Webster Stumbles “Upon this Rock”, Part 4:
St. Augustine:
Webster’s words are in indented, blue and italicized;
my words are in normal black text.
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Webster wrote:
According to Augustine the Apostles are equal in all respects. Each receives the authority of the keys, not Peter alone. But some object, doesn’t Augustine accord a primacy to the apostle Peter? Does he not call Peter the first of the apostles, holding the chief place in the Apostleship? Don’t such statements prove papal primacy? While it is true that Augustine has some very exalted things to say about Peter, as do many of the fathers, it does not follow that either he or they held to the Roman Catholic view of papal primacy. This is because their comments apply to Peter alone. They have absolutely nothing to do with the bishops of Rome. How do we know this? Because Augustine and the fathers do not make that application in their comments. They do not state that their descriptions of Peter apply to the bishops of Rome.
Who’s arguing from silence now Bill? Bill admits that this is the only basis on which he draws his conclusion. Because he doesn’t find the exact terminology of Vatican I in the writings of St. Augustine, he assumes there is no special place for Peter and no special place for the bishop of Rome. Didn’t Bill just criticize me for arguing from silence? I, however, make my case from solid historical substance and only support it with the silence of the Fathers on some issues; Bill on the other hand, is starting out very poorly here, telling us his main argument is going to be the silence of the Fathers. Oh boy!
Listen to yourself: “How do we KNOW this? Because they are silent - I can’t find it in their writings.” Also, I think we have some prolepsis here as well. You are reading anti-Catholic (or, anti-Roman, as you would probably prefer) assumptions back on the early Church.
The common mistake made by Roman Catholic apologists is the assumption that because some of the fathers make certain comments about Peter—for example, that he is chief of the apostles or head of the apostolic choir—that they also have in mind the bishop of Rome in an exclusive sense.
No, I think you are mistaken. Maybe some apologist do this, but I don’t think I fall into that category, even though there is merit to the argument. I think Protestant apologists make the common mistake of trying to separate Peter and the bishop of Rome into exclusive, water-tight compartments. They think far too analytical at times, whereas the Fathers tended to think analogically. This is a big difference in the methodology of Patristic thought and modern Evangelical Protestant thought. The Fathers, like the Apostles were quite lucid in their typological thinking - applying it freely to the interpretation of scripture and the understanding of spiritual realities and the Church. Just look at how the Apostles can use typological thinking to explain baptism for example (1 Peter 3:18 - 22) or Israel and the Church (Gal 4:21 - 31). Protestants tend to be extremely uncomfortable with such analogical thinking.
As we do see the flow of history and the proper organic development of ideas, all I am guilty of is “seeing the oak in the acorn” which is viewed by many as an intellectual and historical virtue, not a violation of historiography. This same analogical thinking (see Crossing the Tiber for numerous examples of how the Fathers thought typologically), of the Apostles was inherited by the Fathers and the Church today. It is able to view history as the work of God in history, not as an ossified structure frozen in the first century, but the living God building his living Church. The acorn becomes an oak, the baby becomes an adult, the 120 in the Upper Room become the Church spread throughout the world as a beautiful tree, providing nesting for the everyone (Mt 13:31 - 32).
What Catholic apologists are guilty of is believing history is going somewhere, that God has a plan, that the tree is growing, that the Holy Spirit is still at work developing and giving substance and growth to the Body of Christ as it develops into a mature Bride, a completed Temple, the full tree. They don’t believe that the Holy Spirit was taken back, withdrawn into heaven at the end of Acts 28. They believe Christians moved from worshiping in the Temple (Acts 5:12), to private homes (Col. 4:15), to worshiping in church buildings (even though there is no biblical precedent for worshiping in special “church” buildings). In looking back on the history of the Church, Catholic apologists try to read the end into the beginning, seeing the oak in the acorn. This is not a bad thing if understood properly in the whole course of Church history. We have the marvelous advantage of seeing the oak after it is a tree, whereas the Fathers saw only the sprout and the sapling.
The Apostles and the Fathers extended the reality of a spiritual event or even person into the future or viewed current situations as extensions of the past. How else could John the Baptist be referred to as Elijah? Or the Church as Sarah? Or Jesus as the seed, when we know that was not the literal meaning of the word seed as used in Genesis? This is not just thinking about what the Apostles wrote, but learning to think like the Apostles. Can it be abused? Certainly. But allegorical interpretation is an accepted method of interpretation (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 115 - 119). The Apostles and Fathers taught us how to do it, but it can be abused as we see in Origen (more on him later), just as the literal-only view of interpretation (held by most Fundamentalists) can be abused. Occasional abuse does not invalidate the method.
This can be seen among the Fathers and Councils as well by the very fact that a council could stand up in 451 AD and shout “Peter has spoken through [Pope] Leo”. This was the Council of Chalcedon (all of them bishops from the Eastern Church, by the way, except two from Africa and two legates from Rome) and where Christ was declared one Person in two natures. They had no problem with the correspondence between Peter and the Bishop of Rome.
This does not prove that every time Peter is praised in patristic writings we can immediately jump to the conclusion that the praise is equally apropos and applicable to the bishop of Rome. But neither can we force the strict analytical method of the Fundamentalist interpretation onto the Fathers, who would have rejected such a straight-jacket. Unfortunately, Bill is anachronistic at this point and violates rules of historiography because he tries to force the Fathers to think like he does when in reality they were much more analogical, allegorical, and free in their understanding of Scripture, history, and the actions of Jesus in his Church. I have been accused of being too patristic in my thinking. I took that as a marvelous compliment.
But they do not state this in their writings. This is a preconceived theology that is read into their writings. Did they view the bishops of Rome as being successors of Peter? Yes. Did they view the bishops of Rome as being the exclusive successors of Peter? No.
This needs to be examined a bit more closely. Successors, yes. Exclusive successors? Yes and no. Obviously, since the Fathers accepted Apostolic Succession (which Bill rejects) those that sat on Peter’s chair in Rome viewed themselves, and were viewed by others, as successors to Peter, in an exclusive sense. But, it is agreed that apostolic authority to bind and loose, forgive or retain sins, was also a power granted to the bishops in the apostolic succession based upon Matthew 18. As the flower of the Church opened (growth and development in both theology and polity) there were struggles and debates as to what this imposition of power from Rome meant and how it was to be applied, but it was always recognized as primary and special. So, yes it was exclusive and in other ways it was not. Again it is not an either-or proposition but a both-and reality.
In the view of Augustine and the early fathers all the bishops of the Church in the East and West were the successors of Peter. They all possess the chair of Peter. So when they speak in exalted terms about Peter they do not apply those terms to the bishops of Rome.
This statement is far too general. A short perusal of my book shows that such a limited statement cannot be accurately made about the Fathers. Bill wishes it were so, and reads his wishes back into the Fathers, but his statement as an exclusive statement just won’t stand up.
Therefore, when a father refers to Peter as the rock, the ‘coryphaeus,’ the first of the disciples, or something similar, this does not mean that he is expressing agreement with the current Roman Catholic interpretation.
Agreed, it does not necessarily mean the same as modern Roman Catholic interpretation, but it must be read in context and often it may very well mean the same thing as modern Catholic interpretation. Bill’s statement is too general and exclusive. One who is a scholar knows how to use a scalpel carefully, but when Bill hacks away with such broad strokes (machete chops), it belies his insecurity with the material. Again, my book deals with many such cases and we’ll touch on more as we go along here.
One quick example of an Eastern father who disagrees with Bill is St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (c. 638): “Teaching us all orthodoxy and destroying all heresy and driving it away from the God-protected halls of our holy Catholic Church. And together with these inspired syllables and characters, I accept all his [the pope’s] letters and teachings as proceeding from the mouth of Peter the Coryphaeus, and I kiss them and salute them and embrace them with all my soul ... I recognize the latter as definitions of Peter and the former as those of Mark, and besides, all the heaven-taught teachings of all the chosen mystagogues of our Catholic Church. (Sophronius, Mansi, xi. 461).
Along with Bill, we are now going to embark upon a list of quotes from St. Augustine that are supposed to prove that he did not believe as Catholics do today. It simply proves no such thing as George Salmon, the famous anti-Catholic, will tell us later. Bill will tell us at the end of this list that because St. Augustine says the rock is Christ, or Peter’s faith, or Peter’s confession that it simply and forever excludes the possibility that St. Augustine could have thought of Peter as the rock, and that even if he was the rock, it has nothing to do with the bishop of Rome. (We’ll discuss St. Augustine’s reasons later on. Was there a method to his madness?) After these quotes we will take a look at a quote from George Salmon, a darling of the anti-Catholics, which will explain why this list provided by Bill is really a red herring or smoke screen, whichever you prefer. And we will look at other things St. Augustine said and practiced. By the way, I use the whole Salmon quote in my book whereas Bill cuts off Salmon’s damaging conclusion - the end of the quote in his book. Hey! Wait a minute! Haven’t I been accused of this somewhere? If the full quote is used, it leaves Bill’s argument floundering like a one-legged man crossing a skating rink. Anyway, here we go:
This view is clearly validated from the following statements of Augustine:
This same Peter therefore who had been by the Rock pronounced ‘blessed,’ bearing the figure of the Church, holding the chief place in the Apostleship (Sermon 26).
The blessed Peter, the first of the apostles (Sermon 295).
Before his passion the Lord Jesus, as you know, chose those disciples of his, whom he called apostles. Among these it was only Peter who almost everywhere was given the privilege of representing the whole Church. It was in the person of the whole Church, which he alone represented, that he was privileged to hear, ‘To you will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven’ (Mt 16:19). After all, it isn’t just one man that received these keys, but the Church in its unity. So this is the reason for Peter’s acknowledged preeminence, that he stood for the Church’s universality and unity, when he was told, ‘To you I am entrusting,’ what has in fact been entrusted to all (Sermon 295).
Previously, of course, he was called Simon; this name of Peter was bestowed on him by the Lord, and that with the symbolic intention of his representing the Church. Because Christ, you see, is the petra or rock; Peter, or Rocky, is the Christian people (Sermon 76).
So then, this self - same Peter, blessed by being surnamed Rocky from the rock, representing the person of the Church, holding chief place in the apostolic ranks (Sermon 76).
For as some things are said which seem peculiarly to apply to the Apostle Peter, and yet are not clear in their meaning, unless when referred to the Church, whom he is acknowledged to have figuratively represented, on account of the primacy which he bore among the Disciples; as it is written, ‘I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ and other passages of like purport: so Judas doth represent those Jews who were enemies of Christ (Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm 119).
Bill wants us to believe that because St. Augustine explains that Peter “figuratively represented” the Church it somehow absolutely eliminates the possibility of Peter also being the head of the Apostles, and the head of the Church. Notice that elsewhere St. Augustine explains that King Saul “figuratively represented” Israel, just as he says Peter “figuratively represented” the Church. St. Augustine states, “But the Scripture has not what is read in most Latin copies, “The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel out of thine hand this day,” but just as we have set it down it is found in the Greek copies, “The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel out of thine hand this day,” that the words “out of thine hand” may be understood to mean “from Israel.” Therefore this man [King Saul] figuratively represented the people of Israel, which was to lose the kingdom, Christ Jesus our Lord being about to reign, not carnally, but Spiritually” (City of God, 17, 7 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series: Volume II, [Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.] 1997). Does the fact that King Saul “figuratively represented” Israel necessarily mean that he was not really the king? Does it mean that the throne is only symbolic? Can we assume likewise, that St. Augustine, by saying that Peter “figuratively represented” the Church, that he was not literally also the head or leader? Does it necessarily mean that the seat of Peter is only symbolic?