The Tradition of Rome

...Why was Saint Clement the one to restore order...

...One of the first and most striking expressions of the claim of the bishop of Rome to jurisdiction over gret for what they have done...

...If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi...

...In each case there was, so to say, a college and a head...

...et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam...

...Saint Clement stands second after Linus in the early list of Roman bishops, which names Linus as the successor of the apostles...

...Achaia is very near you, where you have Corinth...

...Every Church founded .by the apostles had sovereign authority, but that of Rome was preeminent...

...His book against the heresies of his day (De Praescriptione Haereticorum) throws much light on the position of the Roman Church in his time...

...They preferred to wait until the severity of the Decian persecution had passed...

...The following article is part of his discussion of the essential problem of papal authority...

...They were apostles...

...One man was chosen for honor at the outset, in order that through him might be symbolized the unity of the episcopate and the Church...

...The Christians at Corinth had rebelled against their hierarchy, and had driven out their presbyters...

...Even the elaborate address shows that he honors and greets this community as the most distinguished in Christendom...

...But neither Peter nor the Roman bishops have any higher powers than the other apostles and bishops...

...He took a middle ground between the Puritans who held that there should be no forgiveness for the sin of apostasy, and the easy-going, worldly group, who believed that all the lapsed should be taken back without repentance...

...Learn to be submissive and lay aside the proud and boastful stubbornness of your tongues...

...He commands them (Shotwell and Loomis, pp...

...238-239) with an arbitrary tone of authority which could hardly be exceeded by any mediaeval Pope, to submit themselves again in obedience to their ecclesiastical superiors: Our apostles also knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over the title of bishop...

...274): "His pontificate marks the passing of the primitive, unostentatious stage in the history of the Roman see, and the opening of a new and infinitely more ambitious era...

...But the significant fact is that he did not question Victor's authority...

...THE TRADITION OF ROME By SELDEN P. DELANY ONE of the most disturbing impressions I have ever received was when, in June of the year 1926, I stood for the first time before the great basilica of Saint Peter's in Rome and read the inscription at the base of the dome: "Tu es Petrus...

...One God does she acknowledge, the Creator of the universe, and Christ Jesus born of the Virgin Mary, Son of God the Creator and the resurrection of the flesh...

...the whole Church is to be found in Saint Clement's first letter to the Church in Corinth, written in A. D. 96...

...Another altar cannot be erected nor a new priesthood created, beside the one altar and the one priesthood...

...In him we see the same claim to universal jurisdiction over the whole Church that had been made by his predecessors, but expressed with greater vigor and authority...

...Were the powers conferred by Christ upon Saint Peter merely personal powers which were to be exercised only during his lifetime...

...At that moment something happened in my inner consciousness which shook the foundations of my life...

...To the writings of the evangelists and the apostles she adds the law and the prophets and therefrom she imbibes her faith...

...We next come to Tertullian, the African lawyer, who lived in Carthage from 160-235...

...Delany discussed the conclusions to which he arrived after years of service in the AngloCatholic ministry...

...But its bishop would have had legally no greater powers than the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria, which also could boast of apostolic founders...

...Nevertheless, Tertullian's attack on the Petrine claims of the Roman bishop supply further evidence that those claims were widely accepted at the beginning of the third century...

...This historical link is supplied by the Petrine tradition, which connects Saint Peter so closely with the Roman bishopric that he, either with or without Saint Paul "may be considered to have been its originator, and to have bequeathed to it as its particular legacy the authority which his Master had once entrusted to him" (Shotwell and Loomis, The See of Peter, p. 64...

...wrote letters to all the leading Churches, including Rome...

...You, therefore, that laid the foundation of sedition, submit yourselves unto the presbyters and receive correction unto repentance, bending the knees of your hearts...

...It is equally difficult for anyone with a knowledge of history to doubt that the bishops of Rome since the beginning have professed to be the heirs of Saint Peter's powers and prerogatives in the apostolic college...

...But if you are near Italy, you have Rome, whence also our authority is derived close at hand...

...Assuredly, the rest of the apostles were equal to Peter, endowed with the same partnership in honor and power, but the beginning was made in unity, that the Church of Christ might be manifested to be one...

...The Anglican Church has no greater authority on early Christian literature than Professor Cuthbert H. Turner of Oxford...

...This authority did not depend simply upon the position of the bishop of Rome as the successor of Saint Peter, but also upon the fact that the glorious apostles Peter and Paul were acknowledged to have been the founders of the Roman tradition...

...Irenaeus of Lyons, who himself followed the Roman use in the celebration of Easter, remonstrated with Victor on the ground that he ought not to cut off whole Churches of God for holding to an ancient custom...

...Without him, no sacrament was valid...

...According to Shotwell and Loomis (p...

...Where the apostle John was first plunged unhurt into boiling oil and then banished to an island...

...I have always been told that Saint Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, who was born about the year 200 and martyred in 258, was one of the most vigorous opponents of the Petrine claims of the bishop of Rome...

...He used the opportunity to gather the material for his book, Against Heresies, especially the Gnostic schools of Valentinus and Marcion...

...The apostle John was still living at Ephesus, and would have been the natural one to interfere in the affairs of the Corinthian Church...

...His most striking act was the excommunication of the whole province of Asia Minor because the bishops of that province persisted in celebrating Easter according to the Jewish reckoning...

...Thereafter he found it convenient to teach that the power of the keys was conferred upon Peter personally, and that the same power belongs to all spiritual men, whether apostles or prophets...

...In the year 177, while he was still a priest, a report of the Montanist disturbances in Asia had reached the Church at Lyons, and Irenaeus was despatched to Rome to seek guidance and counsel from Bishop Eleutherus...

...After the martyrdom of Fabian, bishop of Rome, the Roman Church for a time put off the election of a new bishop...

...See what she has learned, what she has taught, what fellowship she has had with our churches too in Africa...

...It is an interesting fact that during the vacancy in the Roman episcopate the clergy of Rome continued to exercise a supervision over the affairs of the African Church...

...In an epistle warning against dealings of any kind with Felicissimus and five other priests who had communicated with the lapsed, Cyprian says: There is one God and one Christ and one Church, and one cathedra, established upon Peter by the word of the Lord...

...I wish I had space to speak of Hegesippus of Syria (160-175) who tells how, as a security for the genuineness of the Roman tradition, he compiled a list of the Roman bishops through whom the true faith had been transmitted during the hundred years from the apostles Peter and Paul to Anicetus...

...The successors of Victor allowed the contention to drop, although the Roman use was soon adopted by the universal Church...

...How happy is that church on which the apostles poured forth all their teaching, together with their blood...

...The bishop of Rome writes to them, not of the Gospels, can doubt that Our Lord gave to Saint merely as one neighbor to another, to express his rePeter a primacy among the apostles, and a jurisdiction over the whole Church...

...It behooves us therefore to look into his history and ascertain what was his real position...

...If so, they have no significance for the Church today...

...I am a convict...

...In combating these heresies he drew upon the Church's two authentic sources of knowledge: the four Gospels and the tradition bequeathed by the apostles to their successors...

...This affords striking testimony to the universal jurisdiction of the Roman see at the end of the second century...

...Their letters to Cyprian contained many wise suggestions which enabled him to deal firmly with the problem of the lapsed...

...Irenaeus was a Greek who had lived in Smyrna and had been taught by Saint Polycarp, who remembered the apostle, Saint John...

...moreover, though the bishop of Rome was successor of Saint Peter, and inherited all the prerogative that Peter had in relation to the other apostles, there was of course one thing that he could not inherit...

...Catholic and Protestant scholars translate this passage differently, but as the great German scholar, Professor Harnack, translates it in the same way as the Catholic scholars I have adopted his translation (History of Dogma, Volume II, p. 157, note 3) which is as follows: With this Church (in Rome) on account of its preeminent authority, every Church must be in agreement, that is, the faithful everywhere, among whom the tradition of the apostles has been continuously preserved...

...He detected the Adoptionist heresy lurking in the teaching of Theodotus of Byzantium, and excommunicated him...

...221) the first authentic incident related of a Roman bishop has to do with a visit paid by the aged Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, to Anicetus, bishop of Rome...

...To no other does he address quite such ardent phrases of praise for its unwavering steadfastness and faith...

...For you will give us joy and gladness if you are obedient to the things which we have written through the Holy Spirit, and root out the wicked passions of your jealousy in compliance with the request we have made in this letter for peace and harmony...

...He only questioned the wisdom of its being exercised on a mere matter of discipline, with such catastrophic effects...

...He honors Polycarp by yielding to him the administration of the Eucharist in the church of Saint John Lateran, but he insists on retaining the method of reckoning Easter which had always prevailed in the Roman Church...

...These letters show that by that time the diocesan bishop was everywhere regarded as the embodiment of divine authority and grace...

...In his brilliant treatise On the Unity of the Catholic Church, Saint Cyprian lays stress on the authority of the bishops as successors of the apostles, and the necessity of submitting to their authority, if one is to remain in the Church...

...This faith she seals with water, arrays with the Holy Ghost, feeds with the Eucharist, strengthens with martyrdom and against this faith and practice she admits no gainsayer...

...And we have sent you faithful and prudent men that have walked among us blamelessly from youth to old age, and they shall be witnesses between you and us...

...Peter was the original foundation on which Christ built His Church...

...For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed to office those whom we have mentioned and afterward made provision that when they should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministry...

...Where Peter endured a passion like his Lord's...

...But if some be disobedient unto the words spoken by Him (God) through us, let them see that they will involve themselves in grave transgression and danger, but we shall be guiltless of their sin...

...It deals with the question "whether there is a historical link connecting Saint Peter with the Roman bishopric" and is also a review of the "Roman tradition" which the two foremost apostles, Peter and Paul, established securely in the city of the Caesars...

...This is scarcely a generation after Saint Peter was martyred in Rome...

...This is what Harnack has to say of Saint Ignatius in his History of Dogma, Volume IV, p. 486 : However much one may tone down all excessive expressions in his letter to the Romans, this much is clear, that Ignatius has admitted in fact a precedence of the Roman community in the circle of her sisters, and that he knows of an energetic and perpetual activity on the part of this community in supporting and teaching others...

...It is interesting therefore to read his interpretation of the position of Saint Cyprian, which he has given us in his article on Saints Peter and Paul, in Theology for October, 1926: Cyprian has a clear-cut theory, of which the first element is the essential identity of the episcopal and apostolic office, and the second is the essential identity of the position of Peter and of his successors at Rome...

...Later on, when he became a Montanist, Tertullian fell under the censure of the Church and he changed his tone about the authority of the apostolic see...

...He says, every apostolic Church has its own legacy of tradition handed on as a sacred charge to the bishop, but he will let one Church suffice as an example, namely, "the very great and ancient and illustrious Church founded and organized at Rome by the two glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, and the faith declared to mankind and handed down to our own time through its bishops in their succession" (Shotwell and Loomis, p. 267...

...Obviously, because the bishop of Rome, as successor of Saint Peter, had jurisdiction over the whole Church...

...Following is the passage which sets forth Cyprian's views: Upon one man the Lord builds the Church, and although He grants to all the apostles after His resurrection an equal power, . . . yet, that He might make clear their unity, he established by his authority that unity at the beginning, as if it originated in one man...

...To him the argument against heresy drawn from Catholic tradition was even more decisive than the argument from Scripture, for the heretics could interpret Scripture in their own way...

...Saint Polycarp was at this time ninety years old, and yet he took this long journey to Rome to take up with the Roman bishop the method of fixing the date of Easter...

...According to Tertullian, the chief depositaries of trustworthy tradition were the apostolic Churches, and he dwelt eloquently upon the wealth of such tradition concentrated at Rome...

...This proves that at this early date the Church in the city of Rome regarded itself as entrusted with an authority of governance over the whole Church...

...Peter, and after him his successors at Rome, stand as corporeal reminders of the unity of the Catholic Church...

...There could be no dispute about the meaning of tradition, inasmuch as the transmitter of tradition, who was always the bishop of an apostolic see, possessed ipso facto the right to interpret it...

...Victor was bishop of Rome from 188 to 198...

...Cyprian would never have said that Church was founded on Peter and his successors...

...63) : One characteristic of primitive Christian literature is that it explains and defines so little, that it confidently looks for a speedy end of the world, heeds only the immediate emergency and addresses itself to persons who understand the situation as the author does, and for whom a hint will suffice...

...Saint Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, on his journey to Rome to be martyred (116 A.D...

...What Peter was among the apostles, that his successor was, among Catholic bishops, the symbol and source of unity...

...All bishops share equally in the right to bind and loose, yet the power of the keys was bestowed on Peter alone, and he alone was made the foundation of the Church...

...Even when the eastern Churches insisted that their traditions were older, and perhaps even more sacred, this western bishop spoke on, regardless of protest or denunciation...

...We, accordingly, believe that it is not right to dismiss from their ministry those who were appointed by them or afterward by other eminent men with the consent of the whole Church, and who have served the flock of Christ without fault, humbly, peaceably and disinterestedly, and received for a long time the good testimony of everyone...

...Where Paul won his crown in a death like John's...

...Surely it is extraordinary that the bishop of Rome should send categorical orders to a church in Greece...

...It is hard to see how anyone, after a careful study Last week Dr...

...Apart from him there could be no Church...

...The Roman Church would in any case have exercised a powerful influence on Christianity, because of its location in the imperial city, the size and character of its membership, and the fact that it had profited by Saint Paul's teaching and martyrdom...

...Cyprian maintained that each case should be dealt with on its merits, but that all should be placed under penitential discipline, and after they had demonstrated that they were penitent, they were to be received back into the communion of the Church...

...This, however, does not affect the decision of Anicetus...

...Delany's articles form part of a volume to be issued soon by the Dial Press as Why Rome?—The Editors...

...Incidentally, his letter to the Romans contains early evidence that Saints Peter and Paul administered the Roman Church...

...If you can travel into Asia, you have Ephesus...

...To this eastern bishop the Roman Church appears (Shotwell and Loomis, p. 240) "to stand upon a level somewhat above that of the others to which he writes...

...According to Shotwell and Loomis (p...

...of Soter (166174), who succeeded Anicetus as bishop of Rome, and wrote a pastoral letter to the Corinthians which they treasured equally with that of Saint Clement...

...He informed Anicetus that the Roman mode of fixing the date was not that which he himself had learned from the practice of the apostle, Saint John...

...He says, "I do not command you, as Peter and Paul did...

...But the head could not act apart from his colleagues...

...Come, then, you who would better exercise your wits about the business of your own salvation, recall the various apostolic Churches in which the actual chairs of the apostles are still standing in their places, in which their own authentic letters are read, repeating the voice and calling up the face of each of them severally...

...and believers in all parts of the world must agree with this Church if they were to be faithful to the apostolic tradition...

...and of Bishop Eleutherus (175-188), who succeeded Soter as bishop of Rome and condemned the heresy of the Gnostic Marcion, a wealthy and influential member of the Roman congregation, as well as the new Puritan Montanist heresy that had sprung up in Phrygia...

...But I must pass on to the testimony of Saint Irenaeus (130-200), the bishop of Lyons in Gaul...

...This is folowed by a very important passage which has been much discussed...

...Thus he assumes it to be well known to his hearers that Saints Peter and Paul had preached in person to the faithful at Rome...

...He is probably the same Clement whom Saint Paul mentions in his letter from Rome to the Philippians...

...We need not be surprised if it is a meagre tradition, for, to continue quoting (p...

...For our sin will not be small if we remove from the episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily offered its sacrifices...

...He was bishop during the Decian persecution, and his correspondence with the Church in Rome during that period throws much light on the situation both in Rome and Carthage, especially in regard to the treatment of those who had apostatized under persecution...

...Unfortunately we have it only in the Latin translation, as the Greek of Irenaeus's original work has been lost...

...The important question with which I must now deal is whether there is a historical link connecting Saint Peter with the Roman bishopric...

...What Peter had not among the apostles—that is, any difference in dignity or authority—that the Pope had not in regard to other members of the episcopate...

...The experience was repeated when, a little later, I knelt before the tomb of Saint Peter...

...In the early days of the Church the Roman bishop spoke as the guardian of an authoritative tradition, and his position as guardian was second to none...