Epiphanius therefore does not much help you out. is Peter's faith one time, Peter himself another; but then because of the immediate revelation made to him by the Father. You next press Chrysostom on us; we will examine him too. You quote him on Matt. 55.

on Pentecost, which is as
strong as possible in the
same sense, I do not quote,
as the best editors consider
it spurious. There it is
said,
"He did not say on
Peter, referring to Petra, a
rock, for He did not found
His Church on a man, but
on faith." At any rate, it
is an ancient testimony.

But Cyril in his dialogue on the Trinity IV., vol. ii., p. 1, 507, says on the verse:

However, Chrysostom's testimony is exactly the opposite to what it is alleged for. I next take Cyril. "That in him as in a rock and most firm stone, he was going to build his Church." What I do find in Cyril nearest to this is [Christ] most suitably from the rock changed his name to Peter (petra, petron), for he was about to found his Church on him." That is in Commentary on John I. (Paris, 1638.)

Calling a rock, I think, by a change of word, nothing else, I think, but the immovable and firm faith of the disciples upon which, without possibility of falling, God has established and fixed the Church of Christ."

We have not thus made much progress with the Fathers yet. The Greek Fathers do some of them speak of Peter, but I have taken up those presented by you, and all but one say the contrary of your interpretation, though they several of them contradict themselves, which it is important enough for us to remark. We have not

only Fathers against Fathers, but Fathers against themselves. That is a poor foundation for faith. The Council of Trent will not allow the consent of the Fathers to be rejected in interpretation; but we find no such consent, not even, in most cases, of one Father with himself. But we will turn to the Latin ones. You quote them also. You quote Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, and refer to Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose. I will follow here also. For one has only to know the Fathers to know what their

authority is worth. Of Tertullian it is somewhat difficult to speak, because after having been a very great stickler for ecclesiastical authority (not for Rome) he became a very violent opponent of it. So that what was declared by him to be a sure foundation proved to be none in his own case. One could hardly have a more solid answer for one who would rest on his or on any Father's authority. Father 0. But any one may fall.

N*. No doubt, but it is a proof that what he has pleaded as a security from falling is not a very solid one. Tertullian pleaded the prescription of the Church, i.e., tradition, as the grand security. He abandoned it all as carnal (physical). But I add it never was the

Not

authority of Rome on which he rested his case. only when a Montanist (de Pud.) he charges his adversaries with overturning the manifest purpose of Christ who conferred authority personally on Peter-"I will give to thee """whatsoever thou

;

way

in which he is perfectly right; but in the book "de Præscriptione," and the passage so much relied upon, he makes doctrine the test. "In the same they, the heretics, will be tested by these Churches, which, though they can allege no Apostle nor Apostolic man as their founder, as having a much later origin, yet agreeing in the same faith, are accounted Apostolic by reason of consanguinity of doctrine." This we are quite ready to accept. Of Tertullian's system we have spoken. Strange to say even this book is held by many learned men, Romanist and Protestant, to have been written when Tertullian had become a Montanist, as Dupin does on the one hand, and Allix on the other. Nor has he a thought in the treatise of setting up the authority of Rome. He insists that in Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, or Rome, you can trace up the doctrine to an Apostolic source, and thus confute the heretics who have introduced new doctrines. Now, we hold entirely that what was at first-not early merely, but at first-was right, and that only (see 1 John ii. 24). Therefore we condemn Rome, who has innovated. But it is evident that an inspired epistle of an Apostle is a better evidence of what the Apostle taught than a tradition after the

What was first was

lapse of centuries of uninspired men. and is right. But the Epistles and other Scriptures are what was first, and therefore we receive them only. To show Tertullian's mind and how little he referred exclusively to Peter, I will quote another passage of his. The Apostles were all sent forth, he says, after the Lord's resurrection, "and promulgated the same doctrine of the same faith to the nations, and then founded Churches in each city, from which other Churches have borrowed, and daily borrow, the descent of faith and seeds of doctrine, that they may become Churches; and by this they also are accounted Apostolic as offspring of Apostolic Churches. The whole race is necessarily referred to its own origin. Therefore so many and so great Churches are that first one from the Apostles from which all are. Thus all are the first and Apostolic, while all prove unity together." How far this is from having anything to do with Roman supremacy or Rome's being a security for truth, save as part of the whole, or Peter's being the one who ruled over all and secured truth, I need not say. It shuts out any such thought wholly. This was the common ground of those who plead prescription.

I turn to Cyprian. You quote from him,

"The Lord chose Peter first and built the Church on him."

I will complete the

phrase.

"But custom is not to be used as an authority, but one must be overcome by reasons. For neither did Peter, whom the Lord chose first and on whom he built His Church, when Paul afterwards contended with him about circumcision, claim anything insolently to himself, or assume anything arrogantly, so as to say that he held any primacy."

This is a strange passage to quote to prove Peter's primacy by; but, the truth is, Cyprian was the stern and successful resister of the commencing pretensions of Rome,

and maintained an active correspondence with Asia Minor, Spain, and other parts to consolidate the whole Episcopacy, for that was his system against any pretensions to a primacy. He expresses himself thus: "One Episcopacy diffused in the accordant multitude of many bishops." So with the whole synod of Carthage, speaking of the Apostles, he says, "to whom we succeed, governing the Church of God with the same power." By no one, while acknowledging Peter as a centre of unity, is the equal power of bishops and their independency more stoutly maintained.

In his fifty-fifth letter he says: "The bond of concord remaining, and individual fidelity to the Catholic Church maintained, each bishop disposes and directs his own acts, rendering an account to the Lord of his course. And writing to the Pope, to whom he never yielded, he says: "In which matter we neither do violence to any one, nor give the law, as each one who is set over [a Church] is to have in the administration of the Church the free judgment of his own will, having to render account of his conduct to God." The history of what passed between him and Popes in this respect we have referred to already.

You quote Jerome. "I will build my Church upon thee."

Jerome does say so, and in a letter full of flattery and servility flies to Pope Damasus to know whether he is to say three hypostases or three persons; and he says, "I know that the Church was built on that rock," that is the see of Peter. And says pretty much the same in his commentary on Isaiah, Lib. I. ch. ii., though he makes all the Apostles mountains. But then on Amos, Lib. III. ch. vi., he says: "Christ is the rock who granted to His