the subject. If introduced any where, we might naturally expect to find it introduced, either toward the close of the Acts where Paul is conducted to Rome, or in that same great Apostle's canonical Letter to the Romans, or in one of the two Epistles of Peter himself the alleged supreme Monarch of the entire Catholic Church and the first of the long line of the divinely appointed succeeding Monarchs. But the very lack of citation, on the part of our Latin theologians, is itself a virtual confession, that the descent of Peter's Supremacy to the Bishops of Rome is a matter quite incapable of proof from the testimony of Scripture'.

IV. We may now proceed to examine the testimony, which has been produced from the ecclesiastical writers of the three first centuries.

1. Here, again as before, the first question will be: Whether those writers afford any demonstration, that Christ appointed Peter to be the supreme dominant Head of his Church.

When, through ambiguity of language, no direct proof of a matter can be extracted from Scrip

On this perfectly intelligible principle, several Protestants have admitted, that Peter enjoyed certain privileges above the other Apostles; while yet they deny, that these privileges have descended from him to the Roman Bishops. Some strictly personal privileges of the Apostle, whatever may be their precise nature and amount, they think themselves able to discover in Scripture: but, as to any descent of these privileges from Peter to the Bishop of Rome, they admit it not; for the very satisfactory reason, that Scripture is altogether silent respecting any such descent.

ture simply: I perceive not, how the early ecclesiastical writers can supply the deficiency, except by UNANIMOUSLY fixing a definite interpretation upon a text, which in itself or abstractedly is indefinite. The present, if I mistake not, is exactly a case in point.

Ireneus, the most ancient of the writers adduced by Mr. Berington, is entirely silent respecting the dominant Supremacy of Peter: for the whole passage, which has been cited from him, treats solely of the apostolic descent of all the then existing branches of the Catholic Church; that of the Roman Church, in particular, from its two cofounders Peter and Paul, being given at large by way of exemplification'. The other three, Tertullian and Origen and Cyprian, doubtless intimate, that a Supremacy of some description or another was granted to Peter 2. Our business, therefore, will be, to estimate the value and authority of their intimation.

Now their intimation rests professedly upon the text, in which Christ promises that he will build his Church upon a rock: and Tertullian, like Cyprian, supposes the rock in question to be Peter 3.

1 See above, book i. chap. 3. § 1. 2. (1.)

2 See above, book i. chap. 3. § 1. 2. (2.) (3.) (4.)

'Tertull. de pudic. Oper. p. 767, 768. For reasons which in their proper place will appear, I venture to say, that no Romanist will ever cite this passage. Accordingly, Mr. Berington and the Bishop of Strasbourg very carefully suppress it. See below, book ii. chap. 3. § II. 2. (2.)

But this interpretation, as we have seen, is not the uniform and unvarying interpretation of the Church from the very beginning: it is merely the private interpretation of Cyprian and Tertullian. For, even to say nothing of Justin and Athanasius and Jerome and Augustine and Chrysostom and Hilary, who give an entirely different exposition of the rock: Origen himself, with what consistency is no part of my concern, flatly denies, in another part of the same Commentary whence Mr. Berington has taken his citation, that the whole Church of God was built upon Peter alone, and that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given exclusively to that Apostle'. Hence it is clear, that the passage, brought forward by Mr.

1

Orig. Comment. in Matt. tom. xii. Oper. vol. i. p. 275. The whole passage is too long to cite : but the following extracts will suffice.

Πέτρα γὰρ πᾶς ὁ Χριστοῦ μαθητὴς—Εἰ δὲ ἐπὶ τὸν ἕνα ἐκεῖνον Πέτρον νομίζεις ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ οἰκοδομεῖσθαι τὴν πᾶσαν Ἐκκλησ σίαν μόνον, τί ἂν φήσεις περὶ Ἰωάννου τοῦ τῆς βροντῆς υἱοῦ ἢ ἑκάστου τῶν ἀποστόλων;"Αλλως τε ἆρα τολμήσωμεν λέγειν, ὅτι Πέτρου μὲν ἰδίως πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσι, τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν αποστόλων καὶ τῶν τελείων κατισχύσουσιν ; Οὐχὶ δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ πάν των καὶ ἐφ' ἑκάστῳ αὐτῶν τὸ προειρημένον, τό Πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς· καὶ τόν Ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν ; Αρα δὲ τῷ Πέτρῳ μόνῳ δίδονται ὑπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου αἱ κλεῖδες τῆς τῶν οὐρανῶν βασιλείας, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἕτερος τῶν μακαρίων αὐτὰς λήψεται ; κ. τ. λ.

Yet, with this passage (as it were) under his very eyes, Mr. Berington gravely cites Origen as a witness for the dominant and exclusive Primacy of St. Peter and his successors the Bishops of Rome !

Berington, can afford no proof whatever of the dominant Supremacy of Peter. Had the Catholic Church, from the very first, taught us, without variation, that the true sense of the text before us is a grant to Peter of a dominant Supremacy over all Christians: the import of an abstractedly ambiguous text would then have been definitely fixed; nor do I see, how we could have rationally disallowed such powerful harmonious testimony. But, in reality, no authoritative interpretation has come down to us and the weight of evidence is decidedly against the gloss of Cyprian and Tertullian; for, to omit other witnesses, Justin, the most ancient of them all, pronounces the rock to be, not Peter himself, but Peter's confession of faith'.

1 I subjoin the interpretation of Justin, as being the oldest extant, and therefore as carrying with it the greatest weight of authority.

Καὶ γὰρ Υἱὸν Θεοῦ Χριστὸν, κατὰ τὴν τοῦ Πατρὸς αὐτοῦ ἀποκάλυψιν, ἐπιγνόντα αὐτὸν, ἕνα τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ, Σίμωνα πρότερον καλούμενον, ἐπωνόμασε Πέτρον. Justin. Dial. cum Tryph. Oper. p. 255.

Upon one of his disciples, who was previously called Simon, Christ bestowed the sirname of Peter: inasmuch as, through the revelation of his Father, he acknowledged him to be the Christ the Son of God.

According to Justin, the name Peter bore a direct reference to the confession of Simon, not to his official character in the Church. Therefore, plainly, he must have deemed the rock, whence Simon derived his imposed name of Peter, not to be Simon himself, but Simon's heaven-inspired confession of faith. The Apostle, after a mode perfectly familiar to the Hebrews in all ages, was called the rock in commemoration of his having

Nothing, therefore, can be more idle, than an attempt to demonstrate the dominant Supremacy of Peter from the mere private unauthoritative gloss of Cyprian and Tertullian or from the self-inconsistent language of Origen.

2. Our second question, still in the order already observed, is: Whether the ecclesiastical writers of the three first centuries afford any proof, that the Bishops of Rome have legitimately inherited the alleged monarchal prerogatives of Peter.

(1.) I might here fairly urge, that no evidence of the early ecclesiastical writers, however distinct, can establish, as a necessary article of faith, what has never been revealed in Scripture; for, although such evidence may establish the true interpretation of an already existing text, it cannot make that a matter of divine revelation which has never been divinely revealed. But so strong is my cause, that, with perfect safety, I may, for the sake of argument, even waive this plea.

confessed the rock upon which Christ has promised to build his Church.

Such was the view taken by Justin only thirty-seven years after the death of St. John: and, since it stands self-approved, both by its accordance with the context, and by its agreement with the national habits of the Jews; since, moreover, it has been directly adopted by Chrysostom and Hilary, and virtually admitted by Athanasius and Jerome and Augustine (for the difference is merely verbal, whether by the rock we understand Christ himself or Peter's confession of Christ's mysteriously divine Sonship): we have at least a strong presumption, that the view, so early taken by Justin, is accurate.