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.
What do you think?
Now the first thing that we need to do is to eliminate all the places where the evidence that Peter ever was in Rome cannot be found so that we can narrow our search and concentrate on what evidence there is. So if you will start posting those quotes from "the Fathers", I will get busy and start by narrowing our search. Come on, you have to do your part, and I will do mine.
"Successors" dragging his good name through the mud. I'm going to mention but not credit his successors for the myriad great things they accomplished because to build hospitals for the lame and sick is what you're supposed to do. To advance the Great Commission, is what you're supposed to do. Though, back from one of his trips to Rome, Luther did comment that the hospitals were top-notch. That being said, no one should expect credit for that which is their duty. Their patronage of the arts and sciences certainly is creditable -as Church as State-, but irrelevant strictly as the Church. They filled the vacuum that the collapse of the Roman Empire left. And it is remarkable how fast they went from being persecuted to persecuting. That's a sweet bit of total depravity, right there. They chose to fill that vacuum, and as far as supplanting Islam is concerned, you could probably make a good argument that the papacy was a good thing, that Urban was a shrewd, courageous, and prescient necessity. But, after all of this, for all of their efforts and sweat, they were rewarded handsomely. They are men of property, after all.
I've been reading some Barth, and I can't tell you how much I like him. We Protestants have him, Catholics have Newman. Here's a bit of Newman:
As to this doctrine the question is this, whether there was not from the first a certain element at work, or in existence, divinely sanctioned, which, for certain reasons, did not at once show itself upon the surface of ecclesiastical affairs, and of which events in the fourth century are the development; and whether the evidence of its existence and operation, which does occur in the earlier centuries, be it much or little, is not just such as ought to occur upon such an hypothesis.. . . While Apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope . . .
. . . St. Peter's prerogative would remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters became the cause of ascertaining it. While Christians were "of one heart and soul," it would be suspended; love dispenses with laws . . .
When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local disturbances gave exercise to Bishops,and next ecumenical disturbances gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred. it is not a greater difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about Bishops. And it is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is violated . . .
History as dogma, dogma a history; sweet work, if you can get it. Who can't win with this formula? Cardinal Newman is reputed to have said that, 'to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.' Perhaps. Then again, maybe, to be deeply deep in history is to commence being a Presbyterian. By the way, Cardinal Newman had one brother who was an atheist and one who was a communist. So, for at least one of his brothers, to be really deep in history was to 'cease to be a theist.'
But seriously, who can buy this and not see the inherent schizophrenia? A schizophrenia that has produced a break with Traditionalists whose arguments are not as 'untenable' as Catholics in Communion with Extreme Prejudice would have you believe. By the way Catholics in Communion with Extreme Prejudice are those Catholics who seem to get positively aroused at the idea that a good auto-da-fe might be right around the corner.
Vatican I Catholicism bludgeoned the faithful with those precepts that the Traditionalists insist are the Church always and forever. They believed the Church, they took the Church at her word, and their reward is that they are now considered unfit to be seen in public with. Typical: dump one remnant, find another. If my sympathies lie anywhere in Catholicism, they lie with the Traditionalists, and paradoxically the great, courageous Lord Acton.
With such a "living" magisterium what is NOT permissible? Why it's the same thing that happens when you get a living Constitution: "congress shall make no law" translates somehow into the second amendment being a creature of its day, and nothing more. As Castro said to the Cubans who stupidly bought his, 'once the revolution is over, you'll get your guns back', and once the revolution was over and he was approached about getting those guns back, he said 'armas porque?' Like I said, sweet work, if you can get it.
Contrast Barth and Newman: Barth gives us these breathtakingingly beautiful images of the Grandeur of God. Newman gives us rules and regs. Now, I know that Catholicism is the 'thinking man's' religion and all, because a couple of people have told me that, but what they neglected to mention is that there's a good possibility that it's the same kind of thinking done in the R-wing.
Just for the record, I like your colorful, brash posts .. *wink*. I struggle to read alot of all caps, but I never have to look to the bottom of the post to see whose post I'm reading..
luv ya brother.
THAT was beautiful. (and experienced in many many many non-RC churches.) I wish everyone could experience the Body and the Blood like that, A8. Unfortunately, to many, it is just something they do every sunday at church. Thanks for that insight into your love of the Eucharist.
Despite our differences, it goes back to Christ and only Christ, doesn't it?
We can eliminate all the Books of the Old Testament from Genesis through Malachi --- there is no evidence there. I trust that your search is going well. What have you found? This work that we are engaging in is worth a doctorate if we can do a thorough and exhaustive job, don't you think?. So Godspeed on your end.
Now I will begin my search through the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament.
UC
LOL!!! You almost make me believe in the raptu.......
Overturning any Catholic dogmas.
-A8
Overturning any Catholic dogmas.
Well, the magisterium may think that way now, but just wait until we present our great research to them, right?. Now come on and get busy and post the evidence that you have accumulated thus far, and ask that magisterium to get busy too and help you.
A-G: Because the indwelling Spirit brings the Scriptures alive within me as my eyes pass over the words.
That does not explain why you think the writings of the Apostles are *authoritative*; it only says that they "come alive" when you read them. The missing premise is that whatever comes alive to oneself as one is reading it should be treated as authoritative over oneself.
In other words, if you had been reading an article in Reader's Digest, and the words 'came alive' to you, would you then treat Reader's Digest as authoritative right along with the NT? It is an amazing coincidence that the books that have 'come alive' to you are (so far at least, I assume) only ones the Church teaches are authoritative. But if this experience (of having the words 'come alive') happens while you are reading something else (e.g. The Gospel of Thomas, Chicken Soup for the Soul, etc.), it seems that, to be consistent, you will have to add it to your personal canon. If someone else comes along and says that while reading the Gospel of Thomas the words "came alive" to him, you would have no way of showing him that he should not add the Gospel of Thomas to his own personal canon.
-A8
I very strongly agree with you Quix: IOW, when the Holy Spirit is quenched, all that remains is a worthless shell.
After posting last night about authority and unity, it dawned on me that there were a few additional things I should have said.
Truly, I surrender to God alone. That is absolute because I love Him absolutely.
But surrendering to Him also brings me into obedience to His will concerning families, government, etc.
Thus I do submit to my own husband (not to men in general) and I did submit to my parents who are now in heaven. Likewise I submit to government and its law enforcement officers. I also listen attentively to speakers who show all (not just a few) of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23 and Matthew 7). Nevertheless, I put whatever they say to the Berean test of Scripture which (as I have mentioned before) the indwelling Spirit brings alive in me. In this way, I only receive Truth which is revealed by the Spirit.
If I were a slave, I would submit to my master.
But none of these submissions, commanded by God in the Scriptures substitute for Him as the only one to Whom I surrender.
As Christ said in Matthew 22 - the first and greatest commandment is to love Him absolutely (paraphrased). The distant second is to love our neighbor unconditionally. On these two commandments "hang" all of the law and the prophets.
A good example of what happens when one gets her priorities turned upside down is Ananias' wife Sapphira in Acts 5. She was helping her husband but she was not surrendered to God. Her mortal life was brought to a hasty end.
Likewise, meditating on Revelation - even if the government demanded it, the religious authorities sanctioned it and even if my husband and/or parents demanded it and it were necessary to prevent my husband and children from dying from starvation - I would not accept the mark of the Beast to buy food or anything else.
And adiairton8, in reply to your post 1550: those who experience the indwelling Spirit as described in Romans 8, need no explanation, those who do not would not believe it anyway.
That's what the Mormons say. So who should we believe, you or the Mormons?
-A8
How is your research going? I trust that you are doing a full and exhaustive job, and that the magisterium is assisting you. I think that they will be so pleased with our great and exhaustive work here that they will grant you a Doctorate. How does "Dr Adiaire8" sound to you, or "Dr. A8" for short. Well I'm going to help you get there.
Now I will begin my search through all the Books of the New Testament. This might take a little longer because I want to be absolutely certain. Godspeed ---
Here's the dilemma: either those children will have more spiritual authority than you, or their spiritual authority will be equal to or less than your spiritual authority.
If those children will have more spiritual authority than do you, will you submit to them? But if the spiritual authority of those children will be equal to or less than your spiritual authority, will you too be sending "generals and their armies to their deaths and hell"?
-A8
I do believe Jesus. And Jesus is telling me that all Christians should be Catholic.
-A8
I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this discussion and the obvious scholarship involved. However, I keep wondering why would the Church in Rome not have corrected the error in recognizing who founded the church there. They would have known who was their founder, or did this begin so many years after the fact no one was left who could refute it?
= = =
How many groups or lofty leaders, for that matter,
have deliberately undermined their death grip on awesome power?
. . . or for that matter . . . even the foundation of their pride?
AWESOME POLITICAL POWER has a LOT of attractions and bennies. They are hard to turn loose of or weaken.
Your kind words are prone to bringing tears . . . again!
LUB, too.
-A8
AMEN! God is knowable. All creation shouts His name.
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