Posted on 10/21/2006 4:52:03 AM PDT by NYer
From Called To Communion: Understanding the Church Today
Editor's note: This is the second half of a chapter titled "The Primacy of Peter and Unity of the Church." The first half examines the status of Peter in the New Testament and the commission logion contained in Matthew 16:17-19.
The principle of succession in general
That the primacy of Peter is recognizable in all the major strands of the New Testament is incontestable.
The real difficulty arises when we come to the second question: Can the idea of a Petrine succession be justified? Even more difficult is the third question that is bound up with it: Can the Petrine succession of Rome be credibly substantiated?
Concerning the first question, we must first of all note that there is no explicit statement regarding the Petrine succession in the New Testament. This is not surprising, since neither the Gospels nor the chief Pauline epistles address the problem of a postapostolic Church—which, by the way, must be mentioned as a sign of the Gospels' fidelity to tradition. Indirectly, however, this problem can be detected in the Gospels once we admit the principle of form critical method according to which only what was considered in the respective spheres of tradition as somehow meaningful for the present was preserved in writing as such. This would mean, for example, that toward the end of the first century, when Peter was long dead, John regarded the former's primacy, not as a thing of the past, but as a present reality for the Church.
For many even believe—though perhaps with a little too much imagination—that they have good grounds for interpreting the "competition" between Peter and the beloved disciple as an echo of the tensions between Rome's claim to primacy and the sense of dignity possessed by the Churches of Asia Minor. This would certainly be a very early and, in addition, inner-biblical proof that Rome was seen as continuing the Petrine line; but we should in no case rely on such uncertain hypotheses. The fundamental idea, however, does seem to me correct, namely, that the traditions of the New Testament never reflect an interest of purely historical curiosity but are bearers of present reality and in that sense constantly rescue things from the mere past, without blurring the special status of the origin.
Moreover, even scholars who deny the principle itself have propounded hypotheses of succession. 0. Cullmann, for example, objects in a very clear-cut fashion to the idea of succession, yet he believes that he can Show that Peter was replaced by James and that this latter assumed the primacy of the erstwhile first apostle. Bultmann believes that he is correct in concluding from the mention of the three pillars in Galatians 2:9 that the course of development led away from a personal to a collegial leadership and that a college entered upon the succession of Peter. [1]
We have no need to discuss these hypotheses and others like them; their foundation is weak enough. Nevertheless, they do show that it is impossible to avoid the idea of succession once the word transmitted in Scripture is considered to be a sphere open to the future. In those writings of the New Testament that stand on the cusp of the second generation or else already belong to it-especially in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Pastoral Letters—the principle of succession does in fact take on concrete shape.
The Protestant notion that the "succession" consists solely in the word as such, but not in any "structures", is proved to be anachronistic in light of what in actual fact is the form of tradition in the New Testament. The word is tied to the witness, who guarantees it an unambiguous sense, which it does not possess as a mere word floating in isolation. But the witness is not an individual who stands independently on his own. He is no more a wit ness by virtue of himself and of his own powers of memory than Peter can be the rock by his own strength. He is not a witness as "flesh and blood" but as one who is linked to the Pneuma, the Paraclete who authenticates the truth and opens up the memory and, in his turn, binds the witness to Christ. For the Paraclete does not speak of himself, but he takes from "what is his" (that is, from what is Christ's: Jn 16: 13).
This binding of the witness to the Pneuma and to his mode of being-"not of himself, but what he hears" -is called "sacrament" in the language of the Church. Sacrament designates a threefold knot-word, witness, Holy Spirit and Christ-which describes the essential structure of succession in the New Testament. We can infer with certainty from the testimony of the Pastoral Letters and of the Acts of the Apostles that the apostolic generation already gave to this interconnection of person and word in the believed presence of the Spirit and of Christ the form of the laying on of hands.
The Petrine succession in Rome
In opposition to the New Testament pattern of succession described above, which withdraws the word from human manipulation precisely by binding witnesses into its service, there arose very early on an intellectual and anti-institutional model known historically by the name of Gnosis, which made the free interpretation and speculative development of the word its principle. Before long the appeal to individual witnesses no longer sufficed to counter the intellectual claim advanced by this tendency. It became necessary to have fixed points by which to orient the testimony itself, and these were found in the so-called apostolic sees, that is, in those where the apostles had been active. The apostolic sees became the reference point of true communio. But among these sees there was in turn–quite clearly in Irenaeus of Lyons–a decisive criterion that recapitulated all others: the Church of Rome, where Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom. It was with this Church that every community had to agree; Rome was the standard of the authentic apostolic tradition as a whole.
Moreover, Eusebius of Caesarea organized the first version of his ecclesiastical history in accord with the same principle. It was to be a written record of the continuity of apostolic succession, which was concentrated in the three Petrine sees Rome, Antioch and Alexandria-among which Rome, as the site of Peter's martyrdom, was in turn preeminent and truly normative. [2]
This leads us to a very fundamental observation. [3] The Roman primacy, or, rather, the acknowledgement of Rome as the criterion of the right apostolic faith, is older than the canon of the New Testament, than "Scripture".
We must be on our guard here against an almost inevitable illusion. "Scripture" is more recent than "the scriptures" of which it is composed. It was still a long time before the existence of the individual writings resulted in the "New Testament" as Scripture, as the Bible. The assembling of the writings into a single Scripture is more properly speaking the work of tradition, a work that began in the second century but came to a kind of conclusion only in the fourth or fifth century. Harnack, a witness who cannot be suspected of pro-Roman bias, has remarked in this regard that it was only at the end of the second century, in Rome, that a canon of the "books of the New Testament" won recognition by the criterion of apostolicity-catholicity, a criterion to which the other Churches also gradually subscribed "for the sake of its intrinsic value and on the strength of the authority of the Roman Church".
We can therefore say that Scripture became Scripture through the tradition, which precisely in this process included the potentior principalitas–the preeminent original authority–of the Roman see as a constitutive element.
Two points emerge clearly from what has just been First, the principle of tradition in its sacramental form-apostolic succession—played a constitutive role in the existence and continuance of the Church. Without this principle, it is impossible to conceive of a New Testament at all, so that we are caught in a contradiction when we affirm the one while wanting to deny the other. Furthermore, we have seen that in Rome the traditional series of bishops was from the very beginning recorded as a line of successors.
We can add that Rome and Antioch were conscious of succeeding to the mission of Peter and that early on Alexandria was admitted into the circle of Petrine sees as the city where Peter's disciple Mark had been active. Having said all that, the site of Peter's martyrdom nonetheless appears clearly as the chief bearer of his supreme authority and plays a preeminent role in the formation of tradition which is constitutive of the Church-and thus in the genesis of the New Testament as Bible; Rome is one of the indispensable internal and external- conditions of its possibility. It would be exciting to trace the influence on this process of the idea that the mission of Jerusalem had passed over to Rome, which explains why at first Jerusalem was not only not a "patriarchal see" but not even a metropolis: Jerusalem was now located in Rome, and since Peter's departure from that city, its primacy had been transferred to the capital of the pagan world. [4]
But to consider this in detail would lead us too far afield for the moment. The essential point, in my opinion, has already become plain: the martyrdom of Peter in Rome fixes the place where his function continues. The awareness of this fact can be detected as early as the first century in the Letter of Clement, even though it developed but slowly in all its particulars.
Concluding reflections
We shall break off at this point, for the chief goal of our considerations has been attained. We have seen that the New Testament as a whole strikingly demonstrates the primacy of Peter; we have seen that the formative development of tradition and of the Church supposed the continuation of Peter's authority in Rome as an intrinsic condition. The Roman primacy is not an invention of the popes, but an essential element of ecclesial unity that goes back to the Lord and was developed faithfully in the nascent Church.
But the New Testament shows us more than the formal aspect of a structure; it also reveals to us the inward nature of this structure. It does not merely furnish proof texts, it is a permanent criterion and task. It depicts the tension between skandalon and rock; in the very disproportion between man's capacity and God's sovereign disposition, it reveals God to be the one who truly acts and is present.
If in the course of history the attribution of such authority to men could repeatedly engender the not entirely unfounded suspicion of human arrogation of power, not only the promise of the New Testament but also the trajectory of that history itself prove the opposite. The men in question are so glaringly, so blatantly unequal to this function that the very empowerment of man to be the rock makes evident how little it is they who sustain the Church but God alone who does so, who does so more in spite of men than through them.
The mystery of the Cross is perhaps nowhere so palpably present as in the primacy as a reality of Church history. That its center is forgiveness is both its intrinsic condition and the sign of the distinctive character of God's power. Every single biblical logion about the primacy thus remains from generation to generation a signpost and a norm, to which we must ceaselessly resubmit ourselves. When the Church adheres to these words in faith, she is not being triumphalistic but humbly recognizing in wonder and thanksgiving the victory of God over and through human weakness. Whoever deprives these words of their force for fear of triumphalism or of human usurpation of authority does not proclaim that God is greater but diminishes him, since God demonstrates the power of his love, and thus remains faithful to the law of the history of salvation, precisely in the paradox of human impotence.
For with the same realism with which we declare today the sins of the popes and their disproportion to the magnitude of their commission, we must also acknowledge that Peter has repeatedly stood as the rock against ideologies, against the dissolution of the word into the plausibilities of a given time, against subjection to the powers of this world.
When we see this in the facts of history, we are not celebrating men but praising the Lord, who does not abandon the Church and who desired to manifest that he is the rock through Peter, the little stumbling stone: "flesh and blood" do not save, but the Lord saves through those who are of flesh and blood. To deny this truth is not a plus of faith, not a plus of humility, but is to shrink from the humility that recognizes God as he is. Therefore the Petrine promise and its historical embodiment in Rome remain at the deepest level an ever-renewed motive for joy: the powers of hell will not prevail against it . . .
Endnotes:
[1] Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 2d ed. (198 1), 147- 51; cf. Gnilka, 56.
[2] For an exhaustive account of this point, see V. Twomey, Apostolikos Thronos (Münster, 1982).
[3] It is my hope that in the not-too-distant future I will have the opportunity to develop and substantiate in greater detail the view of the succession that I attempt to indicate in an extremely condensed form in what follows. I owe important suggestions to several works by 0. Karrer, especially: Um die Einheit der Christen. Die Petrusfrage (Frankfurt am Mainz, 1953); "Apostolische Nachfolge und Primat", in: Feiner, Trütsch and Böckle, Fragen in der Theologie heute (Freiburg im.Breisgau, 1957), 175-206; "Das Petrusamt in der Frühkirche", in Festgabe J. Lortz (Baden-Baden, 1958), 507-25; "Die biblische und altkirchliche Grundlage des Papsttums", in: Lebendiges Zeugnis (1958), 3-24. Also of importance are some of the papers in the festschrift for 0. Karrer: Begegnung der Christen, ed. by Roesle-Cullmann (Frankfurt am Mainz, 1959); in particular, K. Hofstetter, "Das Petrusamt in der Kirche des I. und 2. Jahrhunderts", 361-72.
[4] Cf. Hofstetter.
Alamo-Girl has mentioned some quantum physics examples.
There are some mysterioius Scriptural examples . . . God changing His mind at Moses persuasion.
God sending an evil spirit.
Paradoxes abound in life and reality. Very counter to logic as humans normally construe logic.
But maybe that's something only old foggies like me notice much.
The history of the human Roman organization is full of blazing brazen examples to the opposite. I have no need to rub anyone's nose in them. But I'm a bit shocked that the above statement is believed by anyone in light of them.
Absolute power corrupting absolutely has been exemplified worst in RELIGIOUS organizations up until probably Hitler. There could be other exceptions I'm not thinking of at the moment. Augustine was wiser than to have made such a brash statement. Evidently his biases blinded him.
it is not the Roman Hierarchy per se that determines orthdoxy--as 20,000+ different John SKERRIAN FLIPFLOPS, indulgences, Papal exceptions for Papal escapades . . . on what is right and wrong from one year, decade, century to the next have demonstrated with abundant repetitiveness. It is fundamentally the Church, particularly, her bishops in POLITICAL succession from the Apostles and in POLITICAL BLOCK MANEUVERING with the bishop holding the seat of THE CHIEF POLITICIAN--THE POPE--THAT HAS DEMONSTRATED VERY BRAZENLY SO REPEATEDLY OVER THE CENTURIES that Phariseeism is alive and well on planet earth.
Just as in the days of Christ and the Apostles, to enter the Church was to enter into political gamesmanchip with the currently most politically successful pharisees and to submit to their leadership and authority, VS THAT OF SCRIPTURE AND THE HOLY SPIRIT . . . so today to enter the Church is to FAR TO OFTEN IN MOST ALL ORGANIZED RELIGIOUS GROUPS . . . to enter into more political gamesmanship; pharisaical posturing and pontificating with those bishops in succession from the pharisees of Jesus' earthly walk and submit to their spiritually corrupt; spiritually bankrupt; spiritually deadly leadership and authority.
. . . slightly . . . (tee hee) . . . edited for accuracy and Scriptural faithfulness.
Peter is referring here at the Council of Jerusalem [circa 50 AD] about the event that happened "a good while ago", meaning at the House of Cornelius [circa 36 AD]. Read what God had to do to change Peter's thinking that the Gentiles should hear the Gospel. Peter had to be pulled kicking and screaming into Cornelius's house, and was clearly stunned at what transpired there, understanding then and only then that the Gospel should also go to the Gentiles, but it was then Paul not Peter who was anointed, prepared, and commissioned with that task:
" . . . they saw that the Gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me [Paul], as the Gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter" [Galatians 2:9]
It didn't mean that Peter was limited to only Jews and Paul to only Gentiles, because Gentiles and Jews were often in the same crowds and heard the same messages. But the Gospel as Paul delivered it was specially oriented toward Gentiles, while Peter's always had a unique Jewish flavor.
-A8
RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD; FELLOWSHIP; WALKING IN THE GARDEN; INTIMATE DIALOGUE PERSON TO PERSON WITH GOD.
(Please stop using all caps.)
Anti-institutionalism of the sort you are advancing is a form of Protestantism. It is the natural development of Protestantism, and can be found in the Anabaptist tradition of Protestantism (think of Quakers, Brethren, etc.). So, we don't need an additional category of the sort you suggest. It is covered by Protestantism.
-A8
"Admittedly the Catholic position, that bishops are successors of the apostles by divine institution, remains far from easy to establish . . . The first problem has to do with the notion that Christ ordained apostles as bishops . . . The apostles were missionaries and founders of churches; there is no evidence, nor is it at all likely, that any one of them ever took up permanent residence in a particular church as its bishop . . . The letter of the Romans to the Corinthians, known as I Clement, which dates to about the year 96, provides good evidence that about 30 years after the death of St. Paul, the church of Corinth was being led by a group of presbyters, with no indication of a bishop with the authority over the whole local church . . . Most scholars are of the opinion that the church of Rome would most probably have been led at that time by a group of presbyters . . . There exists a broad consensus among scholars, including most Catholic ones, that such churches as Alexandria, Philippi, Corinth, and Rome most probably continued to be led for some time by a college of presbyters, and that only in the second century did the threefold structure become generally the rule, with a bishop, assisted by presbyters, presiding over each local church."
Isn't honest scholarship refreshing. A Catholic scholar who also disagrees with Jerome and Eusebius. According to honest Catholic scholars, the first Roman Church was a Presbyterian Church. The See of Rome was built on presbyterians not St. Peter or a bishopric attributed to him. Is that not a bit humorous?
Was F A Sullivan part of that vaunted Magisterium? Why don't we hear more from these honest Catholic scholars who also don't believe Jerome or Eusebius, and the great legend of Peter's 25 year Roman bishopric? Or maybe after writing this he became a Presbyterian.
The history of the human Roman organization is full of blazing brazen examples to the opposite.
Name one example in the history of the Catholic Church of orthodoxy being determined by the laity instead of the bishops.
Absolute power corrupting absolutely has been exemplified worst in RELIGIOUS organizations up until probably Hitler.
First, neither the Pope nor the bishops have "absolute power". Second, Christ is the one who gave ruling authority to the Apostles, and through them to the bishops they ordained. Seemingly, on your view, Christ should not have ordained Apostles and bishops. The fact that secular political authorities sometimes abuse their authority does not imply that we should rebel against the bishops, or that orthodoxy is not determined by them.
Augustine was wiser than to have made such a brash statement. Evidently his biases blinded him.
Or, your anti-institutional bias is blinding you. Which is more likely, that you are blinded, or that the great saint Augustine (and all the fathers, since they all agreed with him) were blinded?
it is not the Roman Hierarchy per se that determines orthdoxy--as 20,000+ different John SKERRIAN FLIPFLOPS
Please name one 'flipflop' in Catholic *dogma*. Just one.
-A8
-A8
"Irenaeus focuses on the church of Rome which he describes as 'greatest, most ancient, and known to all, founded and established by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul'. Here, we must acknowledge a bit of rhetoric, as the church of Rome was not so ancient as those of Jerusalem or Antioch, nor was it actually founded by Peter or Paul"
Once again an honest Catholic scholar admitting that Irenaeus, and subsequently Eusebius and Jerome, were mistaken. Whos is the scholar here and who is the rhetorician?
Which Catholic encylopedia would that be?
Since you have already shown yourself to be willing to make things up, I'm not going to accept your claim that Sullivan's book has the nihil obstat, without some verification.
-A8
The standard set out by the Bible that Jesus allowed Himself to be judged by is the Law, not the church. When your church violates the Law, what course to you have to affect change? What exactly can Catholic laity do to affect the excommunication of a member of the clergy?
1Pe 5:1 Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, 1Pe 5:2 shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; 1Pe 5:3 nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. 1Pe 5:4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
Peter recognized that he was a "fellow elder" and that Christ is the Chief Elder.
Now, consider the verses below and tell me how they can be reconciled with the nature of the Catholic Church:
1Th 5:21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; 1Th 5:22 abstain from every form of evil.
Rom 14:5 One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.
Phi 2:12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
Yes, we have to follow our conscience regarding the moral law. But the laity have no authority with respect to ecclesial or canon law.
When your church violates the Law, what course to you have to affect change?
Are you referring to moral law or ecclesial law?
What exactly can Catholic laity do to affect the excommunication of a member of the clergy?
Pray for the excommunicated person and attempt to persuade them to seek reconciliation with the Church.
-A8
It is a matter of credibility. Is the legend of the Roman Church true or is Scripture? Too many Protestants have just accepted the fact of a 25 year Petrine Bishopric in Rome as fact, when Scripture and honest Patriarchs and honest Catholic scholars testify against it.
The question is why do Protestant scholars blindly accept this myth rather than believe the truth of the Scriptures on this matter. Where the Scriptures are silent on a matter, scholars should be. But when Peter writes an epistle from Babylon, as late as 65 AD, why do believers in Sola Scriptura so readily spiritualize Babylon away and say that he really meant Rome. What else are believers in Sola Scriptura spiritualizing away?
It is true that at least in some cases congregations did select candidates for Church offices, but the candidates still had to be approved and ordained by the bishops. Congregations had no authority or power to ordain bishops or presbyers (priests).
-A8
Why should it even matter if what he said is true and the result of honest scholarship? Oh no --- don't tell me --- have they dug up his bones too and burned them?
Because you are trying to create the appearance of a contradiction within orthodox Catholicism. If Sullivan's book lacks the nihil obstat (and I suspect that it does), then your case for a contradiction within orthodox Catholicism is obviously deficient.
-A8
"It is a matter of credibility. Is the legend of the Roman Church true or is Scripture?"
_____________________________
I follow this completely. Objective pursuit of the truth should always be our goal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.