Roman Church-by whom? by the infallible pope? No! by these Christians who have come to Rome from the other local churches. Further on he appeals to the witness of the apostolic Churches of Smyrna and Ephesus. From an Ultramontane point of view this is truly a tame argument; so tame that we may be quite certain that S. Irenaeus knew nothing about papal infallibility. And if he knew nothing about it, that means that S. Polycarp had taught him nothing about it; and that, again, means that S. Polycarp had learnt nothing about it from St. John. So far from this Irenaean passage being a full and complete proof of the apostolicity of the doctrine, that infallibility is to be ascribed to the Roman Church, it is a full and complete proof of the opposite thesis. Yet the author of the article "Pope," in Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary, says: "The most important testimony to the authority of Rome in the first ages of the Church is that of Irenaeus; " and then he proceeds to quote the passage which we have been considering, and he quotes no other.1

1 Ed. New York, 1887, p. 672.

LECTURE II.

THE SEE OF ROME IN THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES.-II.

The Theory that S. Peter was Bishop of Rome-The Clementine Romance- S. Cyprian's Witness.

We have seen that the honour and influence attaching to an apostolic see was shared by the Church of Rome with other apostolic churches; but that from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, or, at any rate, from the time of the death of S. John, the position of Rome as the metropolis of the civilized world had necessarily secured for the Roman Church a certain pre-eminence and primacy among the other apostolic churches. Both the second and the fourth of the Ecumenical Councils allude to this primacy, and by implication in the one case, and by direct assertion in the other, trace its origin to the fact that Rome was the imperial city. There can, I think, be no doubt that these two Ecumenical Councils give a true account of the matter. But it must be

admitted that as early as the first half of the third century we find in the West traces of a tendency to attribute the primatial position of the Roman Church to a totally different cause. Some Western writers of the third century held the view that S. Peter had been the first Bishop of Rome, that he had died while still in the occupation of the Roman see, and that he had left his own leadership among the apostolic rulers of the Church as a legacy to his successors in the Roman chair. In later centuries this view penetrated from the West to the East, though it did not ultimately prevail there. It persisted, however, in the West throughout the Middle Ages, and it is maintained at the present day by Roman controversialists as the vitally necessary basis for the claims of the papacy. It will be well, therefore, before we

1 For example, Professor Jungmann of Louvain, in his Dissertationes Selectae in Hist. Eccl. (tom. i. p. 28, ed. 1880), says, "Quod igitur Episcopi Romani B. Petro succedant pendet ex aliquibus factis. (1) Quod B. Petrus tenuerit Romanum Episcopatum, et quidem (2) usque ad mortem; quod (3) ante mortem non resignaverit alteri suam oecumenicam potestatem; quod (4) jus et potestatem suam sedi Romanae reliquerit. Ex dictis satis colligitur, quanti momenti illa sit quaestio de sede Romana Petri. Convenit autem advertere, veritatem hujus facti, scilicet Episcopatus Romani B. Petri, certam esse certitudine infallibilitatis."

pass on to the third century and to the history of S. Cyprian, to investigate the truth or falsehood of this Petrine theory. We shall find, I think, that there is reason for supposing that the date of its origination is later than the time of S. Irenaeus.

We have seen, in fact, that S. Irenaeus, when heaping up reasons for appealing, in the first place, to the witness of the Roman Church against the Gnostics, says nothing about any devolution of primacy from S. Peter to the Bishops of Rome. It is difficult to believe that, if he had held the theory which asserts that there was such a devolution, he would not have referred to it, and, in fact, placed it in the forefront of his argument, where it would have had a cogency and a clinching force of a far higher order than attaches to any of the reasonings which he actually uses. He does, indeed, refer to S. Peter in connexion with the Church of Rome; but all that he says is that S. Peter and S. Paul were joint founders of that Church, which is a very different thing from saying that S. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, and that he retained his bishopric until his death, and that he left his supreme jurisdiction over the whole Church to his successors in the Roman see. The context of the whole passage is such that we may fairly argue that S. Irenaeus' silence about S. Peter's Roman episcopate implies that he did not believe that the apostle had ever held that episcopate. And this result is confirmed by other passages in which S. Irenaeus teaches that, in fact, S. Linus was the first Roman bishop. Thus in III. iii. 3 he writes as follows: "The blessed apostles [Peter and Paul], having founded and builded the [Roman] Church, committed the ministry of the episcopate to Linus

and his successor is Anencletus: and after him, in the third place from the apostles, the bishopric is allotted to Clement." After mentioning the fourth and fifth bishops, Evaristus and Alexander, S. Irenaeus goes on to say, "Then Xystus in like manner is appointed sixth from the apostles." Then he mentions, in due order, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, Anicetus, Soter, and adds, "The bishop's office is now held in the twelfth place from the apostles by Eleutherus." Here the numbering seems to suggest that S. Linus was held to have been the first bishop. It may, indeed, be maintained that S. Irenaeus' words do not absolutely exclude the theory that the episcopate was first held jointly by S. Peter and S. Paul; but the notion of a joint episcopate, though suggested by S. Epiphanius, contradicts the ordinary Western tradition from the third century onwards; and if S. Irenaeus had believed that S. Peter and S. Paul were joint-bishops, it is difficult to account for his silence about such an important

fact. It ought also to be noticed that the Petrine theory requires us to hold that S. Peter died Bishop of Rome; but here we have S. Irenaeus assuring us that S. Peter and S. Paul, during their lifetime, committed the episcopate to Linus. No stress could be laid on this point, if Linus' consecration immediately preceded the martyrdom of the two apostles; but we have no certainty that such was the fact, and it does not seem to have formed any part of the later Roman tradition on the subject. For in the Liber Pontificalis S. Linus is said to have commenced his episcopate when Saturninus and Scipio were consuls, that is to say, in the year 56, which was several years before the death of S. Peter. And Dr. Rivington himself asserts that "there is nothing unreasonable" in the view adopted by Rufinus, namely, that "Linus and Cletus were . . . bishops in the city of Rome . . . during the lifetime of Peter . . . so that they bore the care of the episcopate, whilst he fulfilled the office of the apostolate." 1

But to go back to the numbering of the Roman bishops. There is another passage in which S. Irenaeus speaks still more clearly than in the passages previously cited. In III. iv. 3 he says that Marcion "flourished under Anicetus, who occupied the tenth place in the episcopate." Here there is no reference to the apostles. Anicetus occupies absolutely the tenth place in the list of bishops. Yet, if the apostles are to be reckoned among the bishops, Anicetus' place is the eleventh, and not the tenth.

2

In the very same paragraph S. Irenaeus speaks of "Hyginus, who was eighth bishop," for such is the reading in the old Latin version: "Sub Hygino, qui fuit octavus episcopus." Eusebius quotes the passage in Greek, and reads varos; but there can be no doubt, I think, that S. Irenaeus wrote oydoos and not evaros. Between Hyginus and Anicetus came Pius; and it is hardly possible to suppose that in the same paragraph, and within the space of six lines, two different methods of numbering the Roman bishops can have been used. If Anicetus was the tenth, then Hyginus was the eighth; and the Latin translation has preserved the true reading. Bishop Lightfoot holds that "certainly" in this passage varoç is "a later emendation, so as to include the episcopate of Peter." 8 There is one other Irenaean passage (viz. I. xxvii. 1.), which is quoted by Eusebius in the same chapter of his history as the one in which he cites the passage which I have just been discussing. In this place also reference is made to Hyginus, and according to Eusebius' reading 2 H. E., iv. II. 3 S. Clement of Rome, i. 204, note.

1 Prim. Church, p. 24.

he is said to occupy "the ninth place in the episcopal succession from the apostles." Here the apostles are mentioned, and the fact that they are mentioned shows that Evarov has been substituted for bydoov. For even if we granted that Hyginus might be described as the ninth Roman bishop, he certainly was not the ninth bishop in succession from the apostles. Yet the corruption of the text goes back as far as to the time of S. Cyprian, and it has affected all the extant manuscript copies of the old Latin translation. They all read "nonum." Dom Massuet, the Benedictine editor of S. Irenaeus, and Stieren, following him, have rightly substituted "octavum" for "nonum."

Thus it seems clear that S. Irenaeus, while he regarded S. Peter and S. Paul as the apostolic founders of the Church of Rome, did not consider that either of them was to be reckoned among the bishops of the city.5 Linus was, in his view, the first bishop. This conclusion, so far as it affects the two apostles, is corroborated, when we notice that it is true. not only of S. Irenaeus, but also of Tertullian; though Tertullian makes Clement and not Linus the first of the Roman bishops. Tertullian is speaking about the various heretical sects, and he says, "Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unroll the catalogue of their bishops, so running down in due succession from the beginning, that that [much venerated] first bishop of theirs (ut primus ille episcopus) may appear to have had for his ordainer (auctor) and predecessor some one of the apostles or of the apostolic men; I, of course, refer to apostolic men who continued stedfastly with the apostles. For it is in this manner that the apostolic churches give an account of their beginnings; as for instance, the Church of Smyrna relates

It is a pleasure to be able to record the fact that Cardinal Segna, in a Thesis Academica, published at Rome in 1897, and entitled De Successione priorum Romanorum Pontificum (pp. 41, 42), candidly acknowledges that Eusebius must have used an inaccurate copy of S. Irenaeus' treatise, cum Irenaei certa explorataque sententia sit Hyginum octavo loco censeri debere.” * Dom Massuet, in a note on S. Iren., III. iv. 3, rightly says, "Romanos pontifices enumerat ab apostolis, quibus verbis Petrum a catalogo suo perspicue removet" (Migne's Patrol. Graec., vii. 857).

Cf. S. Cyprian, Ep. lxxiv. ad Pompeium, § 2, Opp., ii. 801, ed. Hartel. Dom Massuet mentions that the true reading, octavum,' occurs in a MS. which was collated by Passeratius. Massuet concludes from various readings of this MS., which have been preserved, that it was "perantiquus ac bonae notae (see Stieren's edition of S. Irenaeus, vol. i. p. xiii., and vol. ii. p. 48). Stieren agrees with Massuet in this estimate (op. cit., vol. i. p. xiii.).

' Cardinal Segna, in the thesis quoted above, admits (p. 63) that S. Irenaeus places S. Peter and S. Paul "extra numerum.' He tries, of course, to get over the difficulty created by this fact, but, more prudent than some other writers of his communion, he does not dispute the fact.

For Tertullian's use of "census" in the sense of "origin," see Oehler's note on the De Coronâ, cap. xiii. (Opp. Tertull., i. 452).