ness he rebukes, approves, sets for was not transtrine, gives laws for worship and foonal. OriRomans, to Corinthians, Galatians, Epi.words, Philippians, to all it is the same; with tone of t varying and most natural authority, unruled and unshared by any man or power on earth. Not St. Peter, but St. Paul, was made of God to give to the Church the great lessons and laws of dogmatic doctrine. Not St. Peter, but St. Paul, laid down with authority the rules for private and social Christian living. Not St. Peter, but St. Paul, gave the laws for divine service and ritual usage in ordinary public worship, and in the administration of Holy Communion. Not St. Peter, but St. Paul, in his words to Timothy and Titus, is made the divine instrument for declaring and defining the powers and duties of the Bishop, the Priest and the Deacon in the Church. No wonder that St. Augustine writes "When 'Apostle' is said, if it be not expressed what Apostle, none is understood save Paul" No wonder that St. Chrysostom declares "When you say 'Apostle,' at once all think of Paul, just as when you say 'Baptist' they think of John." And here we must end this study of the Scriptural evidence.

And now, very briefly, what have the early Fathers to say? And first as to their understanding of the chief staple text urged by the Roman Church: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I

will build my Church." The Archbishop Kenrick before quoted was Archbishop of Baltimore; there is another of the same name, until recently Archbishop of St. Louis. In the Vatican Council he had prepared a speech which he was not permitted to deliver, but for which he secured publication. And he shows the interpretation of eighty-five of the accepted Fathers and Doctors, giving as the number of those who by the "Rock" understand St. Peter, only seventeen; out of which, four, Origen, Cyprian, Jerome and Augustine, are shown holding as equally acceptable a different interpretation, so reducing the number to thirteen; while forty-four make the faith which Peter professed to be the "Rock," and sixteen understood Christ Himself as the "Rock." Thirteen for the Roman claim; seventy-two, the Archbishop being witness, against it. But the Roman Creed of Pius IV. requires the promise "I will never take nor interpret the Holy Scriptures except in accordance with the unanimous consent of the Fathers." So out of her own mouth, Rome's claim to St. Peter as the "Rock" is made utterly void.

But I must confine myself to the Fathers of the first three centuries, and not pass the point to which I am limited. Happily for your patience there are only three or four to whom we can refer as clear. Tertullian plainly makes St. Peter the "Rock," though he asserts that the privilege given

to St. Peter died with him, and was not transmissible; that it was absolutely personal. Origen (A.D. 200-254,) preaching on these words, says "That rock is every disciple of Christ. But if thou thinkest that the Church is built by God on St. Peter alone, what dost thou say of John, the Son of Thunder and every one of the Apostles? Or shall we dare to say that the gates of hell were not to prevail against Peter in particular, but that they were to prevail against the other Apostles and perfect ones? Is it not true for each and all, what was said before, that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,' and also that other saying, 'Upon this rock I will build my Church '?"

We come next to St. Cyprian, whose Christian career was from A.D. 245 to 258. And from his special relation to the Church of Rome and his strong controversies with the Bishop of Rome, his evidence is important. The passages which might be quoted are many. Some of them, though still often quoted by Roman writers as strongly in their favor, are undoubted forgeries or perversions of the true text, and have been so acknowledged, and were as such for some time omitted by fairminded Roman editors. We omit them therefore. As to the rest, there seem to be at first very marked contradictions, and yet they may be entirely harmonized. St. Cyprian clearly recog

nized the fact of a Primacy of honorary leadership in St. Peter personally, just as you and I would acknowledge it. He understands the word "Rock" to be spoken of St. Peter personally; just as some of the strongest opponents of Rome (notably Puller in his late convincing work) understand the same allusion, and yet see in it only a prediction of St. Peter's forwardness in the Gospel work, and no conveyance of special authority. He recognized the Church at Rome as the root and matrix of the Church, because it was the one Church in the West which had immediate apostolic founders, and from whose apostolic origin all the national Churches in the West had a secondary origin; just as Tertullian, enumerating the several Churches in the East which had Apostles as their personal founders, calls them for that reason "Matrices of the Faith." All this tells of primacy of honor or historical fact. And all this you and I would acknowledge as well. But when he comes to speak of relative authority or official power, there is no mistaking the vigor with which he utterly repudiates and scorns any thought or claim of superiority in Rome or in its Bishop. He even couples the two views in the very same utterance, and the genuineness of these passages is not disputed. As when he says, "Neither did Peter, whom the Lord chose and upon whom He built His Church, when Paul disputed with him after

wards, claim aught for himself insolently, or arrogantly assume it, so as to assert that he held the Primacy and had a right to be obeyed by his juniors and successors." Again, we have his wellknown assertion of absolute equality in the apostleship: "The episcopate is a unity of which an undivided part is held by each." And another passage in which he names the Primacy as fully consistent with equality: "Undoubtedly the other Apostles were what Peter was, endowed with equal partnership both of honor and power, but the beginning is made from singleness, that the Church may be shown to be one."

But St. Cyprian's acts are even stronger than his words, and they fix the meaning of his words. if that meaning can be in doubt. Again and again did he by open act assert his absolute equality with the Bishop of Rome, and refuse to accept his decisions. When those who had been cen. sured or condemned, in his own see of Carthage, appealed to Rome as the chief Church, he denied all right in Rome to review the case. Primacy of honor in St. Peter, and Primacy of influence in Rome, St. Cyprian did acknowledge; but as to primacy of authority for either, he constantly and consistently denied and rejected every claim to it. Excommunicated by Stephen, Bishop of Rome, he was sorry for Stephen and sorry for the breach in the Church's peace, but he went on his way as un