APOSTOLIC
641
APOSTOLIC
have been defined, and confirm them by the author-
ity of the Blessed A|K)stle Peter.) It is a fact wortliy
of notice that, in later times, all those who wislied
to minimize the papal authority, Protestants, Galli-
cans, etc., used the term CurUi (Roman Court) in
preference to "Apostolic See", seeking thus to evade
the dogmatic significance of the latter term. The
cathedra Petri, the Chair of St. I'eter, is but
another expression for the nerlcs npnstnlica, cathe-
dra denoting the chair of the toachor. Hence the
limitation of papal infalliliility to definitions ex ca-
thedra amounts to this: papal definitions can claim
inerrancy or infallibility only when pronounced by
the pope as the holder of the privileges granted by
Christ to Peter, the Rock upon which He built His
Church. The same fornuila conveys the meaning
that the pope's infallibility is not personal, but de-
rived from, and coextensive with, his office of visible
Head of the Universal Church, in virtue of which he
sits in the Chair of Peter as Shepherd and Teacher
of all Christians. (See iNFALLiniLiTY.) From an-
cient times a distinction has been made between the
Apostolic See and its actual occupant: between
sedes and sedens. The object of the distinction is
not to discriminate between the two nor to subor-
dinate one to the other, but rather to set forth their
intimate coimection. The See is the symbol of the
highest papal authority; it is, by its nature, perma-
nent, wherea-s its occupant holds that authority but
for a time and in:ismuch as he sits in the Chair of
Peter. It further implies that the supreme author-
ity is a supernatural gift, the same in all successive
holders, independent of their personal worth, and
inseparable from their ex-officio definitions and de-
cisions. The Vatican definition of the pope's in-
fallibility when speaking ex calhedrd does not permit
of the sense attached to the distinction of sedes and
sedens by the Gallicans, who claimed that even in
the official use of the authority vested in the See,
with explicit declaration of its exercise, the sedens
was separate from the sedes.
Kf.nrick, Tlie Primacy of the Apostolic See Vimlicatcd (Baltimore. 1855); Lindsay, De Ecclenii el Cathedri, tr. (Lonilon, 1877); Allif.s. The Throne of the Fieherman (Lon- don. 1S871; Murphy, The Chair of Peter, 3il ed. (London. 1888); Allnatt. Cathedra Petri (London, 188.3): Scheeben in Kirchcnlex.. I, 1145; Wilhei.h and Scannell, /I Manual of Catholic Theology (London, 1898).
J. WiLHELM.
Apostolic Succession. — Apostolicity as a note of the true Church being dealt with elsewhere, the ob- ject of the present article is to show: (1) That Apos- tolic succession is found in the Roman Catholic Church. (2) That none of the separate Churches have any valid claim to it. (3) That the Anglican Church, in particular, has broken away from Ajxis- tolic unity.
RoM.\N CLAm. — The principle underlying the Ro- man claim Ls contained in the idea of succession. "To succeed" is to be the succes.sor of, especially to be the heir of, or to occupy an official position just after, as Victoria succeeded William IV. Now the Roman Pontiffs come immediately after, occupy the position, and perform the functions of .St. Peter; they are, therefore, his successors. We must prove (a) that St. Peter came to Rome, and ended there his pontificate; (b) that the Bishops of Rome who came after him held his official position in the Church. As soon as the problem of St. Peter's coming to Rome passed from tlieologians writing pro dnmo sud into the hands of unprejudiced historians, i. e. within the last half century, it received a .solution which no scholar now dares to contradict; the researches of Cicrman professors like A. Harn;ick and Weizs- iicker, of the Anglican Bishop Liglitfoot, and those of archa-ologists like De Rossi and l.anciani.of Duchesne and Barnes, have all come to the same conchi- eion: St. Peter did reside and die in Rome. Begin-
ning with the middle of the second century, there
exists a universal consensus as to Peter's martyrdom
in Rome; Dionysius of Corinth speaks for (jreece,
IrenaMis for Oaul, Clement and Origen for Alexandria,
TertuUian for Africa. In the third century the popes
claim authority from the fact that they are St.
Peter's successors, and no one objects to this claim,
no one raises a counter-claim. No city boasts the
tomb of the Af)ostle but Rome. There he died,
there he left his inheritance; the fact is never ques-
tioned in the controversies between East and VVest.
This argument, however, has a weak point: it leaves
about one hundred years for the formation of his-
torical legends, of which Peter's presence in Rome
may Ix; one just as much as his conflict with Simon
Magus. We have, then, to go farther back into an-
tiquity. About 1.50 the Roman presbyter Caius
offers to show to the heretic Proclus the trophies
of the Apostles: "If you will go to the Vatican, and
to the Via Ostiensis, you will find the monuments
of those who have founded this Church. " Can Caius
and the Romans for whom he speaks have been in
error on a point so vital to their Church? Next we
come to Papias (c. 138-150). From him we only
get a faint indication that he places Peter's preach-
ing in Rome, for he states that Mark wrote down
what Peter preached, and he makes him write in
Rome. Weizsiicker himself holds that this inference
from Papias has some weight in the cumulative ar-
gument we are constructing. Earlier than Papias
is Ignativis Martyr (before 117), who, on his way to
martyrdom, writes to the Romans: "I do not com-
mand you as did Peter and Paul; they were Apos-
tles, I am a disciple", words which according to
Lightfoot have no sense if Ignatius did not believe
Peter and Paul to have been preaching in Rome.
Earlier still is Clement of Rome writing to the Co-
rinthians, probably in 96, certainly before the end of
the first centurj'. He cites Peter's and Paul's martyr-
dom as an example of the sad fruits of fanati-
cism and en\-y. They have .suffered "amongst us
he says, and Weizsiicker riglitly .sees here another proof
for our thesis. The (ios|x>l of ."^t. .lolin, written about
the same time as the letter of Clement to the Corin-
thians, also contains a clear allusion to the martyr-
dom by crucifixion of St. Peter, without, however,
locating it (John, xxi, 18, 19). The veiy oldest evi-
dence comes from St. Peter himself, if he be the
author of the First Epistle of Peter, or if not, from
a writer nearly of his own time; "The Church that
is in Babylon .saluteth you, and so doth mv son
Mark" (l" Peter, v, 13). That Babylon stands for
Rome, as usual amongst pious Jews, and not for the
real Babylon, then without Christians, is admitted
by common consent (cf. F. J. A. Hort, " Judaistic
Christianity", London, 189.5, 155). This chain of
documentary evidence, having its first link in Scrip-
ture it.self, and broken nowhere, puts the sojourn of
St. Peter in Rome among the best-ascertained facts
in history. It is further strengthened by a similar
chain of monumental evitlence, which Lanciani, the
prince of Roman topographers, sums up as follows:
For the archaeologist the presence and execution of
Sts. Peter and Paul in Rome are facts established
beyond a shadow of doubt, by purely monumental
evidence! (Pagan and Christian Rome, 123).
St. Peter's .Si:cces.sohs in Office. — St. Peter's successors carried on his office, the importance of which grew with the growth of the Church. In 97 serious dis.sensions troubled the Church of Corinth. The Roman Bishop, Clement, unbidden, wrote an authoritative letter to restore peace. St. John was still living at Ephesus, yet neither he nor his inter- fered with Corinth. liefore 117 St. Ignatius of .\n- tioch addresses the Roman Church as the one which "presides over charity . . . which has never deceived any one, which has taught others." St. IreiUGUS
