Felix ii. ; afterwards 
 "sainted" was still worse. 
 
170 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY: 
 
 Protestant, he shuddered at the thought of the agony 
 of slow burnmg m the flame, hke Eidley. Yet at the 
 last, as Tennyson pamts hhn : — 
 
 * ' Then Cranmer lifted his left hand to Heaven, 
 And thrust his right into the bitter flame ; 
 And, crying in his deep voice more than once — 
 'This hath offended— this unworthy hand I' 
 So held it till it all was burn'd, before 
 The flame had reached his body ; I stood near — 
 Marked him — he never uttered moan of pain ; 
 He never stirr'd or writhed," 
 
 He never deemed himself mjallihlc. And the other 
 Protestants whom no terrors could make recant, and 
 whose names have sunk undyingly into the memories 
 of British men — they did not deem themselves and 
 their Church infalUhle. God and His Gospel alone 
 the}^ deemed f/? fallible. But not even Cranmer could 
 have been got, for all Earth's pain, to subscribe denial 
 of the Essential Divinity of Our Lord, like Hosius and 
 "Peter's Successor" Liberius. I do not want to 
 speak any severe word about these men at all. I tell 
 these things with all reluctance, and with a shudder 
 of shame at all these councils and men, because they 
 show the huge unreality of this whole notion that the 
 Church of the living God depends on the stability of a 
 line of Eoman bishops, or of an}^ bishops, as deposi- 
 tories of infallible truth, and as Piock of the faith, 
 and as recipients of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 "The episcopate, whose action was so prompt and concordant 
 at Nicaea, on the rise of Arianism, did not, as a class or order 
 of men, play a good part in the troubles consequent upon the 
 Council, and the laity did. The Catholic people in the length 
 and breadth of Christendom were the obstinate champions of 
 Catholic truth, and the bishops were not." 
 
 So says Newman.* Eome and the Pope were not 
 then a Bock 1 
 
 * Arians of Fourth Century, p. 445, also]461, 465. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 171 
 
 EoME AND Leo. — Fifth Century. 
 
 We reach the hour when the Papacy was born. 
 Leo, deacon of Celestme, Bishop of Eome (422-432), 
 and hmiself Bishop of Eome (440-461), was the father 
 of the Papacy. Amid the anguish of the dying 
 Empire of the West, intensified by the agony of the 
 Nestorian controversy, the ecclesiastic Papacy was 
 born. Its "temporal power" was born much later. 
 
 Celestine (with whom, for his own purposes, Cyril, 
 of Alexandria, inheritor and intensifier of the orthodoxy 
 of Athanasius, but making it repellant by his haughty 
 sacerdotalism, joined hands) was strenuous and force- 
 ful. Leo was a greater, more intellectual Celestine. 
 The diaconate and bishopric of this energetic ruler of 
 men have the stir and thrill of a great romance or 
 tragedy. Leo was cradled amid the noises of battle, 
 the falling of World-powers. From the beginning of 
 that century the Goths and other heathen peoples 
 of the north had been pressing down, from all 
 sides, upon the fated Greek-Eoman Empire. Alaric, 
 the Goth, had in the beginning of the century sacked 
 Eome. The feeble Emperor of the West fled and 
 entrenched himself amidst the marshes of Eavenna.* 
 The Church of God alone stood firm. It was the 
 heroic hour of Eome's Episcopate. By its power, its 
 resources, its state-craft, the awe it inspired in the 
 minds of even heathen leaders, especially by the 
 influence it exerted over them through intermarriage 
 with its Christian womanhood, the bishop's seat at 
 Eome became the rallying point of a new political 
 confidence. The Bishop of Eome proved himself 
 the most important secular voice in the West. Leo, 
 with great skill, at once took advantage of the state of 
 things to further his extreme sacerdotal views, and to 
 
 * Hence came Romagna, a neiv Rome. 
 
172 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 make Kome ecclesiastically supreme. When the 
 Bishops of Gaul* resisted his dictation, Leo induced the 
 young weakling Emperor in the West, Valentinian III., 
 to issue (445) a rescript declaring that none henceforth 
 should venture to resist the primacy of the Pope, 
 which the Lord himself had instituted ! This rescript 
 was, of course, never acknowledged by the patriarchs 
 and Churches of the East. The Latin Churches of 
 North Africa, also, had stubbornly refused to acknow- 
 ledge an3^thing but a " primacy of honour.'' Those 
 of North Italy and Aquileia steadily, and till much 
 later, maintained their independence."!" 
 
 Leo was the first to formulate the Eomish notion of 
 a priestly and ecclesiastic monarchy I under the head- 
 ship of Peter, as Prince of the Apostles. That whole 
 figment rests on "two propositions;" — (1) Peter's 
 primacy of jurisdiction amongst the Apostles, so that 
 all pastors of God's Church are under Peter's 
 authority (Serm. iv. 2). (2) That Peter's authority 
 and supremac}^ were transferred to his only successors, 
 the bishops of Eome ; so, whenever the Bishop of 
 Piome speaks, Peter himself speaks (Serm. iii. 2). Leo 
 added to these a third equally startling proposition: — 
 That to revolt against this primacy of the Pioman 
 Bishop is to precipitate yourself into hell (Ep. 10). § 
 There was a charming directness about Leo. He 
 had a quite swift and even sulphureous way of dis- 
 posing of his antagonists that was most serviceable to 
 Eome's advancement in power. 
 
 Another thing that uplifted Leo was the inroad into 
 Italy of Attila the Hun, when, amid the terror, Leo 
 had to manipulate his retirement, and arrange about 
 his demand of a vast sum of money, and the woful 
 
 * Hilariiis of Aries, &c. 
 
 t Schaff, ut supra, ^o. 293. :J: K. Mtiller in Herzog ii. Plitt, 
 
 § K. Miiller, id. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 173 
 
 bargain of giving np to the great savage leader 
 Honoria, the dehcatel^'-nurtured sister of Valentinian, 
 the Emperor. But it was by the theological troubles 
 in that fifth century that Eome's ecclesiastical 
 influence, as over against the divided and distracted 
 East, got for the time a decided advance. TJiis, too, 
 stands out quite clear, — ^just in proportion as the 
 power of the Imperial house is weak, or disunited, or 
 the Eastern patriarchs are found at variance, in like 
 proportion does the solid lloman bulk advance its 
 front; just in proportion as the East presents a strong 
 Emperor, and a united Church, does the Roman 
 bishop's ascendancy dwindle and fall back. For 
 centuries after Leo, no Pope presents so truculent a 
 front, or claim, as did he. 
 
 Cyril and His Monks. 
 
 The troubles which now vexed the Eastern Church 
 concerned the doctrine of the Person of Christ. 
 Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, which was 
 now rival of both Eome and Alexandria, emphasised 
 the tendency of the Christian school of Antioch, lay- 
 ing stress upon the two natures — human and divine 
 — in Christ. He especially objected to the expression, 
 " Mother of God,"* given to the Virgin Mary, and 
 urged the name, " Mother of Christ," instead. His 
 forceful adversaiy, Cyril of Alexandria, emphasised 
 the Alexandrian tendency, and laid stress on the 
 Divine Nature. Cyril accused Nestorius of resolving 
 Christ into two. Nestorius accused C^a'il of making 
 the Divine transmuted into the human, so blotting out 
 the distinctions of nature. And, as Moller says, each 
 was unfair to the other. Dollinger has emphatically 
 said, when we go to the writings of Nestorius himself 
 
 * Theotokos in Greek. 
 
174 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY I 
 
 we get a quite different view of him from what his 
 foes at Alexandria and at Eome ascribed to him. 
 
 Had these men, in simple loyalty to Christ and His 
 New Testament Gospel, been able to meet together as 
 friends, and to speak their views in quiet, with no 
 rival pride of Alexandria and of Eome, and of the new 
 rival Eome (Constantinople) and its ally Antioch to 
 egg them on, or had there been then a strong Emperor 
 and an undivided Imperial Court, the shame and 
 tragedy of those battling Councils could never have 
 been. 
 
 The Emperor* at Constantinople was a weakling. 
 His wife, the gifted and beautiful Eudocia, had a 
 deadly foe in Pulcheria, the Emperor's elder sister, 
 and erewhile dictatress. Cyril had Pulcheria as his 
 fellow-plotter. Celestine, Pope in Eome, and Cyril, 
 Patriarch in Alexandria, clasped hands, and used the 
 divided Imperial Court to effect their ends. 
 
 At the Council, summoned to Ephesus by the 
 Emperor (431), C^Til and the Alexandrians arrived 
 before John of Antioch and the Syrian bishops could 
 get forward. Cyril, who came with a powerful body 
 of Egyptian bishops, slaves, and armed seamen, 
 opened the so-called Council, and presided ; Celestine's 
 legates from Eome being present. Nestorius would 
 not attend, the other bishops not having arrived. The 
 proceedings were summary. Despite the protest of 
 the Imperial Commissioner, Nestorius was anathema- 
 tized. John of Antioch and the Syrians arrived to 
 hold another Council, which deposed Cyril of Alexan- 
 dria, and his henchman Memnon of Ephesus. f 
 
 This miserable scene was followed by a scene more 
 miserable. Cyril, Pulcheria, and Celestine had effected 
 
 * Thodosius II. 
 t Schaff, id., p. 723, seq. INIilman, &c., pass the severest jiiclg- 
 ment on these councils. Gregoiy Nazianzen called them "assemblies 
 of cranes and seese. " 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 175 
 
 the destruction of Nestorius. But C^yrirs polic}^ out- 
 witted itself and outwitted Eome also. It was Con- 
 stantinople that was aggrandized. 
 
 Cyril is that relentless and potent personality whose 
 features are limned so graphically in Kingsley's 
 Hijpatia, and whose monks, "the hounds of C^yril," 
 tore the heautiful and gifted Hypatia limb from limb, 
 with shouts of "God and the Mother of God." His 
 policy, too, lived after him, but with the unlooked 
 for result of elevating the Patriarchate of the Eastern 
 metropolis, Constantinople, rather than Alexandria or 
 Eome. 
 
 The "Eobber Council." 
 
 Euti/clies, the head of a cloister of three hundred 
 monks at Constantinople, was kin in sentiment and 
 mood to the monks of Alexandria. He was incensed 
 at the comjDromise which Theodoret,* of "the Antioch 
 school," had got arranged, viz., affirming tiro natures 
 in our Lord's one Person after the incarnation.! 
 Eutyches fiercely denounced this. And, when deposed 
 by a local synod of Constantinople (448), held by 
 Flavian, its Patriarch, he called to his aid Alexandria. 
 Cyril was dead.* His archdeacon, Dioscuros — a more 
 vehement, less intellectual Cyril — sat in his chair. 
 Dioscuros and others demanded of the Emperor a new 
 General Council. But Leo, now Patriarch, or Pope, in 
 
 * Of Cyros. He was of the school of Antioch, pupil of the famous 
 Diodorus and Theodorus. He was one of John of Antioch's synod 
 which "deposed" Cyril at Ephesus in 431. He w^as himself deposed 
 by the "Robber Coitncir' of Ephesus, 449, but restored by the 
 Council of Chalcedon. 
 
 t Schaff holds that it was just "moderate Nestorianism," as 
 drawn by Theodoret, which actually obtained the victory, by the 
 help of the Bishop of Rome (Leo), at the Council of Cbalcedon. 
 And when Protestantism rejects the dreadful title "Mother of 
 God" from the Chalcedon formulary, you have that victory com- 
 plete. + In 444 A.D. 
 
176 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 Piome, recognised that Flavian's theology in Constan- 
 tinople was the same as his own. Leo was the first 
 tlieologian the Eoman Church had produced. His 
 masterly letters to Flavian, defining the Faith, are 
 but an exposition of what had been thought out 
 by successive Greek minds like Athanasius and 
 Theodoret. 
 
 But the Alexandrians did at Ephesus in the Council 
 of 449 what C^a-il had done in 431. Alexandria and 
 Ephesus again coalesced. Dioscuros of Alexandria 
 presided. Eutyches was restored ; Theodoret, Flavian, 
 and Leo of Eome were deposed and excommunicated. 
 The three delegates from Leo, Bishop of Eome, did 
 not even venture to read Leo's letter. In the fierce 
 melee Flavian was so sorely wounded by the monks 
 that he died a few days later. That Council, though 
 denounced by Leo as "the Council of Eobbers,"* was 
 as genuine an Ecumenical Council as that which 
 crushed Nestorius; and had much more claim to be 
 so than the Western Council of Trent, or that of the 
 Vatican which decreed the infallibility of the Pope. 
 
 From that "robber Council" the bishops and 
 monks sw^ayed out into the streets, where, in torch- 
 light processions, the mob made the night hideous 
 with the battle-cry of the Alexandrian monks — " God, 
 and the Mother of God!" 
 
 Chalcedon; and Leo of Eome. 
 
 The Emperor died in 450, not without sore suspi- 
 cions as to the accident which caused his death. With 
 Pulcheria, his strong-willed sister, now on the throne, 
 and Eudocia banished, Leo's plans seemed pros- 
 perous. But Marcian, the Empire's general, whom 
 
 * In a letter to Pulcheria. See the details in Schaff, ut sup., 
 vol. ii., and in Neander, Hefele, Milman, etc. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 177 
 
 Pulcheria chose for her husband, had, as Emperor, 
 a will of his own. He used Rome, and let it lead 
 that he might lead. At the new Council, summoned 
 at Chalcedon, nigh to Constantinople (451), the em- 
 peror and empress were present. For the first time 
 the legates from Eome were the spiritual presidents. 
 They sat on the left of the imperial commissioners. 
 This Council anathematised both "Nestorianism" and 
 Eutycheanism. The Epistle of Leo and the Synodal 
 letters of Cyril were laid before the Council, and 
 received with cries of: "That is the faith of the 
 Fathers ! That is the faith of the Apostles. Through 
 Leo, Peter has thus spoken ; even so did Cyril teach. 
 This is the true faith." That Council reduced the 
 substance of those letters, and the substance of Theo- 
 doret's statement, into a complete setting forth of 
 the Nicene Creed,* with the awful title given to 
 Mary, and embodied in the Church's creed for the 
 j&rst time—'' Mother of God."t The Council, at " the 
 solemn ratification of this Confession, in the Em- 
 peror's presence, burst into loud cries in eulogy of 
 this weather-wise general : 
 
 "Thou art both Priest and King; victor in war; teacher of 
 the Faith."! 
 
 This Council had been almost as tumultuous as " the 
 Robber Synod." The imperial officers had to inter- 
 vene repeatedly between the passionate disputants. 
 
 When Leo read the decisions of the Council, and 
 heard the incidents of it, and of its cries placing — 
 " Thus Cyril did teach"§ on an equality with his own 
 formula, " Through Leo Peter has spoken," he was 
 enraged well-nigh as much as by the previous de- 
 
 * ' ' Nicaeno-Constantiuopolitan. " 
 
 t " This was the real turning-point in the development of 
 Mariolatry. " — Steitz, 
 
 X A good account is given in Schaff. 
 
 § Archbishop Carr drops this out, p. 214. 
 
178 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY : 
 
 cision of "The Robber Synod" of Ephesus. He found 
 that he had been given only a primacy of honour, and 
 that the patriarch of Constantinoi)le, the Emperor's 
 new and non-apostolic city, had equal powers with 
 the Bishop of Eome, having jurisdiction over Asia, 
 Pontus, and Thrace.* In all these arrangements it is 
 clear that precedence went just by the importance of 
 the provinces and cities of the Empire. 
 
 The Epoch of Shame. 
 
 For a century after Leo there followed what has 
 been called "the Epoch of Shame." The Popes of 
 Rome were successively the subjects, or puppets, of 
 the barbarian kings, or of the reviving power of the 
 Greek-Roman Empire at Constantinoj^le. The weak- 
 ness and the worthlessness of these Popes chime 
 together. One of these Popes, Gelasius I. (492-496), 
 who struggled hard against the rival claims of Con- 
 stantinople, lets a gleam of light ray out. He 
 condemns the sacrilege of withholding the cup from 
 the laity. His successor, apparentl}^ one of the best of 
 these Popes, but who was more friendly towards Con- 
 stantinople, is the Pope whom Dante puts in hell,"I" an 
 odd place for an inspired successor of St. Peter, and 
 of that Leo who consigned to hell those who did not 
 receive the Pope as Peter's successor. Under the 
 mighty sway of the great Emperor Justinian the 
 Popedom of Rome fell lower still, till his puppet Pope 
 Vigilius (537-555), retracted and withdrew that very 
 condemnation of Eutjxheanism, formulated so 
 solemnly by the Council of Chalcedon, on the basis 
 of the letter of Leo. 
 
 ♦Schaff, p. 279 fF. 
 
 fAnastasiiis II. Even Baronius explains his sudden death as 
 God's manifest judgment. 
 
its early stages. 17!) 
 
 Gregory the Great. 
 
 But in the close of the sixth century (590 — 604) 
 there arose, in the person of Gregory I. — named ''the 
 Great" — another Eoman Patriarch, kin in spirit to 
 Leo. An eminent historian calls him "the greatest, 
 most capahle, noblest, most pious, and most super- 
 stitious in the whole ' long series of Popes.' "* Another 
 takes his influence as marking the transition from 
 " the patriarchal system into the strict Papacy of the 
 Middle Ages."t 
 
 As with Leo and the Goths and Huns, so with 
 Gregory and the ruthless Longobards (Lombards), 
 whose descent upon Italy has left their name stamped 
 still upon one of the fairest and strongest of Italian 
 provinces. Amid the misery, Gregory's great wealth, 
 drawn from wide lands and other possessions — " the 
 Patrimony of Peter" — in mid-Italy and the islands, 
 gave him a sort of royal power. His character and 
 vigour lent this power nobler sanction. An ex-monk 
 himself, Gregory reorganised the monkhood ; he also 
 imposed upon his clergy several characteristics of the 
 monastic life he strongly favoured, t His main in- 
 terest for us British people is his scheme of pushing 
 missionaries northward and westward into the Teuton 
 lands. Hitherto it had been the Eastern, and, indeed, 
 the Arian missions that had won the Gothic and 
 northern peoples. That "mission" sent out by 
 Gregory had been forestalled also by a Christian 
 movement amongst the Celtic peoples of Scotland 
 and Ireland — a movement which, from its centre in 
 the Scoto-Irish Churches, spread into North England, 
 and across as far as Germany and Switzerland, and 
 
 * Kurtz. t Zoepffel, in Herzog u. Plitt. 
 
 J ScliafF, «&c. Creigliton, Hist, of Papacy, vol. i., p. 8. 
 
180 EVOIiUTION OF THE PAPACY I 
 
 finally came into determined conflict with the advanc- 
 ing movement from Eome.* 
 
 The sore thorn in Gregory's side was the rival 
 imperial new Eome in the (East, the Emperor's city 
 (Constantinople), with its potent patriarch. To 
 that patriarch the Emperor Justinian had already 
 given the title of Universal (Ecumenical) Bishop. 
 Now, John the Faster,*!* Patriarch of Constantinople, 
 adopted, with special emphasis, this title, higher than 
 the Eoman Pope's title. Gregory, in vain, endeavoured 
 to induce the Emperor Mauritius to compel John to 
 forego this title of " Ecumenical Bishop." When the 
 Patriarch of Alexandria, to checkmate Constantinople, 
 addressed Gregory as " Universalis Pwpa' (Universal 
 Pope), Gregory, in his reply, refused such a title, and 
 admitted for the sees of Antioch and Alexandria rank 
 equal with that of Piome. He also likened John of 
 Constantinople to Lucifer, and branded as an anti- 
 Christ every Bishop who would raise himself above 
 his fellow-bishops.* 
 
 The two indelible blots which stain this great 
 Pope's memory indicate the means by which a special 
 recognition for the Pioman Bishop Avas gradually 
 and persistently furthered. The Prankish Fury, 
 Brunhilda, "the New Jezebel" of the West, stained 
 with the w^orst of crimes, he loaded with flatteries, 
 receiving gratefullj^ her promises to support the 
 English mission, to promote celibacy, and to foster 
 monasteries throughout her realm. 
 
 In the same wa}^, when the brutal rebel Phocas 
 mounted to the Imperial throne in Constantinople 
 by the murder of the noble Emperor Mauritius, 
 
 * See Green's Sliort Hist, of the Eng. People, pp. 17, 28, 29. 
 
 t John Jejunator. 
 
 """ Schaff, Kurtz, Zoepffel, &c. On the subtle distinction by which 
 Bellarniine and other Roman Catholic writers attempt to meet this, 
 see Schaff", id., p. 329. 
 
ITS EARLY STAGES. 181 
 
 his hands reddened to a deeper dye by the rutliless 
 execution of the Empress and the live sons and three 
 daughters of the slaughtered monarch, Gregory, with 
 the most fulsome laudation, welcomed the despot's 
 advent. In his congratulation he "makes all the 
 angelic choirs in heaven and all tongues on earth 
 break forth in jubilees."* 
 
 These actions on the part of one of the best 
 Popes illustrate the mode in which the Bishops of 
 Eome pushed, through every possible avenue of 
 worldly and political influence, their path towards 
 predominance.! A little later, and the East, in 
 its terrible struggle with Mohammedanism, and 
 in the splendid effort made by the great Emperor 
 Leo to cast image- worship out of the Church, 
 as giving to Mohammedans their main argument 
 against Christianity, was pitilessly deserted and re- 
 sisted by the Popes of Piome. This disregard on the 
 part of the Western Papacy to the life and death 
 struggle of Eastern Christendom is deemed, by some 
 great historians, as one of the indelible crimes of the 
 Soman Popedom. As the Mohammedan advance 
 weakened Jerusalem, Antioch, and Constantinople, so 
 Piome, in the West, thrust forward her claim to solitary 
 power. Against her arrogance, at last, the East rose 
 up in disdain, and there took place that vast separa- 
 
 * Kurtz, id, p. 274. ScliafT, Kiutz, Zoepffel, as well as other 
 historians of the period, regard it as probable, in each case, that 
 Gregory did not know the facts or the character of either Bruneliild 
 or Phocas Of course, if so, it i-aises odd questions as to the "in- 
 spiration" a Pope is supposed to possess. But how he could be 
 ignorant that Phocas could not have gained the throne in any good 
 way it is hard to see. 
 
 t It was Phocas who, in gratitude, tirst called "the chair of 
 Peter" at Rome caput nmnium ecclesiarum — "head of all Churches.'' 
 This title of honour was, of course, not recognised by his successors, 
 or by the Churches. 
 
 M 
 
182 EVOLUTION OF THE PAPACY: ITS EARLY STAGES. 
 
 tion which has cloven the older Christian East and 
 the Latin West, with its Popedom, for ever asunder.* 
 
 From all this survey of the early stages of the 
 Eoman claim, two facts stand out clear. 
 
 First, each step of the advance of this claim to 
 ecclesiastical and worldly dominance has been closely 
 identified with the weakness, or the perfidy, or the 
 power of some World-kingdom, or ruler, or with the 
 political contendings of rival patriarchs and bishops. 
 
 Secondly, all this looks tragically unlike, in shape 
 and spirit, to the mission of that Paul who wrote from 
 Coriiith to Kome : — " I am ready to preach the gospel 
 to you also that are in Kome." It flatly contradicts 
 Peter's injunction : — "Be not lords over God's 
 heritage." It seems strangely foreign to that Christ 
 who said, at the judgment-bar of Eome's Magistrate, 
 *' My Kingdom is not of this AVorld." 
 
 The End. 
 
 E. A. Freeman; Creightou, Hist, of Papacy, vol. i., pp. 8, 9. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 With regret I have had to crush out of this Appendix much which 
 I had planned to insert. In particular, I should have liked to 
 publish (anonymously) a few of the letters received by me from 
 leading laymen in Victoria. One of these, from a distinguished 
 Medical man, evinces a surprising grasp of the whole situation, and 
 livingness of interest in the issues involved in the modern asser- 
 tion of Sacerdotal Clericalism (as betokened at once by the ' ' Anglo- 
 Catholic" movement, and by the renewed activity of the "Roman 
 Catholic Campaign.") Indications of this kind are encouraging. 
 So long as the educated and intellectual laity continues to take a 
 wide-awake and genuine personal interest in our common heritage 
 •of Christian Faith and Freedom, all is well. 
 
 I. 
 ARCHBISHOP CARR'S "PROTESTANT TESTIMONY." 
 
 Here is an illustrative specimen of the Archbishop's favourite 
 method of "proof." He seeks by a promiscuous array of names to 
 prove that Peter visited Rome — a proposition we have no ol)jection 
 to see proven, if only any actual proof were forthcoming. Says 
 Archbishop Carr : — 
 
 "Further Protestant testimony in proof of St. Peter's residence 
 in Rome would be wholly superfluous. If required, it may be 
 abundantly found in the works of Hammond, Usher, Whitby, 
 Blondell, Schaff, Scaliger, Le Clerc. We may, therefore, on exclu- 
 sively Protestant testimony, put aside the assertion that St. Peter 
 never was in Rome." Now, that is a comfortable mode of "proving" 
 theories if there is nobody near to challenge your premises, or to 
 ask the awkward question — Is that what you call ^^ proof']" The 
 Roman Catliolic mind — may I say it without offence? — seems 
 impressed by a non-chronological array of names, marshalled as 
 •^* authorities." The Protestant mind asks iov facts. 
 
 M 2 
 
184 APPENDIX. 
 
 Moreover, here be names, as Shakspere would say, '■ sorted and 
 consorted'"' — very ill. How Schaff, the modern scholar, got jammed 
 in amongst that arraj^ is the odd thing. And these names are 
 followed b}' Bramhall, and preceded b}' Neale and Whiston. If the 
 Archbishop had but explained to liis auditory who these men were ! 
 Now, let me take these names seriatim — 
 
 (1.) "Neale" should really not he quoted as '' Protestant testi- 
 mony," or as historical testimony of any kind. He was one of the ex- 
 tremest advocates of " High Catholic" views, and of the Komanizing 
 tendency. As such lie was inhibited by his bishop for fourteen years. 
 "His sympathies," says Professor Bird, his most appreciative 
 critic, "seem rather Roman than Protestant, and dubious legends 
 were accepted by him with unquestioning belief." It is his 
 hymnody alone for which he should be quoted. 
 
 (2.) " Whiston," Archbishop Carr's next "Protestant testimony,' 
 broadens the smile, I take for granted that the Archbishop has 
 not read the life-story of the "cranks and freaks of fancy and of 
 religious and chronological vagaries," through which this eccentric 
 and lovable individual passed. Born 1667, died 1752, he placed 
 the Millenium in 1776. Amongst other achievements he made 
 out for himself an Arian "Primitive New Testament." And 
 both it and his views on Primitive Christian history would startle 
 hugely Archbishop Carr, and be consigned to an awful " Index 
 Expurgatorius." Why does Archbishop Can quote from this ex- 
 tremely "Rationalist" and also antiquated writer, as representative 
 Protestant "proof?" The value of Whiston's views on Primitive 
 Church history may be judged from the facts tliat his scheme of 
 Old and New Testament chronology is now found quite erroneous, 
 and that he declared that Arianism was the original and dominant 
 faith in the first two centuries ii\ Rome and all over Christendom, 
 and that the apocryphal book called " Apostolical Constitutions" 
 was "the most sacred of the canonical books of the New Testa- 
 ment." 
 
 (3.) Dr. Carr's next " Protestant testimony" is Hammond. When 
 I say that Hammond (born 1(305, died 1660), a personally estimable 
 gentleman, Avas the favourite chaplain of Charles I., and that his 
 writings were included by Pusey and his compeers in the Library of 
 Anglo- Catholic Theology, Oxford, the public will estimate the value 
 of his opinion on a question of modern historical criticism such as 
 "DuZ Feter Visit Rome ?" 
 
 (4.) Usher (1581 — 1656) comes next. Of him I shall speak last. 
 
 (5. ) W^hitby comes next. Our wonder grows. What a man he 
 was to be quoted as an exponent of " Protestant testimony" and 
 "proof" that Peter visited Rome ! " Dr. Daniel WHiitby" (1638— 
 1726), says Professor Christlieb, who made a special study of the 
 phases of Doubt in England, " is best remembered for his striking 
 theological changes" — first, extreme Protestant, and having his book 
 publicly burnt in Charles II. 's time at Oxford; then making humble 
 
APPENDIX. 185 
 
 confession of his "heresies" to the wrathful High-Church Bishop of 
 Salisbury ; then writing a book in reconcilement of all differences, 
 and commanding all non-conformists to return into the Stuart 
 High-Anglican fold; then extreme Arminian; then finally retract- 
 ing all his former expositions, and ending as extreme Arian, 
 declaring the Trinitarian dogma to be a tissue of absurdities — such 
 was Dr. Daniel Whitby. 
 
 And, of course, it is quite appropriate that Archbishop Carr 
 should quote him as an important representative of " Protestant 
 testimony" in the same lecture in which he similarly quotes Renan. 
 Onl}^, what is the value of it all? And would not this array of 
 names produce on Dr. Carr's hearers an impression quite other than 
 a frank examination of facts warrants? They would think— surely 
 these names are of weighty authority in modern scholarship when 
 the Archbishop so impressively quotes them as Protestant "testi- 
 mony" and "proof." 
 
 (6) Blondel (1591-1655) is the next name. And we have to go 
 back again to get at this fine French Protestant scholar, who, in his 
 masterly writings against Rome, mainly took his master, Calvin's 
 position on this quest-ion. Here is a quite odd thing : — Dr. Carr 
 names Blondel as affirming Peter's residence in Rome. Schaff 
 quotes him as denying it ! The notion that Peter was ever founde^r 
 of the Roman Church, or bishop of Rome, or head of the Apostles, 
 he regarded as contrary to Scripture and history. 
 
 (7) Schaff, who conies next, was a,n eminent historical scholar of 
 our day, quite recently deceased. He held the opinion that Peter 
 had visited Rome for a brief time, and also that "no personage in 
 all history has l)een so much magnified, misrepresented, and mis- 
 used for doctrinal and hierarchical ends, as the plain fisherman of 
 Galilee." The only other person who has, to anything like the 
 same degree, "undergone a similar transformation," according to 
 Schaff, is the Virgin Mary. And both results, he says, are due to 
 the same cause, viz.: "the work of fiction," which "began among 
 the Judaizing heretical sects of the second and third centuries, but 
 was modified and carried forward by the Catholic, especially the 
 Roman Church, in the third and fourth centuries." As no hint of 
 anything like this from Schaff is to be found in Dr. Carr's lectures, 
 I set this little bit of it here. How Schaff came to be "slumped" in 
 the midst of those Laudian and other ancient clerical persons of 
 past centuries, in defiance of that historical proportion he himself so 
 dearly valued, is " unexplained." The notion of Peter's " Primacy," 
 or bishopric at Rome, Schaff, in common with modern scholars, 
 rejects. Let me give another bit from Schaff: — "The weaknesses 
 even more than the virtues of the natural Peter, his boldness and 
 presumption, his love for secular glory, his use of the sword, his 
 sleepiness in Gethsemane, are faithfully reproduced in the history 
 of the Papacy ; while the addresses and the epistles of the converted 
 and inspired Peter contain the most emphatic protest against the 
 hierarchical pretensions and worldly vices of the Papacy." 
 
186 APPENDIX. 
 
 (8.) Scaliger {1540-1609), a man of vast learning in bis clay, made 
 out a scheme of sacred Chronology, which, like the many similar 
 schemes of that day, is now quite antiquated; it is proven 
 by modern research to be erroneous. 
 
 (9.) Le Clerc (Clericus) (1657-1736), a Frenchman "of wide 
 learning and excessive vanity," as has been said bj- the critics, 
 swung away from his Huguenot faith, and went over to the 
 Remonstrants of Holland. He is the editor of Hammond, Charles 
 I.'s chaplain. 
 
 (10.) Then comes "Bramhall, Archbishop of Armagh,'' frequently 
 referred to hj Archbishop Carr, and who averred that "St. Peter 
 had a fixed chair at Antioch, and after that at Rome."' It is a verj' 
 awkward testimony' from a very awkward man. For it puts 
 Antioch before Rome. Bvit the "testimony" is worth just nothing. 
 I am sure the Archbishop's audience did not know that Bramhall 
 (1593-1663) was one of the most extreme of the Laudian bishops in 
 the Stuart epoch, and was called "the Laud of Ireland." It was 
 BramhalPs writings that deeply influenced Pusey and his compeers 
 in " their Romeward movement." Bramhall, also, was one of those 
 impeached by England's Parliament, along with Strafford, for their 
 scheme to crush Protestant England by the Catholic Irish army, in 
 support of Charles I.'s Stuart despotism. He is not a very valuable 
 *' Protestant testimonj'." 
 
 Then, finally, as to Archbishop Usher (1581-1656), we will all 
 gladly agree that he was one of the greatest and saintliest Anglo- 
 Irishmen. He was a great scholar in his day, also ; and, if his plan 
 for a modified Episcopacy and the recognition of Presbyterian ordi- 
 nation, as the true scriptural mode, with bishops as superintendents 
 of districts, had been carried, there would have been an end soon of 
 the cleavage of the great Protestant Churches. 
 
 But, then, Ussher had his drawbacks. His great scheme of 
 chronology is now seen to be impossible. Besides, why should 
 Archbishop Carr, of all men, quote Ussher as "proof." Has not 
 he, in former lectures, wholly rejected Ussher's views as to the 
 coming of Christianity to Britain ? Why, then, does he attach 
 value to the same Ussher's views as to the coming of Peter to 
 Rome ? I am sure also that Archbishop Carr does not accept 
 Ussher's historical view that the expiry of "the thousand years," 
 during which Satan was to be bound, took place when Hildebrand, 
 Gregory VII., became Pope, and then vSatan came forth in the 
 Roman Papacy " to deceive the nations" (Rev. xx., 7, 8). I do not 
 agree with Ussher's historical Auew as to this. But it is just 
 as valuable as his historical view regarding a probable visit paid by 
 Peter to Rome. This illustrates a great mass of the names adduced 
 by Archbishop Carr as "proof" for historical matters. 
 
APPENDIX. 187 
 
 II. 
 ARCHBISHOP CARR OX LEIBNITZ. 
 
 Equally irrelevant are the quotations from (irotius and from 
 Leibnitz. The one was born 1583, died 164o ; the other was born 
 1646, died 1716. Archbishop Carr fills six pages of his Lecture I. 
 with long passages from these gentlemen. I will take briefly 
 Leibnitz as an illustration of his method of giving " Protestant 
 testimony." Leibnitz, " for keenness of intellect and vast and 
 varied learning, has probably no equal amongst Protestant 
 writers." So Archbishop Carr assures his people. Then two pages 
 and a-half are occupied with passages from Leibnitz in sup- 
 port of what Archbishop Carr calls " the Sacrament of Orders'' and 
 the "Sovereign Pontiff.'"' Xow Leibnitz was in his day an eminent 
 name in the history of philosophy and of mathematical discovery, 
 not an eminent name as a student of history. He was the founder 
 of a now discarded school of pre-Kantian philosophy. To anyone 
 who knows the story of Lei'onitz's life it must seem a brilliant joke 
 to quote from his Systema Thcologicum, as Archbishop Carr does, as 
 a specimen of "Protestant testimony." 
 
 A few facts will be sufficient. Leibnitz had been the tutor of 
 the powerful Baron von Boineburg, a Protestant pervert to 
 Romanism. The Thirty Years' War, with its long horrors, had 
 closed. It had made men tired with the ghastty tragedy of Rome's 
 conflict with Protestantism. Bossuet and others, on behalf of 
 Rome, made conciliatory overtures for reunion. This had been 
 already x)owerfully urged by the Baron von Boineburg, Leibnitz's 
 patron. It was taken up eagerly by Leopold, the Romanist Emperor 
 of Germany, and was urged by him upon the attention of Duke 
 Ernst August of Hannover, Leiljnitz's then master. Leibnitz acted 
 as negotiator for Duke Ernst, and the negotiations made a pro- 
 longed flutter of expectation and inter-communication between 
 Vienna, Hannover, and Rome. Leibnitz, during this epoch, drew 
 up his Systema Theologicum as a tentative treatise of suggested 
 agreement between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. It 
 "made," as Professor Encken says, "the genuineness of his 
 Protestant faith suspected by many." That it does not express his 
 own opinions seems proven l)y the fact that when he found the 
 authority of the Council of Trent, and its claim to be an Ecumenical 
 council, insisted upon by the Romanist negotiators, he at once 
 cancelled all schemes for union, and absolutely rejected the authority 
 of the Romish Council. Now, really, doesn't it seem too absurd of 
 Archbishop Carr to quote from the Systema Theologicum, as if this 
 were a striking example of Protestant "testimony," and the result 
 of Leibnitz's profound investigation ! 
 
188 APPENDIX. 
 
 III. 
 
 CANON BERRY^S LETTER. 
 
 The following letter from the Rev. Canon Berry, M.A,, examming 
 Chaplain to the Bishop of Melbourne, appeared in the Argus of 22nd 
 May. Its expression of personal regard I value. But it has a 
 wider significance. Its standpoint as to the facts of the Earl}'' 
 Christian Church indicates the true historic attitude of the Reformed 
 Church of l<3n gland in her best and purest days. It has also been 
 the standpoint of lier greatest and most cultured minds. Canon 
 Berry is none the less, but all the more, a loyal son of the Church 
 of England, that, as a scholar, he recognises the facts of history, 
 and also the common fellowship of tlie historic Churches of God in 
 Christ. His words are emphasised by the impress of his own per- 
 sonal character. The only possible path towards ultimate reunion 
 of Reformed Christendom — "the Eirenicon between the Churches" — 
 seems indicated in the spirit and attitude of Canon Berry's letter. 
 
 "The Sacerdotal Order. 
 ''To the Editor of the Argus. 
 
 "Sir, — Will you allow me space to thank Professor Rentoul for his 
 three* masterly lectures. I have not found in them one word to 
 which a moderate Episcopalian would object. And on the subject 
 of 'presbyter' and 'bishop,' they are in entire agreement with the 
 remarks of Canon .Spence on the same subject in his treatise on the 
 recently recovered Teaching of the Apostles, the earliest Cliristian 
 manual extant. How Archbishop Carr can be satisfied with them 
 is mysterious, but that is not my aflfair. I aui, &c., 
 
 "D. M. BERRY." 
 
 IV. 
 
 ST. AUGUSTINE ON PETER AND "THE ROCK." 
 
 Archbishop Carr, like other R.C. advocates, is very sensitive over 
 the fact that Augustine, tlie greatest "Doctor" of the whole Latin 
 Church, declares, as his iinal and mature judgment, that "it was not 
 said to him (Peter) 'Thou art I'etra' (the rock), but 'Thou art 
 Petrus (Peter). The rock, on the contrary, was Christ {Petra autem 
 erat CJiristus." Dr. Carr ventures the hazardous assertion that 
 "St. AiTgustine's private opinion on the literal meaning of the text 
 of St. ]Matthew counts for very little, as he was ignorant of Hebrew 
 or Syro-Chaldaic." Now, a Roman Catholic must be hard driven 
 when he says that. Here are two odd things — 
 
 1. If Aiigustine"s " j^rivate judgment," which was his true and 
 final judgment, "counts for very little," why has Archbishop Carr 
 
 * 'yiy third lectin e had just been reported. 
 
APPENDIX. 189 
 
 cumbered his lectures by piling together such an indiscriminate 
 mass of "private judgments" and odds and ends of "testimony" from 
 all sorts and conditions of men, so-called "Protestants," Romanists, 
 and what not? It seems to come to this, that any "judgment" 
 is good if it can be made to look favourable for Rome ; but if 
 it be unfavourable, then, though it came from Augustine, or 
 even St. Paul, it "counts for very little." This fantastic distinc- 
 tion Rome seeks to draw between "private judgment" and other 
 judgment has an unreal ring. Had Augustine been Pope, then this 
 " private judgment" would have been an "infallible judgment." It 
 is all so grotesque ! 
 
 2. To state that Augustine said so because "he was ignorant of 
 Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic," puts Dr. Carr on thin ice. And the 
 thin ice quite gives way under him when he adds that "the 
 language in which our Lord spoke and St. Matthew wrote his 
 Gospel," was (as is implied) "Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic." For (1) 
 some of the very greatest of modern Hebraists have endorsed Augus- 
 tine's view, which was, as I have shown, held by other great 
 Fathers. (2) That our Gospel of ]\Iatthew, in its present complete 
 form, was not written in " Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic," though a 
 certain " source" of it may have been written in Aramaic, is 
 affirmed in opposition to Dr. Carr by the main weight of 
 modern critical, and linguistic scholarship. The Douay Bible, 
 suo more, asserts what Dr. Carr says, and also that it was written 
 "about six years after our Lord's ascension 1 " (3) The assertion as to 
 the language in which our Lord spoke at Cwsarea Philippi 
 is hazardous in the extreme. It may have been Aramaic 
 ("Syro-Chaldaic"), as Romanist and some Protestant scholars 
 hold. Also, it may very well not have been. The fact is 
 now accepted by modern scholars that the people of Palestine— 
 at least in Galilee— in Our Lord's day were billmiuaJ. "The 
 evidence that Greek was spoken commonly in the towns bordering 
 on the Sea of Galilee, and that St. Peter must, therefore, have been 
 well acquainted with it, is ample."* The Galileans spoke both 
 Aramaic and Greek, just as, along the borderland of Wales and 
 parts of Scotland and Ireland, the people syjeak both Celtic 
 and English. That Our Lord and His Apostles spoke Greek, 
 as well as Aramaic, is quite certain. 
 
 I am not concerned to defend Augustine's linguistic scholarship, 
 which, though scant, was ^-astly greater than that of most of the 
 Popes. Of the first "infallible" Pope, viz., the late Pio 
 Nono, Dollinger, tlie most learned man the Roman Church pos- 
 sessed, said he was a man " of astonishing ignorance." 
 
 I simply wish to point to two facts. Dr. Carr's argument is 
 this : Christ spoke in Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic. He would thus 
 say to Simon: "Thou art Kcpha, and on tWi^ Keplm I will build 
 My Church." And some Protestant scholars have said so, too. (It 
 
 * Lightfoot, Clem., vol. ii., 494. 
 
190 APPENDIX. 
 
 could not be Hebrew, of course, for Hebrew was then a dead 
 language. In Hebrew, also, the form Kepha does not occur. Keph 
 would be the Hebrew, but it is found only in the plural. The word 
 for Rock — Isa. xxviii. — is quite different in HeV^rew. ) 
 
 Now, the assertion that our Lord said Kepha, where Matthew 
 says Petros, is perilous at best, for Matthew's Greek is the only 
 shape in which the sentence is preserved ; and it indicates the sense 
 in which the earl}" Apostles understood it. The name, when applied 
 to Simon, is always used in a Graecised form, Cephas, or Petros — 
 man of stone, or man of rock ; or, shall we call it by his own 
 translation, "living stone?" 
 
 Now, when Augustine's ignorance is insisted on, let us hear what 
 one of the greatest of all Hel^raists says — viz. , the elder Lightfoot : 
 — " ' Thou art Peter, &c.' There is nothing either in the dialect of 
 the nation, or, in reason, forbids us to think that our Saviour used 
 this very same (Ireek word, since such Graecisings were not unusual 
 in that nation. " 
 
 Then he goes on to say that if, to avoid controversy, it be 
 "granted that He used the Syriac woid, yet I denj' that He used 
 that ver}" word 5^i;>^ (Kepha), but he pronounced it /v^^j/ias, after the 
 
 Greek manner ; or He spoke it '»i^>:''^ [Kephai) in the adjective sense, 
 according to the Syriac formation." That is said by the great 
 Cambridge scholar, whom Schaff calls " one of the greatest Hebrew 
 scholars in history," who " enjoys to-day a universal fame," with 
 learning and insight such as "to make his books imperishable." 
 Now take the (probably) greatest Hebraist of our own day — 
 Delitzsch. It is significant that in his translation of the New 
 Testament into Hebrew he does not translate " Peter" and " Rock" 
 by the same word at all, but " Graecises," just as Lightfoot had 
 said Christ did. He translates : — " And I say unto thee that thou art 
 [niTiyhuT] b))^ DIYiDQ {Petros we'al has-SeZa' hazzeh)] Peter, and upon 
 the Pock, this (Rock) ivill I build my Assembly.'' Seeing, then, that 
 the greatest Shemitic scholar of the seventeenth century, and the, 
 probably, greatest of the nineteenth have translated as Augustine 
 and some of the greatest Fathers did, it will scarcelj* do to say that 
 the interpretation arises from ignorance of Hebrew, 
 
 V. 
 
 BINDING AND LOOSING. 
 
 When Archbishop Carr called Meyer " probably the most eminent 
 New Testament scholar" and quoted a dislocated fragment of him in 
 favour of the reference of the word " rock" to Peter, might he not 
 have kindly hinted that Mej^er shows, quoting the elder Lightfoot, 
 that "to bind and to loose are to be traced to the iise so current 
 among the Jews of asar and hithir in the sense of to forbid and 
 to allow." Also, Meyer shows that the " idea of forgiving sins is a 
 
APPENDIX. 191 
 
 pure importation." I have shoAvn that Tertullian, very early, says 
 the same. Meyer also " testifies'' in the strongest "way against the 
 Romish notion of Peter's primac}'. Dr. Carr quotes the context of 
 that. But he makes no reference to that. "It is ever thus!"' 
 Meyer is good, also, on "the evasive interpretation of Catholic 
 expositors" regarding Peter and " Get thee behind me, Satan!'' 
 The elder Lightfoot, as Morison also reminds us, had proven 
 by very many examples that to " bind and to loose" -was 
 simply a term amongst the Jews for forhiddiny and permitting. 
 Thus Rabbi Meir " loosed," i.e., permitted the mixing of wine 
 and water on the Sabbath to a sick man. But he "bound" 
 it (i.e.), forbade it to all others. In the discipline necessary to 
 guide Christ's new society, Peter and the Apostles would, under 
 the spiritual leading of the Father in Heaven, have wisdom and 
 courage to distinguish what should be forbidden and what per- 
 mitted. And their wise guidance and rule of Christ's congregation 
 would be a transcript on the Earth of God's gracious and righteous 
 rule in the Heaven. This is the simple meaning. The history of 
 the Early Church shows that this was true. Peter, John, and the 
 rest, guided and shepherded the Church well. If the Church is a 
 societ}' at all, it must have the power of discipline and self-govern- 
 ment. 
 
 VI. 
 "GATES OF HADES." 
 
 The meaning is vividly brought out in King Hezekiah's Song of 
 Thanksgiving — "When he had been sick unto death, and was re- 
 covered of his sickness." — (Isa., xxxviii., 1, 9-10.) Looking back at 
 the "sickness" out of which he had just arisen into new hope (the 
 power shattered, the strengtli getting spent, as when a " house is 
 broken up,'' or as when the threads of the warp in the loom get 
 shorter, and finallj- they are broken oft", and the web is rolled up 
 and put awa}' in darkness), the King pictures his own sad 
 thinkings when death and the breaking up of Earth's Kingdom 
 stared him in the face : — " I said — ' In the noontide of my days I 
 must depart into the Gates of Hades. ^ *' 
 
 No forces of death or decay or ruin, Christ means — no " Gates of 
 Hades"— shall prevail against the spiritual Messiah Kingdom 
 built upon the Rock. 
 
 VII. 
 
 "PILLAR" AND "LIVING STONES." 
 
 I have often thought that St. Paul, in calling (not without a. 
 slight touch of himiour) "James, Cephas, and John," those "who 
 are reputed to be pillars" supporting the edifice of the Jewish 
 
192 APPENDIX. 
 
 Christian Church, and St. Peter, in calling all l)elievers "living 
 stones'' built upon the Rock laid in Zion, are the l:)est interpreters 
 of Matthew xvi., IS. Peter was certainly a strong buttress and 
 stay (in the early years he was eminently a buttress) of the young 
 Christian Society, Christ's Kingdom in the world. ]5y-and-bye, he 
 and Paul call every believer a "living stone," forming part of the 
 building's strength. St. Paul calls ciU heUeiK'vs in their unity " the 
 pillar and ground of the Truth." So freely is this metaphor of 
 Rock,' and stone, and pillar used, but always with the same central 
 thought, viz., that Christ is foundation and basis of all, and that all 
 roho grasp Him, in the great truth and faith ivhich Peter so clearly 
 confessed, become Joined to Him, and in Him are each a living element 
 and supporting " slone^' in His Kingdom's living structure ! 
 
 Alford. Bruce {Training of the Twelve, cap, xi. ), and Briggs 
 (MessiaJi of the Apostles, 1895) each in his special way put this 
 strikingly, Plumptre and Morison put the argument that by the 
 Petl'A is meant Christ only, ver^^ powerfully. 
 
 Lightfoot shows both the fact and the brevity of Peter's 
 "primacy of historical inauguration." He, as the most forceful 
 member of the early band, guided, along with the other Apostles, the 
 Church's first steps. In the faith of his confession of Clirist he, but 
 never acting alone, opens the Church's door to Jew, and then 
 partially to Centile. Then his primacij is completed. " He vanishes 
 suddenly out of sight." Paul, the wise master-builder, takes his 
 ])lace. "Peter retains the first place as Missionary Evangelist to 
 the Hebrew Cliristians, but nothing more." — Lightfoot, *S', Clem., 
 vol, ii,, 487-490, 
 
 VIII, 
 CANON POTTER'S ERROR AS TO KEPHA. 
 
 I have spoken elsewhere of the ability displayed by Canon Potter 
 in a Lecture on the Roman Primacy, in his treatment of Our 
 Lord's Words to Simon (Matt, xvi., IS). I hinted, hoAvever, 
 that in some respects there was a serious drawback. I feel it 
 necessary to point out a remaikable eiror into which Canon 
 Potter has fallen. In this respect he is, oddly enough, quite too 
 "ultra-Protestant," and I greatly fear that, in the next controversial 
 onset, his statement will be taken advantage of, as if it were re- 
 presentative of Protestant scholarship on this question. He says 
 {Argus, 13th April) : — 
 
 "Further, there was the authority of Syrian scliolars that the 
 words 'Peter- and Rock' in the Syrian language, although spelt 
 alike, were not the same in gender. One took the masculine 
 article and the other the feminine ; and in the most ancient Syrian 
 version of the Greek St, Matthew, this distinction was actually 
 made. " 
 
APPENDIX. 193 
 
 This statement discloses such a non-acquaintance with the sim- 
 plest rndiments of Shemitic languages and of the grammar of Syriac 
 and Biblical "Chaldee," with its law of the " definite" or "emphatic 
 state" of the noun, that I wish to make no connnents of my own 
 upon it. 
 
 It is, altogether, so astonishing a statement that I ha\'e asked 
 Professor Harper, whose words as a Shemitic scliolar will carry 
 authoritative weight, and who lias had no part in tliis controversy, 
 to write a brief sentence regarding it. Professor Harper says : — 
 
 "There is no article, strictly speaking, in Syriac. The .status 
 emphaticus takes its place, and is the same for both genders. In 
 Matt, xvi., IS, in the Syriac Version, the word in both chiuses is 
 i^Q''D (Kiplio), and there is no distinction between them in any 
 respect. In the second occurrence of the word in this passage [on 
 this Rock] the demonstrative is feminine, because that is the 
 ordinar}' gender of the word ' rock' in Syriac. " 
 
 If our Lord spoke in Aramaic it would be the South-western, 
 or Syro-Chaldaic, in which the word would be masculine in 
 both clauses, unless He "Graecicised," as the elder Lightfoot says. 
 We have no need of an}- heroic violence done to linguistic laws. 
 Notice with what strength and care the elder Lightfoot puts 
 this matter. There is no reason forbidding us to think that our 
 Lord used this very same Greek word Petros ; and if he used a 
 Syriac word, it would be not Kepha, but the adjective form 
 Kephai, "according to the Syriac formation"— " rock-like." 
 The Syriac Version is simply the translation of a later century, 
 and throws no real light either way upon the subject. The 
 one fact that stands out certain is that in Matthew's Greek 
 the words Petros and Petra are quite distinct, and that the after 
 language of the Apostles and of the New Testament never speaks 
 of Peter as the Rock, but only as a "living stone," or "a pillar" 
 in connnon with man}^ other "pillars"' or stones — all Christians, or 
 all Apostles. 
 
 I regret, also, that Canon Potter, in the interests this time of 
 his " Anglo-Catholicism," should alhrm the antiquated date 107 for 
 Ignatius, and the fantastic tlieory that Timothy and Titus were "suc- 
 cessors" of the Apostles, and the "continuers" of a line of bishops. 
 Both these theories are due to "stress of weather." They are 
 shown to be impossible by modern scholars such as Lightfoot, 
 Harnack, and Sanday. 
 
 IX. 
 
 PETER AND "THE CLEMENTINE ROMANCE." 
 
 It seems to me an exaggeration on Renan's part to ascribe the 
 fiction of Peter's " episcopate" in Rome ichollij to the Clementine 
 legend. I have expressed my conviction that the fiction was the 
 
194 APPENDIX. 
 
 result of two streams of growing legend. The first was the imagina- 
 tion of the Early Christian Churches working upon St. Paul's words 
 to the GoriiitJnans, about the unity of himself with Cephas and 
 Apollos. Then, later, the mention by Clement of Rome (in his 
 letter to the Corinthians) of the two Chief Apostles' names as united 
 in constancy and siiflfering gave further impulse. It is significant 
 that it is in Corinth and in Rome that this notion of Paul and Peter 
 as co-founders first appears. Dionj^sius of Corinth first speaks it, 
 and he says Peter and Paul were co-founders in Corinth, and then 
 proceeded together as co-founders into Italy. Here are all the 
 marks of genuine imaginative legend, through the misconception of 
 Paul's and Clement's words. 
 
 Then, secondly, in connection with Clement's name (through 
 the similar misconception that he was Clement the highborn 
 martyr*), the Judaeo-Christians had put forth their legend of 
 "Peter's Journeys" and "Preaching." The two streams blended 
 together. "The religious romance," as Lightfoot well says {St. Paul 
 and The Three, (ral. , p. 367), "seems to have been a favourite style of 
 composition with the Essene Ebionites ; and in the lack of authentic 
 information relating to the Apostles, Catholic writers eagerly and 
 unsuspiciously gathered incidents from writings of which they re- 
 pudiated the doctrines." (See also Bright, Roman See.) 
 
 Now, Dr. Carr is very angry at Dr. Salmon, of Dublin, 
 who says that the real inventor of the story of Peter's Roman 
 episcopate was an editor of the Clementine Romance. But Dr. 
 Salmon is not the only " sinner" in this respect. Our Bishop Moor- 
 house, of Manchester, has been saying that the ' ' inclusion of Peter 
 in the episcopal list" makes " such a divergence from the older 
 Roman tradition as ' the Clementine fiction' alone can account 
 for." Dr. Carr has called this "a modern and widely-accepted 
 Anglican theory." He spends over seven pages on it (pp. 152-159). 
 His only substantial attempt at answer is two quotations from 
 Harnack (Eng. trans, of his Hist, of Dogma, p. 311). One of 
 Harnack's long footnotes is transferred bodily into Dr. Carr's 
 pages ; it looks impressive and scholarly there. Unlike "Bramhall," 
 "Whiston," &c. , it is modern. It is also irrelevant. For what 
 Harnack is speaking of is the ^'■Recognitions and Homilies in the 
 form in which loe have them.''^ It is this latest and now ^' 7-edacted" 
 form of them he is discussing as " the pseudo Clementine 
 writings. " If some of these writings could be shown to be, in their 
 latest form, a little later than the second century (as I think parts 
 of them certainly are), it would not improve the case for Dr. Carr, 
 for these writings rest upon earlier and undeniably second century 
 apocryphal loriting,^ ivhicli they quote and loork up into new shapes. 
 
 It is not an Anglican theory, merely, Dr. Carr has to contend 
 with. It is the conviction held substantially, in one shape or other, 
 by the foremost scholars of our time. Thus, Lipsius holds that to 
 
 * cf. Lii^htfoot. 
 
APPENDIX. 195 
 
 the Peter legend, embedded in the oldest form of these spurious 
 "Clementines," was due not only the fiction of Peter's bishopric, 
 l)ut also the other fiction of his visit to Rome. Hilgenfeld, in his 
 great work, held that these writings rest on a Jewish-Christian 
 spurious writing, "the Preaching of Peter," which originated in 
 Rome. Ulhorn, who has probably made the profoundest investiga- 
 tion, and who, like Lightfoot, puts the Homilies as the earliest of 
 these writings now extant, sajs they all go ])ack to sonie old writing 
 " not now extant." Renan says — "A vast Ebionite legend arose in 
 Rome." He points back to its original shape. " Under the name 
 of 'the Preaching (Kerugma) or the Journeys of Peter,' it took a 
 fixed shape about the year 130 a.d." Several times he explains this 
 legend and its conflict of Peter against Paul, as Simon Magus, being 
 gradualh^ toned down into a fiction of Peter and Paul together 
 resisting Simon Magus, and founding together the Church in Rome. 
 In Harnack's note 3, just above the long note Dr. Carr quotes, he 
 distinctly says — "The theory of the genesis, contents, and aim of the 
 pseudo-Clementine writings, unfolded by Renan, is essentially 
 identical with that of German scholars. " Just two pages later he 
 says — "It cannot be made out with certainty liotv far hack the first 
 sources of the pseudo-Clementines date, or what their original form 
 and tendency were.' And just below he says — "/rfo notmean to deny 
 that the contents of the Jewish-Christian histories of the Apostles 
 contributed materiaUt/ to the for) nation of the ecclesiastical legends about 
 Peter.''^ (Harnack Hist, of Dogma, p. 315). Further back (p. 308) he 
 had told us that the "journeys of Peter," which got connected with 
 the name of Clement and the '^' Ascents of James," and other early 
 apocryphal writings were dear to the extreme Judieo-Christian sects. 
 In manj' of his writings he tells us that the Clementine writings, in 
 their present form, are only "redactions" of earlier spurious 
 writmgs. And, in his special treatment of Peter, he distinctly says 
 of the early apocryphal writings — "The Preaching of Peter," and 
 the " Journej'S of Peter," — that ^'Both works underlie the Clementine 
 Recognitions and Homilies." In view of all these facts, Dr. Carr's 
 assertion that all this is an "Anglican theory," and his boulder of 
 a big footnote from Harnack about the latest form of the pseudo- 
 Clementine writings," seem to have lost their proper bearings. 
 
 Again and again Lightfoot, in various works, has dated the 
 romance in the middle of the second century or soon after. Thus 
 he jDlaces the writing "about the middle of the second century" 
 {St. Clem. vol. i., p. 100); and, again, he tells us that the Clemen- 
 tine romance "must have been written soon after the middle of the 
 second century" (p. 55). Again, speaking of what is, in its present 
 form, the latest portion of the romance, viz., the letter to James of 
 Jerusalem as head of all the Apostles, giving an account of Peter's 
 appointing Clement as Peter's own successor in Rome, Lightfoot 
 says its date can hardly be earlier than the middle of the second 
 century, or much later than the beginning of the third. 
 
 That fragment of those spurious writings, and the whole vast 
 
196 APPENDIX. 
 
 Clementine Eomaiice, have pla^'ed a tragic part in the evolution of 
 the Papacy. The early shape of it gave impetus to, if it did not 
 wholly create, the fiction that Peter had been bishop of Rome. In 
 a later age, the Clementine Epistle to James, as Lightfoot says, 
 was "made the starting point of the most momentous and gigantic 
 of mediaeval forgeries, the Isidorian Decretals." See, on this, 
 Lightfoot, St. Clem., vol. i., pp. 414-419.) 
 
 But, says Dr. Carr, following Mr. Rivington, the Clementine 
 Romance "had an Eastern and not a Roman origin." Now, this 
 is just one of the points on which great scholars have not, as yet, 
 decided. But, suppose it had an Eastern origin. Does that 
 prevent Rome from having seized upon it and adopted it? It is 
 an odd argument for a Roman Catholic. Had not Christianity 
 itself ' ' an Eastern origin ? " Yet Romanists claim that 
 
 Rome appropriated Christianity and its "rock" and "keys" 
 and its supremacy as eai'ly as the year 39 or 42. Had not Peter an 
 ' ' Eastern origin ? " Yet Rome appropriated Peter. Is not it a 
 fact that nearly every special Roman Catholic feature "had an 
 Eastern origin" — "image- worship," "mariolatr}'," "purgatory," 
 "dogma," and all the rest of it? Then Rome seized upon it, shaped 
 it to her own ends, adapted it to Rome, made it imperious and 
 imperative. 
 
 Take what Dr. Carr calls the earliest list of the ' ' bishops of 
 Rome" — the Irenaean list, which he and others assert, rests on an 
 earlier list made bj^ St. Hegesippus after the middle of the second 
 century. Dr. Carr is even very angry at Dr. Salmon for ignoring 
 " the list of St. Hegesippus," though it is no longer extant. Now, 
 2cho teas St. Hegesippus ? Had not he "an Eastern origin?" Yet 
 Rome and all Roman Catholicism have been hanging on to his 
 Eastern tails (tales) from a very early time. Hegesippus, Lightfoot 
 thinks, was a Jewish Christian ; and he certainly came from the 
 East to Rome. You will get the most favourable picture of him in 
 Lightfoot {Gal. and elsewhere). Hegesippus tells about the 
 multitudinous heresies — " the league of godless error" — which had 
 worked underground and then broke out at the close of the first 
 century. Apocryphal writings, claiming Apostles' names, abounded. 
 It is, indeed, putting it mildly for Lightfoot to say that Hegesippus 
 ' ' has interwoven many fabulous details. " Alas ! he has, 
 cred'aloiTsly, swallowed the very writings which make part 
 of "the Clementine Romance," e.g., "the Ascent of J nines. ''^ 
 Thus he tells that James at Jerusalem ' ' never used the 
 bath;" also that he alone was allowed to enter into the hoi}' place 
 of the Temple ; also that his knees, from constant kneeling in 
 prayer on the Temple floor, got horny, like a camel's knees, and so 
 forth, and so forward ! Truly an appropriate man to draw up a 
 list of early bishops of Rome, or of the " Anglo-Catholic" Apostolic 
 succession ! But does not Archbishop Carr know that there is the 
 gravest doubt whether St. Hegesippus ever did draw up any such 
 list, and whether the Greek means that ? And, if he did, I just 
 
APPENDIX. 197 
 
 want to say that a list of so-called " l>ishops-' drawn up by a Father 
 like St. Hegesippus or .St. Ireuaeus is worth just as much as the 
 accounts St. Hegesippus gives of the camel-like knees of "James 
 the Just," or the statement Irenaeus gives of our Lord's ministry 
 lasting for nearly twenty years, and of His living till He was 
 an old man. 
 
 This fact stares us in the face. In the close of the second 
 century there is a Pauline tradition in Rome which says that Linus 
 was the first ^ preshyter-bishop. There is *ilso another Pctrine 
 tradition, at the same time, which affirms that Clement was first 
 presbyter-bishop. And Irenaeus joins the two together, and says 
 Linus was first bishop and Clement third bishop, with another 
 unfortunate bishop sandwiched between, who gets sadly tossed 
 about in the after lists, and finally gets fixed down as two bishops 
 — one called Cletus, and another Anacletus. No wonder these 
 things perplexed poor Paifinus, Epiphanius, and Augustine in ages 
 when they came to believe an " Episcopal succession" to be neces- 
 sary to the Church. 
 
 X. 
 "THE FAMOUS PASSAGE IN IRENAEUS." 
 
 (See Lecture IV. ) 
 
 Haer., iii. , 3, 2. 
 
 There are only three questions of any importance to be asked 
 about this passage — 1. To what does the word ^'principalitas" 
 ("eminence" or "pre-eminence") refer? Is it to the Citt/ of Rome 
 or to the Church in Rome ? I myself do not care to which it refers. 
 It is plain that the City of Rome, the Emperor's capital, was the 
 wealthy and eminent city. It is plain also that the Christian com- 
 miuiity in that city, in the close of the second century, was the 
 most influential and wealtlij' Clnistiaii Church. But I want simply 
 to point out that some of the greatest of recent scholars who 
 have studied this matter most carefully hold that what is meant 
 must be the City of Rome itself. So Prof. Salmon, Fr. Puller, and 
 Bishop Coxe, whose special labours on Irenaeus make his opinion 
 of great value. To the honour of the R.C. scholars (Berington aiid 
 Kirk), their translation is so loyal to the Latin text — " on account of 
 more potent principalitij'' — that it may mean either the City of 
 Rome or the Church there. In Cyprian (Ep. 48) there seems 
 striking corroboration of the view that the eminence of the 
 City is referred to. He writes : — " Since Rome, from her greatness, 
 plamly ought to take precedence of Carthage, he (Novatus) there 
 committed still greater and graver crimes. " It is the greatness of 
 the City that gives the Roman Church its importance. 
 
198 APPENDIX. 
 
 Some other scholars, e.g., Wordsworth, take the term as referring 
 to the Church in Rome. In either case it has not the slightest re- 
 ference to Auj "primacy" or control over other Churches. 
 
 (2.) The only other questions are : — (2) What is meant by " those 
 who Sive from every side ?" 
 
 (3. ) And what is meant by resorting to the Roman Church ? 
 These questions recent scholarship has settled, by pointing out the 
 exactly parallel passage in the Antiochian canons which are deemed 
 to be a quotation from this passage of Irenaeus (Coxe Elucidat. ; 
 Fath. i., p. 460) |cf. Bright, Rom. See, p. 33J : — "Because that in 
 the metropolis there resort together (lit. run together, or come 
 together crvuTpex^iv) from every side, all those having business to 
 transact." The Greek of " from every side" is iravraxodev (panta- 
 chothen) = Latin undique, the very word used here. And Liddell and 
 Scott translate this Greek word as follows : — "From all places, from 
 all quarters, from every side, Latin undique.'" Nay more (to com- 
 plete the proof) fortunately a fragment of the Greek of Irenaeus is 
 extant in Hk. iii. , 11, 8, and there the word is this same word, viz. — 
 from all quarters.' Cf. Coxe, Iren. , Haer., iii., 3, 2. [Bright, in his 
 recently-published work, confirms this — " The word undique must 
 be noted ; it is not uhique, and iravTaxodeu (from all sides) refers to 
 the idea of winds blowing /ro»i all quarters.''''] 
 
 The meaning, then, of this passage, so tortured by Roman 
 Catholic advocates, seems simple. Irenaeus, writing in the West 
 in defence of the Christian faith against the leaders of " heresies," 
 shows that it is the same faith and the same Lord Jesus in all the 
 Churches. It would be " very tedious," he saj's, to go over all the 
 Churches, so as to show that in each the same faith has been 
 handed down. So it is enough to take the Church in Rome, for it 
 was known everywhere. For to it, as Rome was the centre of all 
 trade, Christians had to come from all sides. And, by these — 
 "the faithful from all quarters" — the "Apostolical tradition" 
 common to all the Churches had been preserved. 
 
 [Bright puts it clearly thus: — "It is inevitable, St. Irenaeus 
 means, that Christians from all other parts of the Empire should, 
 from time to time for various reasons, visit the Church in the great 
 centre of the Empire. This is a process which is always going on — 
 which cannot but go on." — Roman See, p. 32-3.] 
 
 Archbishop Carr may plead that Roberts and Rambaut have 
 translated as he does in his latest, making convenire ad mean 
 ^' agree with," and undique mean '^ every ivhere." But, then, those 
 translators confess distinctly that they " are far from sure that the 
 rendering given above [by them] is correct," and Coxe and every 
 other later editor of standing have shown that it is incorrect. 
 
APPENDIX. 199 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE DOUAY CHRONOLOGY AND PETER. 
 
 It is remarkable tliat in the chronology attached to the Douay 
 version not a word is said about Peter having visited Roine until 
 the year 68, after PauVw first Roman imprisonment. The startling 
 thing is that not until the very last year of Peter's life (which is set 
 as 68) is any hint given of Peter having gone to Rome. Also, his 
 " Second Epistle, "'according to this Chronological Index, is set down 
 prior to the statement that he came to Rome. His First Epistle is 
 set down in the year 48, but has no indicated connection with 
 Rome. All that is said of Peter prior to 68 is connected with the 
 East, apparently. Then, for 68 a.d. it is said : — "St. Peter about 
 this time wrote his Second Epistle. About this time St. Peter and 
 St. Paul came to Rome. See Tillemont, &c. Not long after they 
 were both put in prison and suffered martyrdom." 
 
 How all this, with the surprising reference to the Jansenist 
 scholar Tillemont, can be made to square with those marvellous lists 
 relied on by Dr. Carr— " The Armenian Version" of Eusebius' 
 Chronicle, and its aifirmation that St. Peter " stays there [in Rome] 
 as prelate of the Church for twenty years," or with Jerome's state- 
 ment that Peter preached the Oospel for twenty-live years in 
 Rome — it is difficult to see. But then it is all in the region of 
 cloudland. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE "TROPHIES" OF PETER AND PAUL. 
 
 Gaius, the Roman presbyter, contemporary of Hippolytus in the 
 early part of the third century, vehemently opposes the jNIontanist 
 assertion that women might speak God's message, and " prophesy." 
 The Montanists had a good deal to say for themselves, and quoted 
 the example of the daughters of Philip the Evangelist, who actually 
 "prophesied" (Acts xxi., 8, 9). ' Such audacious and independent 
 young female persons were altogether perilous to the Roman spirit 
 of repression. So Gaius, round whose personality much mist hangs, 
 seeks to suppress such views by the authority of a Church which 
 actualh' had had two Apostles, Peter and Paul, at the founding of 
 it. "We have got their 'trophies' (as Harnack says, whatever that 
 may mean) actually in Rome," says Gaius. Protestant archajologists 
 (Lipsius, Erbes, Von Schultze, &c.) think this meant two trees. 
 Roman Catholic advocates make it mean "tombs." Let us listen 
 to Gavazzi, himself a man of Bologna and Rome. In the famous 
 debate* in Rome (1872) between three Roman Catholic clerical 
 
 * Edited by the late Dr. William Arthur, the Wesleyan divine. 
 
 X 2 
 
200 APPENDIX. 
 
 cliamj)ions and three Italian Protestants, Gavazzi in his wonderful 
 address thus dealt with these " trophies" and Gaius : — 
 
 " Here it is said is his tomb ... or his trophj-, or his 
 martyr memorial, and therefore St. Peter was martyred in Rome ! 
 By no means. . . . There was a mai'tyr- memorial of Laurence 
 at Ravenna, and Laurence was not martyred at Ravenna. There 
 was a martjr memorial of Stephen in Ancona, and Stephen was not 
 martyred in Ancona. There were twelve n)artyr memorials in 
 honour of the twelve Apostles in Constantinople in the time of St. 
 Sophia ; and the twelve Apostles were not martyred in Con- 
 stantinople. . . . But his (Peter's) relics ? Softly with those 
 relics, gentlemen ! ... In Rome, I am told, there is the body 
 of St. Stephen in one of j-our basilicas. Remember, I am told it. I 
 do not guarantee it. But, bec»use the "relics of St. Stephen are 
 found in Rome, perhaps St. Stephen suffered his martyrdom in 
 Rome !" 
 
 XIIL 
 
 Bishop Moorhouse on the Council of Chalcedon. 
 
 Just as the last proof-sheet leaves me, a copy of the Bishop of 
 Manchester's Replies to Bishop Bilsborrow and Father Vaughan on 
 The Roman Claims has come into my hands. I beg to direct the 
 readers of it to pp. 37-42, bearing on the secret influence of Cyril 
 with the ladies of the Imperial Court in the Nestorian conflict, and 
 on the 28th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon — that awkward 
 disproof of the whole Romanist theory. 
 
 The End. 
 
APPENDIX. 201 
 
 XIV. 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN ARCHBISHOP 
 CARR AND DR. RENTOUL. 
 
 As preface to these letters, I desire simply to point out that in 
 the book form of his Lectures Dr. Carr has significantly broken the 
 connection of his ''quotations" from "Protestant writers" and 
 from " exclusively Protestant testimony," as published in extenso in 
 the Advocate of the 14th and 21st March, and to which he himself 
 appealed as the full and authoritative shape of his utterances. The 
 correspondence is conditioned by that. In that Advocate in extenso 
 transcript of his Lecture I., the quotation from " Nevin" ended 
 with the words — "beyond which no memor}'^ of man to the con- 
 trary then reached." Then the words immediately followed : — 
 
 "Neander testifies to the antiquity of the Papal claims to a 
 Primacy of jurisdiction," &c. Then came Renan, ushered in by 
 the declaration that we must regard such writers' " admissions iii 
 favour of the Roman Primacy as the irresistible outcome of the 
 facts of history." 
 
 But, now, in the book form of Dr. Carr's Lectures (pp. 21, 22) a 
 new passage is introduced, adding nothing whatever to his argument, 
 but breaking the original connection of "Protestant testimony." 
 The new passage, occupying about a page, breaks in after " Nevin' s^' 
 words ivith a quite neic connection thus : — 
 
 " A Catholic could hardly express ivith greater clear>iess the universal 
 belief of ages in the doctrine of the Roman Supremacy than does a non- 
 Catholic tvriter in the Union Revieiv.^'' Then, after the quotation 
 from the Review, " Canon Everest" is quoted, and then our Laudian 
 acquaintance, "Archbishop Bramhall." Then, after this curious 
 break, Neander, on Dr. Carr's original string of " Protestant 
 testimony," is here resumed (part of p. 22). And then follows 
 Renan I ! 
 
 Archbishop Carr says mysteriously : — " Renan, like Presbyterian 
 writers, dates the radical change in the primitive form of Church 
 government from a very early period. He is, accordingly, quoted by 
 Presbyterian writers with much approval" (p. 226). What may be the 
 sense of this mysterious language I do not know. I need scarcely say 
 that " Presbyterian writers, ' if they permitted any bias in the mat- 
 ter, would "date the radical change in the primitive form of Church 
 government" not " from a very early period" (as the Archbishop 
 strangely says), but from as late a period as possible. When 
 the Archbishop ventures to say that Renan "is accordingly quoted 
 by Presbyterian writers with much approval," he ought to reflect 
 that it was he himself who projected Renan and his "Protestant 
 testimony " into the discussion of this question. Had he not done 
 
202 APPENDIX. 
 
 so, and had he not miscjuoted in doing so, no Presbyterian and no 
 Protestant of any kind wonld have named Kenan's name. In his 
 lectures of 1893 Archbishop Carr appealed to Renan as belonging to 
 the class of "unbiassed critics." In his lectures of 1895 he quoted 
 Eenan, and in the same mutilated form now so well understood. 
 Then, in 1896, he again quoted Penan, and in the same peculiar 
 shape. Now Renan is not any longer the sunshiny spot in^ the 
 Archbishop's horizon. 
 
 DR. CARP'S LETTER I, 
 
 GROWTH OF THE 8ACERD0TAL ORDER AND POPEDOM. 
 
 To THE Editok (of "Argus" and "Age.") 
 
 Sir, — I cannot help feeling flattered b}' the succession of repre- 
 sentative writers avIio have undertaken in turn to reply to my 
 lectures on the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff, for each of them 
 has, by implication, confessed to the failure of his predecessor. 
 The latest champion of a desperate cause must, by this time, have 
 convinced his Anglican friends of the danger of relying on soldiers 
 of fortune, who dearly love the din and smoke of battle, but who 
 too often in the end turn their swords against those who have 
 enlisted their services. If Anglican controversialists are content 
 with Dr. Rentours refutation of the claims of the Roman Pontiff, 
 and with his defence of his own and their position, I assure them 
 that I do not envy them the help they have received from their 
 new ally, and I can in all sincerity say that I am more than pleased 
 with the character of that refutation and defence. The cause is 
 desperate indeed that in the hands of so able an advocate as Dr. 
 Rentoul could not find stronger or more consistent arguments in its 
 favour. When a skilful dialectician abandons sober reasoning and 
 seeks to obscure the real issue by the variety of his irrelevancies 
 and the offensiveness of his epithets, we ma}' be sure that the 
 cause he advocates is a losing one. 
 
 I do not think that there is one real difficulty raised by Dr. 
 Rentoul regarding the primacy of the Roman Pontiff which I have 
 not answered by anticipation in my recent lectures. As, however, I 
 hope to have these lectures published in book-foim early next week, 
 I will avail myself of the opportunity of developing these answers 
 to meet the special phases of the difficulties Mhich have been most 
 recently presented. But I have no intention of allowing myself to 
 be drawn by any controversialist from the subject on which I 
 have been engaged until that subject is finalh' disposed of. In the 
 meantime, however, when I am accused of changing "the peaceful 
 attitude" of former days, I must take the earliest opportunity of 
 repelling that accusation, and of reminding my accuser of the 
 defiant public challenge, and the gross calumnies against the 
 Catholic Church spoken in high places, which provoked the pre- 
 
APPENDIX. 208 
 
 sent and former controversies. Above all, lie must have overlooked 
 how applicable to one of his own combative disposition are the 
 familiar words of the classic poet — Mutato nomine de te fabula 
 narratur. I must also at once notice the grave personal charge of 
 having represented Renan as a Protestant, and of having sup- 
 pressed a part of his testimon}' for the purpose of making him 
 witness to the Roman claims for the Papacy. 
 
 In reply, I must express as strongly as I can the deep sense of 
 pain and wrong which such a deliberate and unfounded accusation 
 causes me. First, so far from representing Renan as a Protestant, 
 I explicitly referred to him as a typical representative of the 
 rationalistic school ; and secondly, I quoted him not at all as 
 favourable to the Roman claims for the Papacj', but as a hostile 
 witness who admits the fact of its existence before the end of the 
 second century. With that admission alone was I concerned, and 
 the omitted words in the quotation indicated by the usual signs, 
 had no bearing on the point under consideration. Immediately 
 before, I had quoted Neander as another hostile witness, and then 
 followed these words — • 
 
 " Little as wp may admire the methods of rationalistic writers, we must at least 
 regard their admissions in favour of the Roman primacy as the irresistible 
 outcome of the facts of history. The Catholic Church, and she alone, has 
 consistently condemned their wholesale and destructive criticism of i-evealed truth, 
 while Protestantism seemed satisfied if Rome suffered equally -vsith revelation. 
 Renan may surely be taken as a typical representative of this school, and there is 
 no room for mistake in these woi-ds. 'Rome,' says M. Ernest Renan, 'was the 
 place in which the gi-eat idea of Catholicity was worked out. More and more 
 every day it became the capital of Christianity, and it took the place of Jerusalem 
 as the religious centre of humanity. Its Church claimed a precedence ovc* all 
 others, which was generally recognised. All the (loubtfal questions which a(/itnted 
 the Christian conscience came to Borne to ask for arbitration, if not decision. Men 
 argued — certainJi/ not in a very logical way — that as Christ had made Cephas the 
 cornerstone of His church, the privilege ought to hr inhcritfd hy His successors. . . . 
 The Bishop of Rome became the Bishop of Bishops, he who admonished all 
 others. Rome proclaims her right —a dangerous right— of excommunicating those 
 who do not walk step by step with her. ... At the end of the second century 
 we can also recognise, by signs which it is impossible to mistake, the spirit which 
 in 1870 will proclaim the infallibility of the. Pope." 
 
 The italics are mine, and the}' serve to emphasise the unfairness of 
 Dr. Rentoul in charging me with deliberate suppression, whilst he 
 himself was in the very act of omitting from my quotation a sentence 
 which clearly shows that Renan was represented as personally 
 hostile to the claims which he admitted were advanced before the 
 close of the second century. 
 
 Finally, when Dr. Rentoul charges the Catholic Church as falsify- 
 ing history, and seeks to set up Presbyterianism in its stead as the 
 primitive form of Christianity, I would remind him of the words of 
 one who, perhaps more than an}' other maji of this centurj", knew 
 Protestantism in all its history, phases, and varieties: — "So much 
 must the Protestant grant, that if such a system of doctrine as he 
 would now introduce ever existed in early times, it has been clean 
 swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, silently, and without 
 memorial, by a deluge coming in a night and utterly soaking, rotting. 
 
•204 APPENDIX. 
 
 heaving up, and hurrying off every vestige of what it found in the 
 church before cock-crowing, so that ' when they rose in the morning' 
 her true seed ' were all dead corpses — nay, dead and liuried ' — 
 without grave-stone. • The waters went over them : there was not 
 one of them left ; they sunk in the mighty waters ' . , . He 
 must allow that the alleged deluge has done its AAork. Yes, and has 
 in turn disappeared itself. It has been swallowed up by the earth 
 mercilessly, as itself was merciless." — Newman's Bcrelopment of 
 Christian Doctrine. — Yours, &c. , 
 
 St. Patrick's Cathedral, :May IS. 
 
 + THOMAS .J. CARR. 
 
 DR. RENTOUL IN REPLY. 
 
 To THE Editor (of "Argus" and "Aoe.") 
 
 Sir, — I Avill discharge at once the first portion of Archbishop 
 Carr's letter. It consists of rhetorical sentences made up of phrases 
 such as "latest champion of a desperate cause," "soldiers of for- 
 tune," " offensiveness of his epithets," "seeks to obscure the real 
 issue," &c. These phrases will not advance the Archbishop's cause. 
 Let me turn at once to the only substantial matter in Dr. Carr's 
 letter. 
 
 1. He suggests that the Anglican controversialists have "enlisted'' 
 my " services," and that in argument the}^ have "by implication 
 confessed to failure," in conflict with the Archbishop. The delicate 
 modesty of this assertion is memorable. The insinuation conveyed 
 in it is at once unworthy of a responsible speaker, and is absolutely 
 contrary to fact. It is enough to say that in all matters connected 
 with this controversy I have not, either directly or indirectly, 
 received any communication or expression of opinion from any 
 Church of England clergyman. 
 
 2. Archbishop Carr says he hopes to have his "lectures published 
 in book form," and he will there develop his " answers to meet the 
 special phases of the difficulties which have been most recentW 
 presented." Very good. Right glad I am to hear this. I also 
 will publish my lectures in full form. And I shall be happy to 
 examine the " developed answers" of the Archbishop. I venture to 
 suppose that they will require " development." For the difficulties 
 which front the Archbishop and his Roman claim are solid and 
 unanswerable historic facts 
 
 3. I come now to the one thing of genuine moment in the Arch- 
 bishop's letter, viz., in reference to his statements regarding his 
 "quotation" from Renan. Archbishop Carr makes two strange 
 complaints. He asserts he did not iuiph' Renan was a Pro- 
 testant. Now turn to his lectures. The first lecture sums in 
 succession a list of Protestant writers and lustorians, who are 
 rbpresented as bearing testimony in proof of Dr. Carr's positions : 
 
APPENDIX. 205 
 
 (a) that Peter was in Rome ; (b) that he finally fixed his see in 
 Rome ; (c) that his primacy was continued to successors. It closes 
 with the historians and Renan, and then passes on at once to the 
 " first uninspired document," viz. , the letter of St. Clement to the 
 Corinthians. Xow turn to the beginning of the Archbishop's second 
 lecture, and read there his own statement and representation of the 
 men he had quoted from : — " In my last lecture I quoted exclusively 
 Protestant testimony to prove : — 1. That St. Peter was in Rome ; 
 "2. That he finally fixed his see in Rome ; and 3. That his Primacy 
 was not temporary, but was continued after the admission of the 
 Gentiles into the Christian Church, and was transmitted to his 
 successors in the Roman see. I next addressed myself to the 
 testimony in favour of the Roman Pontiff, which is contained in the 
 first uninspired document Avhich has come down to us, viz., the 
 letter of St. Clement to the Corinthians." 
 
 Just think of that I The Archbishop himself here affirms that 
 the testimony, up to his dealing with Clement, was exclusively 
 Protestant testimony ; and yet he is not happy when I point out 
 that Renan was not a Protestant. True, the Archbishop says he 
 called him a " Rationalist." Does the Archbishop imply that to 
 Call a man a " Rationalist" is to say that he is not a Protestant? 
 Unfortunately, the Archbishop's express words stand there to 
 confute him. 
 
 ■4. I pass on to the much graver aspect of this matter, viz., the 
 Archbishop's (quotation from Renan. He says that Dr. Rentoul had 
 " charged him (the Archl)ishop) with deliberate suppression, whilst 
 he himself (Dr. Rentoul) was in the very act of omitting from my 
 (the Archbishop's) quotation a sentence wdiich clearly shows," &c. 
 Now let us turn to the facts. I shall simply quote the passages, and 
 ask the public to judge. (1) Here is exactly, and verbat.iin, the 
 passage purporting to be from Renan as cpioted in the Archbishop's 
 lecture published Monday, 9th March: — " Rome was the place in 
 which the great idea of Catholicity was worked out. More and 
 more every day it became the capital of Christianity, and took the 
 place of Jerusalem as the religious centre of humanity. Its church 
 claimed a precedence over all others which was generally recognised. 
 The Bishop of Rome became the Bishop of Bishops, he 
 who admonished all others. Rome proclaims her right — a 
 ■dangerous right — of excommunicating those who do not walk step 
 by step with her. . . . At the end of the second century we can 
 also recognise, by signs which it is impossible to mistake, the spirit 
 which in 1870 will proclaim the infallibility of the Pope." 
 
 (1) Now this is also word for word ,the quotation from Arch- 
 bishop Carr's lecture as given in my first lecture (see Avfjus [and 
 Age], Monday, -Ith May). How Archbishop Carr can affirm that 
 I " was in the very act of omitting from his quotation a sentence," 
 •&c., I cannot in the least explain. It is as amazing to me as a 
 good many of the Archbishop's other assertions. 
 
 (2) Take, now, the quotation in the Archbishop's letter in the 
 Argus [and Age] of to-day (19th May), in which it will be noted the 
 
206 APPENDIX. 
 
 Archbishop inserts two sentences not in his quotation as originally 
 given, and yet it is not a full quotation from Renan. I mark within 
 square brackets the new sentences :— " Rome," says M. Ernest Renan, 
 " was the piace in which the great idea of Christianity was worked 
 out. More and more every day it became the capital of Christianity, 
 and it took the place of Jerusalem as the religious centre of 
 humanity. Its church claimed precedence over all others, which 
 was generally recognised. [All the doubtful questions which agi- 
 tated the Christian conscience came to Rome to ask for arbitration, 
 if not decision. Men argued, certainly not in a verj^ logical way, 
 that as Christ had made Cephas the corner-stone of his Church the 
 privilege ought to be inherited by his successors.] . . . The 
 Bishop of Rome became the Bishop of Bishops, he who admonished 
 all others. Rome proclaims her right— a dangerous right — of 
 excommunicating those who do not walk step by step with her. 
 At the end of the second century we can also recognise 
 by signs, which it is impossible to mistake, the spiiit, which in 1870 
 will proclaim the infallibility of the Pope." 
 
 (3) Then here is the true and actual shape of Renan's words and 
 meaning, as quoted verhatim by me from Renan's book in my first 
 lecture, and I pointed out the pages, and urged the laity of 
 Melbourne to read it for themselves [Hib. Lect., pp. 172, 173, 
 174, in the [4rgus and] J//e, 4th May) : — "Rome was the place 
 in which the great idea of Catholicity was worked out. More 
 and more every day it became the capital of Christianity, and took 
 the place of Jerusalem as the religious centre of humanity. Its 
 church claimed a precedence over all others which was generally 
 recognised. [All the doubtful questions which agitated the Christian 
 conscience came to Rome to ask for arbitration, if not decision. 
 Men argued, certainly not in a very logical way, that as Christ had 
 made Cephas the corner-stone of His church, the privilege ought to 
 be inherited by His successors. By an unequalled tour de force the 
 Church of Rome had succeeded in giving itself the name of the 
 Church of Paul also. A new and equally mythical duality replaced 
 that of Romulus and Remus.] The Bishop of Rome became the 
 Bishop of Bishops, he who admonished all others. Rome proclaims 
 her right — a dangerous right — of excommunicating those who do not 
 walk step by step with her. [The poor Artemonites — a kind of 
 Arians before Arius — have great reason to complain of the injustice 
 of fate which has branded them as heretics, although, up to the time 
 of Victor, the whole Church of Home was of one mind with them. 
 From that time forth the Church of Rome put herself above history.} 
 At the end of the second century we can easily recognise by signs 
 which it is impossible to mistake the spirit which in 1870 will pro- 
 claim the infallibility of the Pope." 
 
 The square brackets mark the passages omitted by the Arch- 
 bishop in his lecture. The above is the great and crushing passage 
 of Renan in full. ' ' Look on this picture and on that !" Look 
 at the shape, garbled from its connection and drained of all its 
 main meaning, in which Archbishop Carr gave it to the public, as 
 
APPENDIX. 207 
 
 if Renan were witnessing to the truth and strength of the claim of 
 the Roman papacy ! Jnst above this passage Renan has said in part 
 I. of that lecture that in Rome "men had reached ideas which would 
 have re\olted Paul !" 
 
 I will not make any comments on these quotations. It is enough 
 to put the exact facts before the public and let them honestlj' 
 judge. With the sad criticisms at present filling the London press 
 on Romanist modes of controversy, in view of Cardinal Manning's 
 autobiography, I do not Mish to speak further on the subject. 
 
 Archbishop Carr closes with a quotation on the Early Church's 
 Presbj'terianism, and the quotation, amusing to say, is from a 
 Romanist cardinal! I have in my lectures said no word about, or on 
 behalf of, ni}- own Church. But may I now quote a sentence from 
 a vastly greater man than the cardinal, viz., Pitt, the great Earl of 
 Chatham, the greatest Englisliman of his age, and a Church of 
 England man : — " The ambition of Presbyterians is to keep more 
 close to the College of Fishermen than to the College of Cardinals 
 — to the Doctrines of Apostles than to the Decrees of Bishops. They 
 contend for a Scriptural Creed and for a Spiritual worship," — I am, 
 
 ^^- J. LAURENCE RENTOUL. 
 
 Ormond College, the University, 19th May. 
 
 IL 
 
 ARCHBISHOP CARR S SECOND LETTER. 
 
 To THE Editor (of "Argus" and "Age.") 
 
 Sir, — If, as I am sure he meant to do. Dr. Rentoul had " put the 
 exact facts before the public, and let them honestly judge " for 
 themselves the value of his statements, he would have saved me 
 the necessity of replying to his letter of this date. But, unfortu- 
 nately, many of Dr. Rentoul's "exact facts" are the very reverse 
 of being exact. 
 
 First, referring to my quotation from Renan, he sajs : — "I also 
 quoted the Archbishop's exact words from beginning to end." 
 This is not an " exact fact " It is not a fact at all. As I pointed 
 out in my former letter. Dr. Rentoul omitted from my quotation 
 from Renan the sentence which clearly shows that Renan was 
 not quoted by me as being in favour of the Roman primacy. Such 
 a statement or insinuation would have been preposterous on the 
 face of it. He says he cannot in the least explain how I can aflfirni 
 that he has omitted this sentence from my quotation. My direct 
 statement ought to have had some weight with him. But if he had 
 taken the ordinary precaution of making a little inquiry, as he was 
 bound to do before making such a serious charge, the mystery 
 would have been solved. He would have found that The Argus 
 report of my lecture which he quotes was but an epitome, in which 
 
208 APPENDIX. 
 
 the quotations were necessarily al)breviated, and that the lecture 
 was published in extenso in tlie Advocate of the 14tli and 21st March. 
 In the leetui-e, as anyone may see by looking at the Advocate (copies 
 of which I will send to any inquirer), the sentences omitted by Dr. 
 Rentoul are found. 
 
 Before making a similar charge against him I should certainly 
 feel myself bound in both justice and honour to inc^uire whether a 
 full report of his lecture could be procured. Dr. Rentoul is not 
 more fortunate in his surmises than in his facts. He surmises that 
 The Arrjns report of my lecture was from my own " careful 
 abstract." But as I gave no abstract of the lecture, careful or 
 otherwise, his surmise is as unreliable as his " exact facts." 
 
 Secondly, Dr. Rentoul repeats that I implied that Kenan was a 
 Protestant, and by way of proof he quotes from the beginning of 
 my second lecture the following sentences : — 
 
 "In my last lecture I quoted exclusively Protestant testiraony to pi-ove (1) that 
 St. Peter was in Piome, [-1) that he tinally tixed his see in Rome, and (3) that his 
 primacy was not temporary, but was continued after the admission of the 
 Gentiles into the Christian Church, and was transmitted to his successors in the 
 'Roman see. I next addressed myself to the testiraony in favour of the Roman 
 Pontitt', which is contained in the first uninspired document which has come down 
 to us, viz., the letter of St. Clement to the Corinthians." 
 
 And then he comments thus on the quotation : — 
 
 "Just think of that ! The Ai'chbishop himself affirms that the testimony was 
 exclusively 'Protectant testimony,' and yet he is not happy when I point out that 
 Renanwas not a Protestant." 
 
 Will Dr. Rentoul be good enougli to read my words again, and he 
 will find that I have not quoted Renan for any of the three propo- 
 sitions for which I have (pioted exclusively Protestant testimony. 
 I quoted him as I had (pioted Neander immediately before, as 
 testifying to the antiquity of the claims put forward by the Roman 
 Pontiffs, and as thus admitting, Rationalist though he was, an 
 important fact which tells in favoiir of the Roman ])rimacy. So 
 far was I from identifying him with the Protestant authorities 1 
 had (juoted that I expressly contrasted him M'ith them. Here are 
 my M'ords : — 
 
 " Little as we may admire the methods of Rationalistic writers, we must at least 
 regard their admissions in favour of the Roman primacy as the irresistible out- 
 come of the facts of history. The Catholic Church, and she alone, has consistently 
 condemned their wholesale and destructive criticism of revealed truth, whilst 
 Protestaniism seemed satisfied if Rome suffered equally Avith Revelation. Renan 
 may surely be taken as a typical representative of this school, and there is no 
 room for mistake in his words." 
 
 I now ask any impartial reader to say whether I implied that 
 Renan was a Protestant. 
 
 But Dr. Rentoul asks me, " Does the Archbishop imply 
 that to call a man a Rationalist is to say that he is not a 
 Protestant?" I answer, with all due deference to Dr. Rentoul's 
 more extensive knowledge of Protestantism, that I have always 
 believed that to call a man a Rationalist is etpiivalent to saying that 
 he is not a Protestant. Protestants believe in, and argue from 
 
ArPENDIX. 200' 
 
 revelation, and the latest dictionaiies give us as the meaning of the 
 word Rationalist, " One who accepts Rationalism as a theoiy or 
 system," and Rationalism is defined to l)e " the doctrine or system 
 of those who deduce their religious opinions from reason oi- the- 
 iTnderstanding as distinct from, or opposed to, Revelation." But 
 perhaps Dr. Rentoul knows better. 
 
 Finally, Dr. Rentoul might have shown more reverence for true 
 greatness by not coupling John Henry Newman's name with an 
 offensive epithet, and might have shown more judgment hy not 
 comparing things that have no connnon measure. — I am, &c. 
 
 + THOMAS J. CARR, 
 May 20. Archbishop of Melbourne. 
 
 II. 
 
 DR. RENTOUL'8 SECOND LETTER IN REPLY. 
 
 To THE Editor (ok "Akcu's" and "A(^e.") 
 
 Sir, — Archbishop Carr struggles stoutly to extricate himself from 
 the meshes of difficulty in which he has placed himself by his 
 "quotation"" from Renan, and his statements regarding it. But my 
 primary affirmation remains unaltered and unshaken, viz. : — 
 
 "lam surprised at the Archbishop's boldness in quoting from the brilliant 
 critic Eenan in support of the Roman claim for the Papacy. I am more surprised 
 that the quotation was so maimed and mutilated that it gave almost the opposite 
 sense of what Kenan intended to say. I must protest against the implication in 
 Archbishop Carr's lectures that Renan was a ' Protestant.' He never was. 
 He was educated for the Romish priesthood," &c. (Lecture 1, 'The Argus, May 5.) 
 
 I have read very attentively and with genuine wonder the suc- 
 cessive utterances of Archbishop Carr in reply to this. But the 
 fact stands out still, and no amount of words on the Archbishop's 
 part can alter or gloze it over, that, even taking tlie ({notation as he 
 now gives it, my charge made then, and made now, remains good 
 and unanswerable. TJie professed quotation from Renan "is so 
 maimed and mutilated that it gives almost the opposite sense of 
 what Renan intended to say." 
 
 This is the gra\e and serious part of mj^ charge. I have already 
 unanswerably proven it by contrasting verbatim et literatim the 
 Archbishop's quotation with tlie exact words of Renan. I now do 
 so again. 
 
 In the Arrnis [and At/e] of Wednesday last, 2()th May, I printed 
 at full length the shape of the Archbishop's quotation from Renan 
 as given in the long abstiact of the Archbishop's first lecture 
 published in the Ari/us of 9th May. Then below that "qiiota- 
 tion" I gave the shape of the quotation as presented in the 
 Archbishop's letter in the Argus of 19th May, and as he 
 declares it was given in his lecture. (He now for the first time 
 
210 APPENDIX. 
 
 tells us it was thus given in the lecture as "published hi extenso in 
 the Advocate of the 14th and 21st March.") That form of the 
 cjuotation has two additional sentences. In my last letter I marked 
 these two additional sentences in square brackets, and showed that, 
 with these two sentences included, "it is not a full quotation from 
 Renan," but still leaves Renan's tremendous passage in a "shape, 
 garbled in its connection, and drained of all its main meaning." 
 And I say this strongly and earnestly still. I further in the same 
 letter printed the Avhole passage of Renan, drawing special attention 
 to the all-important sentences which had been excised by Arch- 
 bishop Carr, so altering the entire meaning and impression of the 
 sense. 
 
 But the Archbishop says I should have read the account of his 
 lecture as published in extenso in the Advocate. Now, I must 
 frankly reply two things— (1) I thought I had really got "exten- 
 sion" enough of the Archbishop's characteristic "quotations" when 
 I had waded through two columns of them done into small, compact, 
 clear, and definite type in the Argus newspaper. 2. I do not 
 read the Advocate, I find that it is far safer to trust oneself, in all 
 that pertains to candour, truth, and sacred fair play, to the daily 
 newspapers than to trust to the denominational organs. In the 
 Argus the Archbishop's lecture stood, with its "quotations" unchal- 
 lenged by him, from March 9 until May 4, when in my first lecture 
 I began to anah^se them. Furthermore, I have now gone to the 
 Advocate and studiously read "in extenso^^ the Archbishop's lecture. 
 But this does not in the least improve the Archbishop's position. 
 The so-called " ui extenso''' quotation in the Advocate is exactly the 
 same as the second shape in which I printed it in the Argus [and 
 Age] of last Wednesda3\ The charge I brought against the quotation 
 in my first lecture I bring against it still. There have been cut out 
 from the heart of it the two passages Avhich give meaning and colour 
 to the whole as Renan wrote it and intended it to be understood. 
 Here is the one passage, in which Renan declares that the Roman 
 tradition on which the whole Catholic Roman claim is built is as 
 legendary and mj'thical as the old pagan legend of Romulus and 
 Remus: — 
 
 "By an unequalled to)/,- deforce the Church of Rome had succeeded in giving 
 itself the name of the Church of Paul also. A new and equally mythical duality 
 replaced that of Romulus and emus ." 
 
 That is the one passage which the Archbishop cut out. And the 
 other is this : — 
 
 "The poor Artemonites - a kind of Arians before Arius— have great reason to 
 complain of the injustice of fate which has branded them as heretics, although 
 up to the time of Victor the whole Church of Rome was of one mind with them. 
 Fi-om that time forth the Church of Rome put herself above history." 
 
 Those two great and crushing passages are the inmost fibre of the 
 statement of Renan, of which Archbishop Carr professed to quote, 
 to a great public audience, the testimony. Yet not a trace of them, 
 or a hint of the interrelated meaning of them, is to be found in the 
 
APPENDIX. 211 
 
 qiiotation as given in cxtenso in the Advocate, or as given when the 
 Archbishop spoke his lecture. When at last I nnveiled, in my first 
 lecture, the real contents of this part of Renan's book, as a sample 
 of the Archbishop's quotations, it caused intense surprise. And 
 it causes intense surprise still. 
 
 The surprise ought to deepen when one reflects that, in this same 
 book of Renan, it is declared in a chapter entitled " The Legend 
 of the Roman Church : Peter and Paul" — " If there is anything in 
 the world which Jesus did not institute it is the Papacy." And it is 
 further declared that "nothing can be less admissible" than "the 
 unfortunate chronological scheme which accordingto Catholics brings 
 Peter to Rome in the year 42." It is further declared that "Peter 
 had not yet arrived in Rome when Paul was brought there — that is 
 to say, in the year 61." It is further declared in the chapter from 
 which Dr. Carr purported to quote, that the success of Catholicity 
 at Rome rested upon the notion that "docility is salvation." It is 
 further declared that the supremacy of this notion was due to means 
 such as are described in the following two sentences (p. 175) : — 
 
 " Every kind of authority, every kind of artifice served her (Rome) to that end. 
 Policy never recoils from fraud, and policy had always found a home in the 
 most secret councils of the Church of Rome. The vein o apocryphal literature 
 was constantly worked," &c. 
 
 Truly, a quite amazing book from which to quote in support of the 
 historicity of the Roman Papacy ; and to sustain the thesis which 
 the Archbishop, a few sentences above his quotation from Renan, 
 affirmed, that, at the time spoken of, "according to the generally 
 received Protestant teaching, the faith of the Church was pure, and 
 the sanctity of the Roman pontiff conspicuous." This is said in 
 special reference to Milman's "testimony." Neander is quoted 
 immediately after. And then comes Renan. Then the Archbishop 
 passed on at once to the other and second part of his lecture, viz., 
 the ' ' ' testimony' of the Early Fathers. " And he opens this part 
 thus as an immediate sequent on the "quotation" from Renan : — 
 
 " And back beyond the close of the second centurj' to the very dawn of unin- 
 spired Christian history we can trace the primacy of the Roman pontiff." 
 
 This is one of the three things the Archbishop took in hand to 
 prove, and which he gave the long string of Protestant "quotations" 
 to buttress. 
 
 When my pamphlet is published, it will l)e seen that I have 
 analysed a few more of the Archbishop's quotations. And they 
 will afford a few pages of curious and interesting reading. 
 
 The other matter, stoutly contended for in Archbishop Carr's 
 letter, is of much less importance. He tries to maintain that in his 
 lectures he did not " imply" that Renan was a Protestant. Now, I 
 have done \\\j best to look at Archbishop Carr's words, and their 
 necessary implications, in the most favourable light ; and I say, 
 when read intelligently, they bear no other construction than the 
 sense in which they first conveyed that meaning to me. This is 
 necessitated by the whole balance of the first lecture, in its two 
 
212 APPENDIX. 
 
 parts, by the \\ords which usher in Kenan's quotation, and by the 
 distinct statement in the opening of the second lecture. There the 
 Archbishop himself distinctly states that he did two things in his 
 first lecture; he "quoted exclusively Protestant testimony," and 
 "next addressed himself" (please mark the words "next ad- 
 dressed") "to the testimony in favour of the primacy of the Roman 
 pontiff, which is contained in the first uninspired document," 
 &c. (viz., Clement of Rome). Why, the very name last on the list 
 of quotations, before the Archbishop "next addressed himself" to 
 Clement of Rome, is Renan himself. 
 
 But Archbishop Carr begins to define " Rationalism," as the last 
 straw to clutch at. Very well ! I only ask your readers to go to 
 the EncycloiHcdia Britannica (last edition) and read there the 
 article on " Rationalism," and see it treated as a great phase of 
 Protestantism, and see Kant's definition of it. Renan, rightlj" 
 speaking, was not a "Rationalist," and he was not a Protestant. 
 He was a Pantheist. The whole make-up of Archbishop Carr's 
 words, with his special fling at Protestantism being "satisfied if 
 Rome suffered equally with Revelation" from the influence of 
 Rationalism, left the distinct implication that Renan was both 
 a Rationalist and a Protestant 
 
 Turning away from these things, Archbishop Carr says that I 
 *' coupled John Henry Newman's name with an offensive epithet." 
 May I ask where and when. — I am, &c., 
 
 J. LAURENCE RENTOUL. 
 
 Ormond College, 21st May. 
 
 III. 
 
 DR. CARR'S THIRD LETTER. 
 To THE Editor (of "Argus" and "Aue.") 
 
 Sir, — As I am unwilling to question Dr. Rentoul's candour, the- 
 conviction forces itself upon me that the heat of controversy has 
 considerably warped his judgment If he had considered the 
 matter dispassionately he must have seen that all the "crushing 
 passages" and "tremendous sentences" with their "interrelated 
 meaning," which he quotes from Renan with amusing iteration and 
 vehemence, so far from weakening my argument, only serve 
 indirectly to strengthen and confirm it. Indeed, if such passages 
 as Dr. Rentoul quotes were not to be found in abundance through- 
 out Renan's lectures I should not have thoi^ght of quoting him at 
 all. The special value of his testimony is based on the fact that he 
 was a renegade from the Church, and belonged to a school whose 
 "wholesale and destructive criticism of revealed truth the 
 Catholic Church, and she alone, has consistently condemned." For 
 this very reason, as I said, "we must regard their admissions in 
 favour of the Roman Primacy as the irresistible outcome of the facts 
 of history." 
 
APPENDIX. 213 
 
 Renan, then, was cited to give testimony not to his own belief or 
 disbelief in the Primacy, but to historical facts. What were these 
 historical facts in supportof which Renan's testimony M'as adduced ? 
 They were, as the context most clearly shows, the claims put for- 
 ward by the Roman Pontiffs, andacknowledged by the Christians of 
 the first three centuries. Here is the immediate context : — 
 
 " Neander testifies to the antiquity of the Papal claims to a Primacy of juris- 
 diction. 
 
 " ' Very early indeed,' he says, ' do we observe in the Roman bishops traces of 
 the assumption that to them, as successors of St. Peter, belonged a paramount 
 authority in ecclesiastical disputes.' 
 
 " His evidence is not the less valuable, though, like other Protestant contro- 
 versialists of far less note, he writes of what he calls 'the assumption' of the 
 Roman bishops. "We are not to forget that he is dealing with those very ages in 
 which, according to the generally received Protestant teaching, the faith of the 
 Church was pure and the sanctity of the Roman Pontiff conspicuous. And as we 
 shall see in the course of our inquiry these ' assumptions' were filially recognised 
 by those primitive saints and doctors to whose writings, when it suits their 
 purposes, Protestants so confidently appeal." 
 
 Then, passing from Protestant testimony to a class of testimony 
 even more telling, because the witnesses were still further removed 
 from any sympathy with the Catholic Church, I immediately 
 added : — 
 
 " Little as we may admire the methods of Rationalistic wi'iters, we must at 
 least regard their admissions in fa\our of the Roman Primacy as the irresistible 
 outcome of the facts of history. The Catholic Church, and she alone, has consis- 
 tently condemned their wholesale and destructive criticism of revealed truth, whilst 
 Protestantism seemed satisfied if Rome suffered equally with Revelation. Renan 
 may surely be taken as a typical representative of this school, and there is no 
 room for mistake in his words." 
 
 The admissions in favour of the Roman Primacy to be found in 
 Renan's " Hibbert Lectures" are not confined, as Dr. Rentoul 
 seems to insinuate, to the passages (quoted by me, but are numerous 
 and emphatic. 
 
 Page 124. — Of St. Clement, Renan says : — " He is the first tj-peof 
 Pope which Church history presents to us;"' and (page 125) of 
 Clement's letter to the Corinthians, written t^pwards the end of 
 the first centur}^ about thirty years after 8t. Peter's death, he 
 writes : — 
 
 " Already the idea of a certain primacy belonging to his Church was beginning 
 to make its way to the light. The right of warning other Churches and of 
 composing their differences was conceded to it. Similar privileges — so at least it 
 was believed (Luke xxii., 32)— had been accorded to Peter by the other disciples, 
 
 " A very ancient tradition ascribes the composition of it to Clement." 
 
 Page 127. — "Its letter to the Corinthians is the first manifesto of the principle 
 of authority made within the Church," and in a note, "few writings are so 
 authentic." 
 
 Page 128.—" Some years ago a great outcry was raised against a French Arch- 
 bishop, then a senator, who said from the tribune, ' my clergy is my regiment.' 
 Clement had said the same thing long before." 
 
 Page 150. — "The centre of a future Catholic orthodoxy was plainly here. Pius, 
 who succeeded Hyginus, showed the same firmness in defending the piirity of the 
 faith. Cerdo, Marcian, Valentinus, Marcellinus, are removed from the Church by 
 the sentence of Pius. In the reign of Antoninus the germ of the Papacy already 
 exists in a very definite form." 
 
 o 
 
214 APPENDIX. 
 
 Antoninus reigned from 138 a.d. to 161. 
 
 Page 175. —This precedence of the Church of Rome only became more marked in 
 the third century." 
 
 Page 176. — The tradition of the Roman Church passes for the most ancient of 
 all. Cornelius takes the lirst place in the affair of Novatianism. We see him, in 
 especial, depriving Italian bishops, and nominating their successors. Rome was 
 also the central authority of the African Church." 
 
 Page 180. — Speaking of Pope St. Victor's time, at the close of the second 
 centuiy, Renan says, "The Papacy was already born, and well born." 
 
 Page 198. — "That Roman Primacy, which is so brilliant a fact in the second 
 and third century, ceases to exist as soon as the East has a separate existence and 
 a separate capital." 
 
 Just immediately after the passage which Dr. Reutoul so unfairly 
 complains of me for mutilathig, Renan bears this striking testimony 
 to the pre-eminence of the Roman Church. It will be observed how 
 he translates the famous passage of Iremeus. Primacy is his render- 
 ing of Rome's PriacipaUtas : — 
 
 Page 173. — "The writing, of which the fragment known as the Canon of Mura- 
 tori formed a part and which was produced at Rome about the year 180 a.d., 
 shows us Rome already defining the Canon of Scripture, alleging the martyrdom 
 of Peter as the foundation of Catholicity, repudiating Montanism and Gnosticism 
 alike. Irenyeus refutes all heresies by reference to the belief of this Church, ' the 
 greatest, the oldest, the most illustrious, which possesses in virtue of an unbroken 
 succession the true tradition of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and to which, because 
 of its primacy, all the rest of the Church ought to have recourse.' "— (Irenaeus, 
 iii., iii. 2, pp. 173-4.) 
 
 In the " Hibbert Lectures" there are several indirect testimonies 
 to the existence of the Roman Primacy in the Early Church, as well 
 as several references to that Church's purity of faith and morals. 
 But these I have given will suffice to show that I was under no 
 necessity, as I certainly had no wish, to mutilate or garble quota- 
 tions from Renan or any other author. 
 
 Now, in face of this al)undant testimony, is it not " pitiable" to 
 find Dr. Rentoul straining out a gnat when he has to swallow a 
 camel ? With what in another would appear to be assumed earnest- 
 ness, he asks why did I omit these tremendous sentences. I answer, 
 because they had no possible bearing on the matter in hand ; because 
 they regarded not what I was dealing with, namely, the claims put 
 forward by the early Roman Pontiffs to a primacy of jurisdiction, 
 but the well-known opinions of Renan concerning the Papacy ; 
 because they regarded not the early existence, but Renan's views (of 
 which I gave sufficient indication), in relation to the origin and 
 character of the Primacy. The (question at issue was not what Renan 
 believed, but what he witnessed to, regarding the admitted claims of 
 the Roman Pontiffs to the Primacy in the confessedly pure ages of 
 the Church. 
 
 I have considered all that Dr. Rentoul has said, and I now 
 deliberately state that I am satisfied that these "tremendous sen- 
 tences" were properly omitted as being entirely irrelevant. 
 
 I thank Dr. Rentoul for the information he gives regarding the 
 Rationalism of Protestantism. This patting on the back of Ration- 
 alism by a distinguished Presbyterian divine of our day is indeed 
 
APPENDIX. 215 
 
 nevv to me, but it serves to explain nnich that I could not pre- 
 viously reconcile in the faith and practice of some I'rotestants. 
 
 In return I beg to inform Dr. Rentoul that he applied an offensive 
 epithet to John Henry Newman when and where he described him 
 as a "Romanist" cardinal, and that he repeated the offence to 
 Catholics as often as he referred to the " Romish" priesthood. I 
 cannot help wondering that Dr. Rentoul was ignorant that these 
 epithets are, and are intended to be offensive. — Yours, &c. 
 
 + THOMAS J. CARR, 
 22nd May. Archbishop of Melbourne. 
 
 III. 
 DR. RENTOUL'8 THIRD LETTER IN REPLY. 
 
 To THE Editor (of "Arous" and "Age.") 
 
 Sir, — Through the huge haze of words with which Archbishop 
 Carr has striven to envelop the reality, some solid facts now stand 
 forth clear and indisputable : — 
 
 (1) The one vital matter at issue is the truth or falsity of the 
 Roman claim. That claim is that the Roman Papacj' rests on a 
 twenty-five years' bishopric of Peter at Rome, and that from this 
 bishopric a line of successive supreme bishops ruling at Rome, with 
 "a primacy of jurisdiction," descended in unbroken succession in 
 th etirst and second centuries. 
 
 (2) In support of this daring claim Archbishop Carr professed to 
 cite a large number of accurate and trustworthy " quotations " as 
 impressive "Protestant testimony." In connection with, and as the 
 jinale of, this ciunulative ' ' testimony, " he tried to make it appear that 
 even the "Rationalistic writers" had, by "their admissions" con- 
 firmed and made i;nanswerable this claim. He accordingly gave 
 what purported to be a genuine and reliable quotation from Renan. 
 To make it more impressive, Archbishop Carr introduced it by the 
 declaration — "There is no room for mistake in his words." 
 
 (3) It is now jjroven that the professed "quotation" from Renan, 
 instead of being reliable, or favourable, or a testimony to the Roman 
 Papacy as "the irresistible outcome of the facts of history" was 
 made to appear so only by a drastic mutilation of Renan's sentences 
 — a mutilation so drastic that it cut the backbone and living heart 
 out of Renan's meaning. 
 
 (4) It is now proven that Archbishop Carr's attempt to shield 
 himself behind the Advocate report has not in the least improved his 
 position. That report gives what Archbishop Carr has declared 
 to be the accurate shape of his quotation ; and it presents the 
 passage of Renan still mutilated so as to convey just almost the 
 opposite meaning of what Renan intended. ^ 
 
216 APPENDIX. 
 
 (5) The entire passage of Renan, had it been read without 
 mutilation, would have declared that the Roman Papacy rests on a 
 huge legend " equally mythical" with the pagan legend of Romulus 
 and Remus. Had this been frankly quoted to the audience to 
 which Archbishop Carr spoke, it would have fallen upon them with 
 dismay. 
 
 (6) The whole context of Archbishop Carr's " quotation " makes 
 the mutilation still more surprising. Just a few sentences above his 
 "quotation" from Renan, Archbishop Carr had declared that in the 
 times of which he was speaking " the faith of the Church was pure 
 and the sanctity of the Roman Pontiff conspicuous." But in his 
 quotation from Renan he cuts out a passage which declares, as a 
 fact of history, that in those very times, and up to the time of 
 Victor, the whole Church of Rome was of one mind with them," 
 viz., with "the poor Artemonites, a kind of Arians before Arius." 
 
 Now this discussion might here determine, for the facts above 
 stated are unanswerable. But in his last letter Archbishop Carr 
 attempts two things, in explanation of his mutilation of the " quo- 
 tation" from Renan First, he says he " omitted these tremendous 
 sentences" only ' ' because they had no possible bearing on the 
 matter in hand ; becau.se they regarded not what he was dealing 
 with, namely, the claims put forward by the early Roman Pontiffs 
 to a primacy of jurisdiction, but the well-known opinions of Renan 
 concerning the Papacy," &c. This ingenious distinction will not 
 stand a moment's investigation. Higher up in his letter. Arch- 
 bishop Carr had stated his object in quoting Renan, viz., that it 
 was testimony " in favour of the Roman primacy as the irresistible 
 outcome of the facts of history." Now, Renan showed that the 
 Roman primac}^ instead of being " the irresistible outcome of the 
 facts of history," was the ecclesiastical and sacerdotal outcome of a 
 huge legend as mythical as that of Romulus and Remus. But 
 Archbishop Carr deftly cuts out of the " quotation" all reference to 
 that fact. And so also with the other statement of Renan about 
 the actual facts of the state of the faith of the ChiTrch of Rome in 
 the second century. Archbishop Carr deftly cut that also out of 
 the quotation. I am bound to say that you could make " quota- 
 tions" prove anything whatever if you were allowed to make 
 " quotations" by this method. 
 
 The other effort of Archbishop Carr is to make a number of new 
 and irrelevant quotations from Renan with respect to Clement of 
 Rome, &c. I wish I had space to set these, each in its true connec- 
 tion, before the public. But, as the Americans tersely say, " they 
 don't belong here." I was the first in this controversy to give the 
 name of Renan's book and the page and the facts and the connective 
 meaning of it. I urged, and I urge still, the public to get it and to 
 read it as a whole. It shows clearly how "the episcopate," and 
 then the Papacy, arose out of the original simple " presbyterate," 
 until at last the most potent " bishop" made himself a '"bishop of 
 bishops." It shows also that the Papacy is mainly due to " a vast 
 
APPENDIX. 217 
 
 Ebionite legend " about Peter, which arose just shortly after 
 Clement's death. "A vast Ebionite legend arose in Rome, and, under 
 the name of 'The Preaching, or 'The Journeys of Peter,' took a fixed 
 shape about the year 130 a.d. — that is to say, 66 years, more or 
 less, after the death of the Apostles." And it testifies that in the 
 letter of Clement of Rome prior to this movement — ' ' We find no 
 trace as yet of a preshyterus superior to, and about to dethrone, the 
 rest." And Renan proves these things by documentary facts. 
 
 In Archbishop Carr's reference to " Rationalism" and Protestant- 
 ism he is equally unfortunate. Instead of Protestantism "patting 
 on the back" Rationalism, it was the Archbishop who first manufac- 
 tured Renan into " Protestant testimony," and then into a "Ration- 
 alist," and then represented Renan as patting on the back Roman 
 Catholicism. It will not do ! I pointed Archl)ishop Carr to the 
 Encyclopcedia Britannica to let him know that the much-misused 
 word "Rationalism" may, rightly used, imply no rejection of the 
 facts of Revelation. Protestantism, as history proves, is not kin to 
 what the Archbishop seeks to call " Rationalism." It is kin to 
 " Reason" on the one hand ; and, on the other hand, it is kin 
 to " Faith" that rejects superstition and credulity. Protestants 
 say, as Christ said, " Search the Scriptures." Archbishop Carr is 
 on perilous ground in talking of Protestantism and disbelief. Has 
 not he read the statement in a recent magazine, from one of oui- 
 greatest living masters in the philosophy of religion and of 
 history : — 
 
 "It is now as then (the eighteenth century). It is Catholic countries that show 
 the most radical revolt of the intellect from religion, and a revolt, not at one point, 
 but at all." 
 
 I'need not enlarge on this tragic and palpable fact. Renan himself 
 is too striking an instance of it. 
 
 Archbishop Carr completes the serio-comedy by confessing that 
 the "offensive epithet" he accused me of applying to John Henry 
 Newman was to call him a " Romanist Cardinal." And this from 
 an Archbishop who has flung "epithets" all round him of a very 
 sardonic kind against his Protestant antagonists ! And he himself 
 also has spoken of the '"Roman See" and the "Roman Pope." 
 Evidently, the Ai'chbishop was hard up for something to complain 
 of. I used the term " Romanist Cardinal" without thought of 
 offence. But if the umbrage at it implies the assertion on the 
 part of Romanists that they have any better right to the name 
 "Catholic" than Anglicans or Presbyterians or any Protestants 
 have, then I will use it again. — I am, &c., 
 
 J. LAURENCE RENTOUL. 
 
 Ormond College, The University, 25lh May. 
 
218 APPENDIX. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP CARR'S FOURTH LETTER. 
 
 To THE Editor (of "Age" axd "Argus.") 
 
 Sir, — Allow me to reply very briefly to Dr. Rentours last letter. 
 I will not add a single word to what I have already written 
 regarding the main points of the controversy. I am perfectly 
 willing to abide by the judgment of those who have attentively 
 followed the whole discussion. But I may inform Dr. Rentoul that 
 he takes undeserved credit to himself for being the first to give the 
 name of Renan's book and the page, &c. If he will take the trouble 
 of turning to my Replies to the Anglican Bishop of BaUarat and 
 the Rev. Canon Fotter, published last year in pamphlet form, he 
 will find that I gave the full name of Renan's book {Hibhert 
 Lectures), the date of delivery (1880), and the very page and 
 passage in which the disputed quotation is found [Lecture II., 
 p. 37-8). Everyone knows that it is not usual to give manj^ references 
 in a newspaper report of a lecture, particularly when the matter is 
 to be afterwards published in permanent form. But if Dr. 
 Rentoul honours me by reading the first lecture of the late series, 
 as it was already printed in sheets before his first lecture was 
 delivered, and as it will soon appear published with the other five 
 lectures of the series, he will find the name of Renan's book and the 
 date and page given as exactly as he can desire. 
 
 Catholics, I may observe, have no objection to the title "Roman," 
 indeed they glory in it as indicating the centre of their unity. But 
 if Dr. Rentoul will persist in calling us "Romanists," and our 
 doctrine and priesthood " Romish," we must try to bear the offensive 
 epithets, as we have had to bear many other hard things he has 
 said of us. In conclusion, I sincerely hope that however we may 
 differ theologically, at least, in the amenities of life, the proverb 
 may be fulfilled in our regard : Aniantium ircc amoris integratio est. 
 — Yours, &c., 
 
 + THOMAS J. CARR, 
 
 Archbishop of Melbourne. 
 St. Patrick's Cathedral, 26th May. 
 
 IV. 
 
 DU. RENTOUL"S FINAL LETTER. 
 
 To the Editor of the "Argus." 
 
 Sir, — I have no desire to prolong this controversy. With the 
 only new matter in Archbishop Carr's letter of to-day I will deal 
 briefly. He says that I " take undeserved credit to myself for 
 being the first to give the name of Renan's book and the page, &c." 
 
APPENDIX. 219 
 
 This, I must say, is another instance of his lack of accuracy. What 
 I .said was that I was " the first in this controversy to give the name 
 of Renan's book, and the page, and the facts, and the connective 
 meaning of it. I urge, and I still urge, the public to get it and read 
 it as a whole. Even the title of the book, if given in full, would 
 indicate its meaning. " 
 
 I am exceedingly surprised at Archbishop Carr's courage in refer- 
 ring me to his " Replies to the Anglican Bishop of Ballarat and the 
 Rev. Canon Potter," published last year, in reference to a quite 
 different controversy, and quite different antagonists. I have con- 
 sulted the Replies, and my surprise at Archbishop Carr's courage is 
 deepened. The professed "quotation" from Renan on that printed 
 page (p. 40) is mutilated just as in the recent lectures. I had not 
 dreamt that the Archbishop had once before presented that strangely 
 garbled passage to the public as the "testimony" of Renan. 
 
 Then, again, another astonishing thing is that, in the Replies 
 (pp. 37-49), Archbishop Carr distinctly declares, just as in his recent 
 lectures he "implied," that he was quoting only "Protestant 
 testimony" when including Renan. He says (p. 87) that he will 
 "anticipate Canon Potter's objection to Catholic authorities," 
 and will " confine himself to Protestant historians." The five to 
 whose "testimony" he then proceeds to confine himself are Dr. 
 Nevin, Hallam, Milman. Neander, and Renan. Let the reader 
 attentively compare this part of the Replies with Archbishop Carr's 
 recent first lecture and his assertion at the opening of the second 
 lecture that he had " tjuoted exclusively Protestant testimony." 
 
 The most surprising thing of all, however, is that, in his Replies, 
 Archbishop Carr actually calls himself and his co-religionists by the 
 name " Romanists." Rays the Archbishop — ^" The Romanists are 
 not the only denomiTiation likely to interfere with the good bishop's 
 hope of union." (Replies, p. 10.) Truly a prelate of much versa- 
 tility is Archbisho]) Carr ! In two series of lectures he pigeon-holed 
 Renan along with the "Protestant testimony." In another mood he 
 objected to me for poiiiting out that he had placed him there. In 
 his Replies "published last year" he calls himself and his Church 
 "Romanists." This year, when I courteously call a gentleman a 
 " Romanist Cardinal," he terms it an " offensive epithet." 
 
 Archbishop Carr, oddly enough, complains of the "many hard 
 things" I have spoken of the Roman Catholics. Surely he should be 
 the last to speak thus. Any " hard things" I have spoken have 
 been about the Roman Catholic claim, not about the men and the 
 people. But read Archbishop Carr's writings ! You find them 
 made up mainly of two things — " quotations" and "hard things" 
 about the great names and men all Protestants and liberals revere. 
 Even Wycliffe was a " hypocrite ;" Tyndale, the martyred trans- 
 lator of our English Bible, " was a most irreverent mind," and was 
 " the very man to pei^vert the meaning of Holy Scripture;" Foxe 
 " was a deliberate falsifier of history." This is the Archbishop's 
 mildest. No wonder that in his eyes Dr. Littledale is " a discredited 
 
220 APPENDIX. 
 
 controversialist.-' These be " hard things !'' What if we retaliated 
 by telling some facts of history about the double line of Pontiffs and 
 the lives of Popes ? But we have not done so. 
 
 With this I am content to leave the matter to the public, asking 
 tliem to remember that all this concerns the one point in my lectures 
 which Archbishop Carr has ventured to controvert. Of one thing I 
 am quite sure — Renan will not again be quoted in Melbourne as 
 " testimony" to the historicity of the Roman claim. Rather will^he 
 be remembered as having likened the basis of that claim to the 
 " equally mythical duality" of Romulus and Remus. — I am, &c., 
 
 J. LAURENCE RENTOUL. 
 Ormond College, The University, 28th May. 
 
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