Note. -- On the Claims of the Papacy.

Note. -- On the Claims of the Papacy.

On this tradition and on the indisputable preëminence of Peter in the Gospels and the Acts, especially the words of Christ to him after the great confession (Matt. 16:18), is built the colossal fabric of the papacy with all its amazing pretensions to be the legitimate succession of a permanent primacy of honor and supremacy of jurisdiction in the church of Christ, and--since 1870--with the additional claim of papal infallibility in all official utterances, doctrinal or moral. The validity of this claim requires three premises:

1. The presence of Peter in Rome. This may be admitted as an historical fact, and I for my part cannot believe it possible that such a rock-firm and world-wide structure as the papacy could rest on the sand of mere fraud and error. It is the underlying fact which gives to fiction its vitality, and error is dangerous in proportion to the amount of truth which it embodies. But the fact of Peter's presence in Rome, whether of one year or twenty-five, cannot be of such fundamental importance as the papacy assumes it to be: otherwise we would certainly have some allusion to it in the New Testament. Moreover, if Peter was in Rome, so was Paul, and shared with him on equal terms the apostolic supervision of the Roman congregation, as is very evident from his Epistle to the Romans.

2. The transferability of Peter's preëminence on a successor. This is derived by inference from the words of Christ: "Thou art Rock, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." [316] This passage, recorded only by Matthew, is the exegetical rock of Romanism, and more frequently quoted by popes and papists than any other passage of the Scriptures. But admitting the obvious reference of petra to Peter, the significance of this prophetic name evidently refers to the peculiar mission of Peter in laying the foundation of the church once and for all time to come. He fulfilled it on the day of Pentecost and in the conversion of Cornelius; and in this pioneer work Peter can have no successor any more than St. Paul in the conversion of the Gentiles, and John in the consolidation of the two branches of the apostolic church.

3. The actual transfer of this prerogative of Peter--not upon the bishops of Jerusalem, or Antioch, where he undoubtedly resided--but upon the bishop of Rome, where he cannot be proven to have been from the New Testament. Of such a transfer history knows absolutely nothing. Clement, bishop of Rome, who first, about a.d. 95, makes mention of Peter's martyrdom, and Ignatius of Antioch, who a few years later alludes to Peter and Paul as exhorting the Romans, have not a word to say about the transfer. The very chronology and succession of the first popes is uncertain.

If the claims of the papacy cannot be proven from what we know of the historical Peter, there are, on the other hand, several undoubted facts in the real history of Peter which bear heavily upon those claims, namely:

1. That Peter was married, Matt. 8:14, took his wife with him on his missionary tours, 1 Cor. 9:5, and, according to a possible interpretation of the "coëlect" (sister), mentions her in 1 Pet. 5:13. Patristic tradition ascribes to him children, or at least a daughter (Petronilla). His wife is said to have suffered martyrdom in Rome before him. What right have the popes, in view of this example, to forbid clerical marriage? We pass by the equally striking contrast between the poverty of Peter, who had no silver nor gold (Acts 3:6) and the gorgeous display of the triple-crowned papacy in the middle ages and down to the recent collapse of the temporal power.

2. That in the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-11), Peter appears simply as the first speaker and debater, not as president and judge (James presided), and assumes no special prerogative, least of all an infallibility of judgment. According to the Vatican theory the whole question of circumcision ought to have been submitted to Peter rather than to a Council, and the decision ought to have gone out from him rather than from "the apostles and elders, brethren" (or "the elder brethren," 15:23).

3. That Peter was openly rebuked for inconsistency by a younger apostle at Antioch (Gal. 2:11-14). Peter's conduct on that occasion is irreconcilable with his infallibility as to discipline; Paul's conduct is irreconcilable with Peter's alleged supremacy; and the whole scene, though perfectly plain, is so inconvenient to Roman and Romanizing views, that it has been variously distorted by patristic and Jesuit commentators, even into a theatrical farce gotten up by the apostles for the more effectual refutation of the Judaizers!

4. That, while the greatest of popes, from Leo I. down to Leo XIII. never cease to speak of their authority over all the bishops and all the churches, Peter, in his speeches in the Acts, never does so. And his Epistles, far from assuming any superiority over his "fellow-elders" and over "the clergy" (by which he means the Christian people), breathe the spirit of the sincerest humility and contain a prophetic warning against the besetting sins of the papacy, filthy avarice and lordly ambition (1 Pet. 5:1-3). Love of money and love of power are twin-sisters, and either of them is "a root of all evil."

It is certainly very significant that the weaknesses even more than the virtues of the natural Peter--his boldness and presumption, his dread of the cross, his love for secular glory, his carnal zeal, his use of the sword, his sleepiness in Gethsemane--are faithfully reproduced in the history of the papacy; while the addresses and epistles of the converted and inspired Peter contain the most emphatic protest against the hierarchical pretensions and worldly vices of the papacy, and enjoin truly evangelical principles--the general priesthood and royalty of believers, apostolic poverty before the rich temple, obedience to God rather than man, yet with proper regard for the civil authorities, honorable marriage, condemnation of mental reservation in Ananias and Sapphira, and of simony in Simon Magus, liberal appreciation of heathen piety in Cornelius, opposition to the yoke of legal bondage, salvation in no other name but that of Jesus Christ.

[293] The old legend of Peter's flight from the Mamertine prison in Rome, which seems to antedate the hierarchical glorification of Peter, would prove that his "consistent inconsistency" overtook him once more at the close of his life. A few days before his execution, it is said, he bribed the jailor and escaped from prison, but when he reached a spot outside the Porta San Sebastiano, now marked by a chapel, the Lord appeared to him with a cross, and Peter asked in surprise: "Lord, whither goest thou (Domine quo vadis)?"Jesus replied: "I go to Rome to be crucified again (venio Romam iterum crucifigi)." The disciple returned deeply humbled, and delivered himself to the jailor to be crucified head-downwards. The footprint of the Lord is still shown (or was shown in 1841, when I saw it) in the little chapel called "Domine quo vadis," and a rude fresco on the wall represents the encounter. The legend is first alluded to by Origen (quoting from the Praxeis Paulou orPetrou, the words of the Saviour: Anothen mello staurothenai, see Opera IV. 332, and Hilgenfeld, l.c. IV. 72), then fully told in the apocryphal Acts of Peter and Paul, c. 82 (Tischendorf, l.c. p. 36, where Peter asks, Kurie, pou poreue; and the Lord answers: en Rome aperchomai staurothenai), and by Ambrose in Sermo de basilicis non tradendis haereticis contra Auxentium (quoted by Lipsius, Petrus-Sage, p. 134 sq.).

[294] 1 Pet. 2:4-8. A striking instance of the impression of Christ's word without a trace of boastfulness and assumption of authority.

[295] 1 Pet. 5:2; 2:25; comp. John 21:15-17.

[296] Mark 14:72. "And straightway the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word how that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice (comp.14:30); and when he thought thereon he wept."

[297] Comp. Mark 8:27-33 with Matt. 16:13-23. The omission of the famous passage, "Thou art Rock," etc., can only be satisfactorily explained from the humility of Peter. An enemy or rival might have omitted them, but Mark was his faithful pupil, and would have mentioned them had he followed his own impulse, or had he been a papist.

[298] Luke 22:31, 32, spoken in view of the approaching denial. This is the proper meaning of the passage which has been distorted by the Vatican Council into an argument for papal infallibility. Such application would logically imply also that every pope must deny Christ, and be converted in order to strengthen the brethren.

[299] Acts 10:34, 35; 15:11.

[300] Gal. 2:8, 9; comp. 1:18; 1 Cor. 15:5.

[301] Acts 8:9-24. It is quite probable that in the description of the heretics in his second Epistle, Peter had in mind Simon Magus. Plumptre (l.c. p. 44) sees in the "great swelling words of vanity,"2 Pet. 2:18, an allusion to Simon's boast that he was "the Great Power of God" (Acts 8:9, 10), and in the words "having eyes full of an adulteress,"etc. 2 Pet. 2:12-14, an allusion to Helena, the mistress of Simon, who is said to have accompanied him.

[302] Gal. 2:11-14.

[303] This is clear from the Epistles of Paul, especially the Galatians and Corinthians, and from Acts 21.

[304] Justin Martyr (Apol. l.c. 26 and 56) reports that Simon Magus went to Rome under Claudius and received divine honors there, as was shown by a statue erected to him on an island in the Tiber. Such a statue was actually discovered in 1574, but with the inscription Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio sacrum, [not Simoni Deo sancto]. With reference to this supposed worship, Simon boasts in the pseudo-Clementine Recogn. II. 9: "Adorabor ut deus, publicis divins donabor honoribus, ita ut simulacrum mihi statuentes tanquam deum colant et adarent."

[305] The chief of these productions are the twenty Greek pseudo-Clementine Homilies, which are based upon the older Kerugma Petrou and other Jewish-Christian documents. See the ed. of Dressel: Clementis Romani quae feruntur Homilae viginti nunc prinum integrae, Gött. 1853 (429 pages), and of De Lagarde, Clementina, 1865. The Clementine literature has been thoroughly investigated by Baur, Hilgenfeld, Ritschl, Schliemann, Uhlhorn, Volkmar, and Lipsius. See a brief résumé in Baur's Kirchengesch. vol. I. 85-94. Baur first tried to prove the identity of Simon Magus with Paul, in his essay on the Christuspartei in der Korinthischen Gemeinde, Tübingen, 1831. But Simon is a more comprehensive representative of all anti-Jewish and Gnostic heresies, especially that of Marcion. If he were meant to represent Paul alone, the author would not have retained the historic features from Acts 8, which are entirely irreconcilable with Paul's well known history.

[306] Such as the lost Kerugma Petrou en Rhome, and the Praedicatio Pauli (probably one book), used by Clement of Alexandria; the Syriac Sermon of Peter in Rome (in Curston's "Ancient Syriac Doc.," Lond. 1864); the Acta Pauli, used by Origen and Eusebius; the Acts of Peter and Paul, of a later date, published by Thilo and Tischendorf. The last book has a conciliatory tendency, like the canonical Acts. Comp. Lipsius, l.c. pp. 47 sqq., and the fragments collected by Hilgenfeld, l.c. IV. 52 sqq.

[307] The month is given in the Acta Petri et Pauli at the close: Eteleiothesan hoi hagioi endoxoi apostoloi Petros kai Paulos meni Iounio. kth. But different MSS. give July second or eighth. See Tischendorf, l. c. p. 39. According to Prudentius (Hymn. 12) the two apostles suffered on the same day, but a year apart: "Unus utrumque dies, pleno tamen innovatus anno, Vidit superba morte laureatum."

[308] A bishop of the Vatican Council used this as an argument for papal absolutism and infallibility, inasmuch as Peter's head supported his body, and not the body the head!