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Rh APOSTOLIC

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APOSTOLIC

have been defined, and confirm them by the author- ity of the Blessed A|K)stle Peter.) It is a fact wortliy of notice that, in later times, all those who wislied to minimize the papal authority, Protestants, Galli- cans, etc., used the term CurUi (Roman Court) in preference to "Apostolic See", seeking thus to evade the dogmatic significance of the latter term. The cathedra Petri, the Chair of St. I'eter, is but another expression for the nerlcs npnstnlica, cathe- dra denoting the chair of the toachor. Hence the limitation of papal infalliliility to definitions ex ca- thedra amounts to this: papal definitions can claim inerrancy or infallibility only when pronounced by the pope as the holder of the privileges granted by Christ to Peter, the Rock upon which He built His Church. The same fornuila conveys the meaning that the pope's infallibility is not personal, but de- rived from, and coextensive with, his office of visible Head of the Universal Church, in virtue of which he sits in the Chair of Peter as Shepherd and Teacher of all Christians. (See iNFALLiniLiTY.) From an- cient times a distinction has been made between the Apostolic See and its actual occupant: between sedes and sedens. The object of the distinction is not to discriminate between the two nor to subor- dinate one to the other, but rather to set forth their intimate coimection. The See is the symbol of the highest papal authority; it is, by its nature, perma- nent, wherea-s its occupant holds that authority but for a time and in:ismuch as he sits in the Chair of Peter. It further implies that the supreme author- ity is a supernatural gift, the same in all successive holders, independent of their personal worth, and inseparable from their ex-officio definitions and de- cisions. The Vatican definition of the pope's in- fallibility when speaking ex calhedrd does not permit of the sense attached to the distinction of sedes and sedens by the Gallicans, who claimed that even in the official use of the authority vested in the See, with explicit declaration of its exercise, the sedens was separate from the sedes.

Kf.nrick, Tlie Primacy of the Apostolic See Vimlicatcd (Baltimore. 1855); Lindsay, De Ecclenii el Cathedri, tr. (Lonilon, 1877); Allif.s. The Throne of the Fieherman (Lon- don. 1S871; Murphy, The Chair of Peter, 3il ed. (London. 1888); Allnatt. Cathedra Petri (London, 188.3): Scheeben in Kirchcnlex.. I, 1145; Wilhei.h and Scannell, /I Manual of Catholic Theology (London, 1898).

J. WiLHELM.

Apostolic Succession. — Apostolicity as a note of the true Church being dealt with elsewhere, the ob- ject of the present article is to show: (1) That Apos- tolic succession is found in the Roman Catholic Church. (2) That none of the separate Churches have any valid claim to it. (3) That the Anglican Church, in particular, has broken away from Ajxis- tolic unity.

RoM.\N CLAm. — The principle underlying the Ro- man claim Ls contained in the idea of succession. "To succeed" is to be the succes.sor of, especially to be the heir of, or to occupy an official position just after, as Victoria succeeded William IV. Now the Roman Pontiffs come immediately after, occupy the position, and perform the functions of .St. Peter; they are, therefore, his successors. We must prove (a) that St. Peter came to Rome, and ended there his pontificate; (b) that the Bishops of Rome who came after him held his official position in the Church. As soon as the problem of St. Peter's coming to Rome passed from tlieologians writing pro dnmo sud into the hands of unprejudiced historians, i. e. within the last half century, it received a .solution which no scholar now dares to contradict; the researches of Cicrman professors like A. Harn;ick and Weizs- iicker, of the Anglican Bishop Liglitfoot, and those of archa-ologists like De Rossi and l.anciani.of Duchesne and Barnes, have all come to the same conchi- eion: St. Peter did reside and die in Rome. Begin-

ning with the middle of the second century, there exists a universal consensus as to Peter's martyrdom in Rome; Dionysius of Corinth speaks for (jreece, IrenaMis for Oaul, Clement and Origen for Alexandria, TertuUian for Africa. In the third century the popes claim authority from the fact that they are St. Peter's successors, and no one objects to this claim, no one raises a counter-claim. No city boasts the tomb of the Af)ostle but Rome. There he died, there he left his inheritance; the fact is never ques- tioned in the controversies between East and VVest. This argument, however, has a weak point: it leaves about one hundred years for the formation of his- torical legends, of which Peter's presence in Rome may Ix; one just as much as his conflict with Simon Magus. We have, then, to go farther back into an- tiquity. About 1.50 the Roman presbyter Caius offers to show to the heretic Proclus the trophies of the Apostles: "If you will go to the Vatican, and to the Via Ostiensis, you will find the monuments of those who have founded this Church. " Can Caius and the Romans for whom he speaks have been in error on a point so vital to their Church? Next we come to Papias (c. 138-150). From him we only get a faint indication that he places Peter's preach- ing in Rome, for he states that Mark wrote down what Peter preached, and he makes him write in Rome. Weizsiicker himself holds that this inference from Papias has some weight in the cumulative ar- gument we are constructing. Earlier than Papias is Ignativis Martyr (before 117), who, on his way to martyrdom, writes to the Romans: "I do not com- mand you as did Peter and Paul; they were Apos- tles, I am a disciple", words which according to Lightfoot have no sense if Ignatius did not believe Peter and Paul to have been preaching in Rome. Earlier still is Clement of Rome writing to the Co- rinthians, probably in 96, certainly before the end of the first centurj'. He cites Peter's and Paul's martyr- dom as an example of the sad fruits of fanati- cism and en\-y. They have .suffered "amongst us'' he says, and Weizsiicker riglitly .sees here another proof for our thesis. The (ios|x>l of ."^t. .lolin, written about the same time as the letter of Clement to the Corin- thians, also contains a clear allusion to the martyr- dom by crucifixion of St. Peter, without, however, locating it (John, xxi, 18, 19). The veiy oldest evi- dence comes from St. Peter himself, if he be the author of the First Epistle of Peter, or if not, from a writer nearly of his own time; "The Church that is in Babylon .saluteth you, and so doth mv son Mark" (l" Peter, v, 13). That Babylon stands for Rome, as usual amongst pious Jews, and not for the real Babylon, then without Christians, is admitted by common consent (cf. F. J. A. Hort, " Judaistic Christianity", London, 189.5, 155). This chain of documentary evidence, having its first link in Scrip- ture it.self, and broken nowhere, puts the sojourn of St. Peter in Rome among the best-ascertained facts in history. It is further strengthened by a similar chain of monumental evitlence, which Lanciani, the prince of Roman topographers, sums up as follows: For the archaeologist the presence and execution of Sts. Peter and Paul in Rome are facts established beyond a shadow of doubt, by purely monumental evidence!'' (Pagan and Christian Rome, 123).

St. Peter's .Si:cces.sohs in Office. — St. Peter's successors carried on his office, the importance of which grew with the growth of the Church. In 97 serious dis.sensions troubled the Church of Corinth. The Roman Bishop, Clement, unbidden, wrote an authoritative letter to restore peace. St. John was still living at Ephesus, yet neither he nor his inter- fered with Corinth. liefore 117 St. Ignatius of .\n- tioch addresses the Roman Church as the one which "presides over charity . . . which has never deceived any one, which has taught others." St. IreiUGUS