to give way to" institutional" religion or, as in the continental Protestant Churches, to an ethical philosophy based upon the moral teachings of Christ. Everywhere dogma, which is of the essence of Catholicism, is falling into disrepute. In Roman Catholic countries, notably those afflicted with the Latin passion for logic, the rigid dogmatism of the Church has led to a widespread revolt against any form of Christianity, and the well-meant efforts of the Modernists, to woo the erring sheep back by showing that the doctrines of the Church are not irreconcilable with the conclusions of the higher criticism, have met with but short shrift. Pope Pius X, in the uncompromising encyclical Pascendi gregis, denounced with bitter scorn those so-called Catholics who dared to reconcile the doctrines of the Church with the results of modern science and, presumptuously disregarding the authority of the Holy See, maintained "the absurd doctrine that would make of the laity a factor of progress in the Church."

In taking up this attitude His Holiness certainly displayed the wisdom of the serpent, if not the harmlessness of the dove. In a world flooded with subversive ideas, anxious souls, adrift in deep waters, were groping for a foot-hold for their faith. One secure foot-hold alone seemed to remain: the Rock of Peter, inflexibly rigid, unmoved amid the tides and currents of opinion that swirled about it. Once admit a fault in it, a fissure into which a trickle of disintegrating doubt might enter, and its unique attraction would be lost. Therefore the Pope, as the way of Popes has always been, preserved the solidity of the faith by casting into outer darkness those who imperilled it by attempting to interpret it anew. It is a simple and effective method of preserving unity, and singularly impressive for all those who feel the need for an infallible authority to rest on.

Many of those who have transferred their religious allegiance to Rome have doubtless done so only after profound thought and study. This was certainly the case with John Henry Newman who, happily for himself, did not live to see the arguments, by which he had persuaded himself of the validity of the Papal claims, confounded in a common condemnation with the views of the Modernists by the encyclical Pascendi gregis. But very few of those who have been attracted towards the Roman Church have hitherto had the opportunity of searching into the roots of the matter or, in other words, of becoming directly acquainted

with the documentary evidence surviving from the early centuries of the history of the Church, by which alone the validity of the Papal claims can be tested. Therefore the appearance of the book under review is to be welcomed; for in it Professors Shotwell and Loomis have for the first time published, with introductions and notes written in a spirit of scientific detachment, English translations of all the more important documents extant which bear on the origin of the Petrine claims and the rise of the See of Peter, from the beginning to A.D. 380. A careful study of this volume will enable any educated person to form a tolerably clear idea as to how far the foundations on which the Papal autocracy is based are rock or sand. Before dealing with this evidence, however, it will be well to state briefly what is the nature of the Papal claim.

According to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, Jesus Christ, when he founded the Church as a visible institution, gave to Peter precedence over the other apostles, endowed him with the power of the keys and with supreme authority to teach and rule, appointed him his representative (vicar) on earth, and declared him to be the rock on which his Church was founded.. Since, however, the Church was founded for all time, it follows that the powers conferred on Peter could not lapse with his death, but must pass on to all those who should succeed him in his divinely appointed office to the end of time. Owing to Peter's connection with the bishopric of Rome, which he is held to have founded, his privileges are believed to have descended to all his successors in the Roman See, which is thus at once the centre of Catholic unity and the guardian and fount of Catholic truth. This claim reached its supreme expression in 1870 at the Vatican Council. The council not only anathematised all those who should deny the supreme jurisdiction of the Roman Pope over the universal Church; it decreed that, in virtue of the divine assistance promised to Peter,

The Roman Pontiff, when he speaks from the throne (ex cathedra), that is, when in his function as pastor and teacher (doctor) of all Christians and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority he defines a doctrine concerning faith and morals to be held by the whole Church, possesses the infallibility which the Divine Redeemer willed his Church to possess in the defining of doctrine concerning faith and morals; moreover, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable in themselves, and not by virtue of the consensus of the Church.

It remains but to add that the dogma of papal infallibility, thus newly defined, is not put forward as something new, but as belonging to the “tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith."

At the outset it is to be noted that the fundamental basis of this stupendous claim is, like the faith of Protestants, scriptural; equally with Protestant doctrine, it stands or falls with the authority of the texts on which it is based, namely, certain verses in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and the last chapter of the Gospel of John. The most important of these references--the corner-stone of the whole papal edifice-is the passage (Matt. xvi, 13-19) in which it is recorded that, in answer to Peter's confession of faith, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," the Lord says:

Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter (i.e., a rock) and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Modern criticism has cast doubts on this passage, and it is certainly strange that Mark, whose Gospel is admittedly based on Peter's own recollections, records indeed the apostle's confession of faith, but says no word of the tremendous and fateful response it evoked from the Lord. The question of the authenticity of the texts is, however, of minor importance, since they are accepted as authentic by all orthodox Christians and the question at issue between those who accept the claims of Rome and those who reject them is solely one of interpretation. What did Christ mean when he said that upon " this rock" he would build his Church?

From the first the interpretations were various. There is evidence that in the second century the bishops of Rome were already claiming special privileges as the successors of St. Peter; but the evidence is yet more abundant that this claim was by no means admitted by the Church at large. Tertullian pours scorn on the Roman Bishop Callistus for assuming that the power of the keys had descended exclusively to him "or to any Church related to Peter." He says: "As the power was conferred upon Peter personally, so it belongs to spiritual men, whether apostle

or prophet" (De pudicitia, cc. 1, 21). Origen takes the same view : "The promise to Peter is made to all the rest; he breathed upon all and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Anyone who makes Peter's profession receives the promises which in the letter of the Gospel were spoken to Peter alone." Opinions equally at variance with the later claims of Rome were pronounced by some of the most eminent saints and doctors of the early Church. Cyprian of Carthage (c. 200-258 A.D.), though he held that Christ built his Church upon one man in order to make clear its unity, as though it originated from one man," adds that the Lord, after his resurrection, granted an equal power to all his apostles (de ecclesia catholicæ unitate, 4). Cyprian denounces Pope Stephen for his "effrontery and insolence," his "open and conspicuous folly," and tells him that he is "worse than all the heretics." "Even Peter," he says, "whom the Lord first chose and upon whom he built his Church, when Paul later disputed with him about circumcision, did not claim insolently any prerogative for himself nor make any arrogant assumptions, nor say that he had the primacy and ought to be obeyed, especially by novices and late-comers " (Epist. lxxi).* Clearly, in the second and third centuries there was no definite meaning attached to the "Rock of Peter." Nor was there any consensus of opinion during the centuries that followed. Augustine suggested that the Rock was Christ himself; for Chrysostom, as for Origen, it was Peter's confession of faith. As for modern Protestants, they have held, with Tertullian, that Christ's charge to Peter was personal; that the rock was the character of the apostle himself, and that this interpretation is fully borne out by the nature of Peter's authority as revealed in the Acts of the Apostles and in Paul's Epistles.

Even if we concede the correctness of the interpretation which the Roman Church gives to Christ's charge to Peter, it by no means follows that the privileges thus conferred were bestowed upon the Roman Popes. As the authors of " The See of Peter " put it, "a grant of rights, conferred by however competent an authority on an individual two thousand years ago, can have no vital import for anyone to-day, unless the individual has left behind him a line of successors who have inherited and continuously

*The reference is to Galatians ii, 11: But when Cephas was come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed."

exercised those rights down to the present time." It may be assumed that, even without the Petrine tradition, Rome would have become one of the chief directing forces of Christendom, since it was the imperial city and its Church was distinguished by the size and quality of its membership. But in order to raise the Bishop of Rome to his unique position, as heir in his own person to Peter's peculiar powers, there must be a link connecting Peter so closely with the Roman bishopric that he, either with or without Paul, might be held to be its founder and to have bequeathed to it the exclusive authority with which the Lord had endowed him. This link is supplied by a meagre tradition-how meagre the documents printed in this book reveal. The authors conscientiously examine this evidence, but there is no need to follow their argument here, since it is now fairly generally admitted that Peter came to Rome and there suffered martyrdom during Nero's persecution.

But, though it be admitted that Peter was at Rome, it by no means follows that he acted there as bishop, and still less that he handed on his special powers to a successor. As to the first point, the statement that Peter was Bishop of Rome for twenty-five years is first found in the " Liberian Catalogue," which was compiled in A.D. 354. As to the second, Irenæus (c. 130-200 A.D.) merely records that "the blessed apostles [Peter and Paul] then founded and reared up this Church [of Rome] and afterwards committed unto Linus the office of the episcopate." It is only in the epistle of Clement to James, the brother of the Lord, which is a pious forgery of the late second or early third century, that we have a full account of Peter ordaining, not Linus, but Clement, as his successor with full powers. This "Pseudo-Clement," indeed, may be taken as a good illustration of the mass of legend which, as early as the second century, was springing up to obscure the issues. Especially was this true of the story, elaborated before the end of the second century and later accepted as authentic by the gravest fathers of the Church, of how Peter, by means of his miraculous powers, had triumphed at Rome over the archmagician Simon. This Simon Magus legend, which includes the beautiful Quo Vadis story, but is otherwise interesting only as illustrating the amazing ignorance and credulity of the times, is fully documented and discussed in this volume. As for the "Pseudo-Clement," which is the sole documentary authority,