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THE CHRONOLOGY OF HIPPOLYTUS.

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whole interval between our Lord's time and his own was to be accounted for. My belief is that, in working his way chronologically back, he placed the accession of Linus twenty-six years after our Lord's Ascension. You may take it as a fact that, in the early part of the third century, men had come to find it impossible to conceive the idea of a Church without a bishop. So to the question, What about the twenty-six years before the accession of Linus? Was there no Roman Church then? Hippolytus answered that there was, and that it had St. Peter as its bishop; and my belief is that the duration of twenty-five years was intended to indicate that the Roman Church was founded the year after our Lord's Ascension.*

Now you, perhaps, hardly understand how much chronology has been helped by the use of a fixed era, such as 'Anno Domini,' and how difficult early chronologers who did not use this assistance found it to make their sums total agree when they added together lengths of episcopates, and lengths of emperors' reigns for the same period, the durations being often given only by whole numbers of years, without mention of months and days. There is, therefore, nothing to wonder at if, when the calculations of Hippolytus, who was not a skilful computer, were repeated by abler chronologers, they arrived at a somewhat different result; and taking Peter's episcopate at twenty-five years as he had fixed it, instead of getting back to the year after the Ascension, only got back to the second year of Claudius.

As I have quoted Epiphanius just now, there is a peculiar notion of his which it is worth while to mention before concluding this Lecture. Irenæus, as I have said, begins his list of Roman bishops by naming Peter and Paul as the founders of the Church, and as having appointed Linus as Bishop. We have just seen reason to think that Hegesippus also began by naming Peter and Paul. It follows that there is as good reason for calling Paul first bishop of Rome, as for so

Substantially this view is taken by von Döllinger in the passage already cited from his First Age of the Church. Elsewhere he seems to think that the twenty-five years was intended to represent the interval between Peter's imprisonment by Herod and his martyrdom.

calling Peter. This was clearly seen by von Döllinger, and was no doubt the reason of his evident reluctance distinctly to call Peter bishop of Rome. He says concerning the passage in Irenæus :-'This makes the regulation of the Roman Church and the appointment of Linus a common act of both apostles; and since then the Roman bishops have been frequently regarded as successors of both. The Roman Church was viewed as inheriting* alike from St. Paul, his prerogative of Apostle of the Gentiles, and from St. Peter, his dignity as foundation of the Church, and as partaking the power of the keys.' And he goes on to say that Eusebius says of Alexander that he formed the fifth bishop in the succession from Peter and Paul, and that he almost always reckons the others from the Apostles,' i.e. Peter and Paul. He adds that later such expressions are frequent as that the Roman Church is the seat of the two Apostles, or that the power of Rome is founded on Peter and Paul. Now, the admission that the origin of the Roman episcopate is to be traced to Paul as much as to Peter, is equivalent to an admission that neither Apostle was bishop of Rome in the modern sense of the word. For the ancients never dreamed of two bishops sitting, like two kings of Brentford, in the same chair, There is just one Father who had the courage to entertain this notion, viz. Epiphanius. In his time (the end of the fourth century) the assertion that Peter had been bishop of Rome had gained general acceptance. But he saw that ancient authorities gave as much justification for counting Paul bishop of Rome as for counting Peter. So he jumped to the conclusion that they had both been bishops: Πέτρος καὶ Παῦλος οἱ ἀπόστολοι αὐτοὶ καὶ ἐπίσκοποι (Har. xxvii. 6).

In this connection I must notice another passage (lxviii. 7) where Epiphanius names it as a peculiarity of Alexandria that it never had two bishops, as the other cities had.' Dr. Hatch (Growth of Church Institutions, p. 17), with easy faith, accepts this passage as 'decisive,' that where there

• But where is the evidence that such an inheritance was bequeathed to Rome any more than to the other Churches where these Apostles respectively laboured?

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THE PECULIAR NOTIONS OF EPIPHANIUS.

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was more than one community in a city, there was, as a rule, more than one bishop.' Those who know their Epiphanius will be amused at hearing anyone quote as 'decisive,' on any subject, the unsupported testimony of an author so uncritical and so rash. There is no hint or trace elsewhere of one Church having really had two bishops; and if Epiphanius meant to say that it was customary for cities to have two bishops he would stand quite alone. But Mr. Gore (Church and Ministry, p. 165) has shown that the sentence in Epiphanius, read in connection with its context, does not bear the construction put upon it. Epiphanius, in Hær. 68, treats of the schism made by the Egyptian Meletius, in consequence of which there were in most Egyptian cities two bishops, a Meletian and a Catholic. But Meletius was on good terms with Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, and appears not to have established his schism in that city during Alexander's lifetime. It is in telling of the appointment of a Meletian bishop on Alexander's death that Epiphanius remarks that Alexandria had not previously had two bishops as the other cities [of Egypt] had.

XX.

THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY.

IN

Na former Lecture I considered the Scripture arguments which have been adduced to prove that the Pope, by divine right, enjoys a Primacy, originally conferred by our Lord on St. Peter, and since then transmitted by succession to the bishops of Rome. It is a useful test of interpretations of Scripture to examine into their antiquity; for there is always an immense presumption against any new-fangled interpretation. I did not neglect to apply this test in the former Lecture, and we found that those passages of the New Testament which Roman Catholics now adduce as establishing the Pope's supremacy were not so understood by the most ancient interpreters of Scripture. But antiquity supplies us with a further test. The passages in question are not of a merely theoretical character, but are supposed to have fixed the constitution of the Christian Church. We may then turn from commentators on Scripture to study the history of the Church, in order to find whether that history has really been such as it must have been if the Romanist interpretation of these texts be the right one.

We know, as a historical fact, that the bishops of Rome, in the course of the Christian centuries, have exercised authority over distant cities. The question at issue is, whether or not that authority dates from the foundation of our religion. If it had been bestowed by our Lord Himself before He left this earth, we should find it exercised from the first, and its rightfulness universally acknowledged. But the contrary is the case. We can trace the history of the growth of the supremacy of the Roman bishop, exactly as in secular

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PAPAL SUPREMACY A DEVELOPMENT.

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history we can trace the process by which the city of Rome came to exercise imperial dominion. We thus learn that in ecclesiastical matters, as well as in secular, Roman supremacy is a development, not a tradition.

If I desired a summary proof that some at least of the powers which the Popes have exercised in later times were not part of the original prerogatives of the see, I should find it in the oath which every bishop in communion with Rome is now bound to take on his appointment: The rights, privileges, and powers of the see of Peter I will, to the best of my ability, extend and promote.' In fact, every bishop of Rome thought he was doing a good thing if he gained for his see some powers and privileges which had not previously belonged to it; and for some centuries he has pledged all over whom he has power to aid him in this laudable endeavour. But one man's powers and privileges cannot be extended except at the expense of those of someone else. If the Popes get more power independent bishops must have less. The Pope's avowed policy for centuries, therefore, has been one of usurpation; and unless we believe either that all the Roman Catholic bishops have perjured themselves, or that their united efforts, continued for hundreds of years, have failed to augment and promote the rights, dignities, and privileges of the Pope, that prelate must possess some powers now which his predecessors did not enjoy.

But it is quite unnecessary for me to elaborate any proof that the doctrine of Papal Supremacy is a development; for it is fully owned by Newman how faint are the traces of it in the history of the early centuries. I have already told you that the method of his celebrated Essay on Development is to make frank confession that neither Scripture nor Tradition will furnish any adequate proof of Roman doctrines. But then he contends that the same confession must be made about doctrines which Roman Catholics and we hold in common, and he puts forward his theory of Development as able to supply the deficiency alike in either case. Thus, then, while he owns (p. 164) that the Pope's Supremacy is a development, so also, he contends, is Episcopacy. He tells