Whelton book review: Audi alteram partem - Part 7

Etiam plures errores (a few more errors)

Author’s note: life has been full the last two months with a newborn, work, building a new house, and other family duties. But with this essay I return to the saddle. I said in my last piece that I would move on to Whelton’s assertions on the ecumenical councils. Well, I changed my mind, as there are some remaining objections to rebut from chapter 1. But this is it, I promise!

[If you haven’t already, we recommend that you read the Introduction to this series.]

I.

Misquoting Runciman

In a stunning misquotation, Whelton trots out the tired allegation that Peter’s successors only enjoyed a mere “primacy of honor.” As evidence, he appeals to the late Steven Runciman:

As the British Byzantine historian Sir Steven Runciman observes... The fact that [Saints] Peter and Paul were martyred there [in Rome] gave Rome a “special prestige” and a “purely honorary primacy,” certainly not a universal jurisdiction.

Upon consulting the citation, I discovered that Runciman asserts the exact opposite: he explicitly states that Rome enjoyed "more than a purely honorary primacy."¹ 

Misquoting St. Cyprian—again

As evidence, apparently, against the Catholic claims of Papal authority, Whelton appeals on page 27 to the following quote from Cyprian at the 7th Council of Carthage, over which Cyprian presided, concerning the practice of rebaptizing heretics:

In the administration of the Church each bishop has the free discretion of his own will, having to account only to the Lord for his actions. None of us may set himself up as bishop of bishops, nor compel his brothers to obey him; every bishop of the Church has full liberty and complete power; as he cannot be judged by another, neither can he judge another.

As the kids say these days, the quotation isn’t the win that Whelton thinks it is, and for two reasons. 

Firstly, whatever Cyprian means, he cannot be interpreted as saying there cannot be bishops with authority over other bishops. For he himself was a “bishop of bishops”, and at the time of his remarks the role of metropolitan bishop (those with authority over bishops and generally large geographical areas) was already operative, even if the title wasn’t. Ironically, as indicated in a previous essay, we saw that Cyprian himself appealed to the Bishop of Rome to depose Marcianus, who was Bishop of Arles. Moreover, just because no one may set himself as a bishop of bishops, that does not mean there is no legitimate way to set a bishop of bishops. 

Secondly, the translation appears to have been altered for polemical purposes. Let’s compare it with a standard translation from the Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 5:

It remains, that upon this same matter [rebaptizing heretics] each of us should bring forward what we think, judging no man, nor rejecting any one from the right of communion, if he should think differently from us. For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct there.² [emphasis mine]

Whelton’s version has “nor compel his brothers to obey him”, which is misleading at best and deceptive at worst, since the second translation includes the caveat that a bishop cannot compel by means of “tyrannical terror.” This leaves open the possibility of compelling by legitimate means and rightful authority. 

Moreover, the entire quotation is within the context of the question of rebaptizing heretics, a practice, according to Cyprian, over which each bishop had complete authority in his jurisdiction. Cyprian was wrong about that, but in any case the limited scope renders little (if any) support to a supposed anti-Papal, “collegial” view of ecclesiastical authority. 

II.

In his chapter 1 section on “Rome’s Claims to Universal Jurisdiction in the Early Church”, Whelton tries to undermine the evidential value of early Christian popes and saints: Pope St. Clement, St. Irenaeus, and Pope Victor. Although he does not succeed, he manages to commit several errors, overstatements, or fallacious inferences. 

Clement’s Letter

Clement of Rome was the fourth Pope, the successor of St. Peter and Bishop of Rome. In the first century AD, mere decades after the death and resurrection of our Lord, and while the apostle John was still alive, Clement wrote a letter to the Christians in Corinth. This letter is invaluable for many reasons, especially for what it reveals about the early Bishops of Rome in relation to other churches. The late Fr. George H. Joyce underscores the evidential value of this letter:

The tone of authority which inspires the latter appears so clearly that [Protestant English scholar J.B.] Lightfoot did not hesitate to speak of it as "the first step towards papal domination"... Thus, at the very commencement of church history, before the last survivor of the Apostles had passed away, we find a Bishop of Rome, himself a disciple of St. Peter, intervening in the affairs of another Church and claiming to settle the matter by a decision spoken under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Such a fact admits of one explanation alone. It is that in the days when the Apostolic teaching was yet fresh in men's minds the universal Church recognized in the Bishop of Rome the office of supreme head.³ [emphasis mine]

Whelton, however, ignores these facts and asserts:

The usual evidence produced to prove Rome’s supremacy in the immediate post-New Testament Church is the letter of Clement, Bishop of Rome, to the Corinthians… The letter, rather than being issued from Clement personally, is presented corporately, “From the colony of the Church of God at Rome, To the colony of the Church of God at Corinth.” The letter is written with a fraternal exhortation and does not appeal to any Petrine texts or claim any extraordinary jurisdiction. Had it done so, the letter would have been written in a very different style.

This response misses the mark in two significant ways. 

Firstly, it is irrelevant to say that the letter is not written personally by Clement, since Clement writes in his capacity as Bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Church. The Pope’s authority derives not from his personal attributes but from his office. If anything, a letter from the Clement qua the Church at Rome is more indicative of authority than a personal appeal. 

Secondly, the mere existence of the letter asserts extraordinary authority, and does not require a further explicit statement that the letter is to be taken authoritatively. If I instruct my daughter to go to bed, does my directive also need an explicit assertion of my paternal authority? The question answers itself.

Moreover, Whelton erroneously assumes that Clement needed to cite Petrine texts to exercise authority. That might be so if Clement was attempting to prove that he had authority. But in the letter he is exercising authority that he already possesses. The nature of this authority is the point in question. 

As a final comment, it is worthwhile to see how St. Irenaeus understood the style of Clement’s letter:

In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles…⁴

If the style satisfies Irenaeus but not Whelton, I can’t say that I’m particularly worried. 

In spite of what Whelton suggests, Clement’s letter does not by itself “prove” Papal supremacy, but it is a strong piece of evidence from the first century and Whelton’s brief criticism does nothing to show otherwise.

Irenaeus’s Against Heresies

In his most well known work, St. Irenaeus says 

Because it would be too long in such a volume as this to enumerate the successions of all the churches, we point to the tradition of that very great and very ancient and universally known Church, which was founded and established at Rome, by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul: we point I say, to the tradition which this Church has from the Apostles, and to her faith proclaimed to men which comes down to our time through the succession of her bishops, and so we put to shame... all who assemble in unauthorized meetings. For with this Church, because of its superior authority, every Church must agree—that is the faithful everywhere—in communion with which Church the tradition of the Apostles has been always preserved by those who are everywhere [Ad hanc enim eoclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his qui sunt undique, conservata est ea quâ est ab apostolis traditio].⁵

Whelton rightly notes that we only have a Latin version of this work, which was originally penned in Greek. But he distracts the reader by citing the endless debates over the meaning of convenire: whether it should be “agree with” or “resort to” or “have recourse to.” His strategy, if I understand him, is to give convenire a merely descriptive sense, namely, that the faithful from around the world just happen to resort to (or have recourse to) the Roman Church. 

His view is mistaken, because the sense is clearly normative. Irenaeus appeals to the Church’s apostolic founding and superior authority, so that it doesn’t matter if convenire means “agree with” or “resort to.”

As historian Franz von Funk acknowledged in his Manual of Christian History,

the passage says that all the other Churches must resort to or agree with the Roman Church on account of her superior rank, or on account of her greater primitiveness, or on account of her surpassing antiquity, or on account of her greater pre-eminent authority, and consequently this passage, whichever interpretation we give to it, is a testimony to her supremacy.⁶

Like Clement’s letter, this by itself does not settle the matter, but is a strong data point from the early centuries in favor of the Catholic view of Papal supremacy. 

Pope Victor I and the Quartodeciman controversy

The background here is that there was a controversy over when to properly celebrate Easter. The wider Church celebrated on the first Sunday following Quartodeciman, which is the 14th of Nisan in the old Julian calendar, but in several regions the custom was to celebrate on Quartodeciman. 

Pope Victor, who held the office around 189-198 AD, requested the bishops in various regions to hold synods on the question of whether to celebrate on Quartodeciman or on the first Sunday after. Every synod but one agreed with the Pope that latter custom should prevail. The exceptions were the Churches in Asia minor who held their synod at Ephesus. 

Pope Victor then pressed the Asiatic Churches to adopt the near universal practice. When he did so, Polycrates of Ephesus vehemently opposed him, claiming their tradition had roots in the teachings of St. John the Apostle. In retaliation, Victor sought excommunications. However, St. Irenaeus stepped in, cautioning Victor against cutting off entire Churches over non-doctrinal issues. While he affirmed the pope's authority, he warned against its misuse. Similarly, the resistance of the Asiatic bishops didn't challenge Rome's supremacy but rather indicated their belief that Victor was overreaching by insisting they forsake their Apostolic-approved custom. With the Church's expansion came new dilemmas, questioning the rightful exercise of supreme authority. Sensing the potential for more harm than good, Victor relented and did not go through with the excommunications. The general council at Nicea in 325 resolved this matter for good by judging in favor of Pope Victor’s view.  

Whelton tries to make a point out of the fact that the Churches were not actually excommunicated:

If we decide to do something and it is within our power to do it, it is done. If, however, it is not in our immediate power and we still wish to do it, then we make an attempt. This is what Pope St. Victor did when he attempted to excommunicate his fellow bishops.

According to this story, which is absurd to anyone familiar with the Fathers of this period, Pope Victor was akin to a village idiot or a crazy uncle—someone making outlandish commands he has no authority to make. He outrageously tried to excommunicate entire churches, but since he lacked authority to do so, he came up short.

The reality is that Pope Victor was not shooting blanks; he simply changed his mind as a result of many appeals. Although there is no proof that Victor actually excommunicated the entire Asiatic Churches in the second century AD, it is a strong witness to Papal supremacy that he sought to excommunicate them and that no bishop denied his authority to do it—they only questioned the prudence or expediency of its exercise. If he lacked the requisite authority, why did so many other bishops, such as Irenaeus, appeal to him to change his mind rather than ignoring or admonishing him?

1. Steven Runciman, The Eastern Schism A Study of the Papacy and the Eastern Churches During the XIth and XIIth Centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), p. 13.

2. The Seventh Council of Carthage Under Cyprian: Concerning the Baptism of Heretics. Translated by Robert Ernest Wallis. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886). <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0508.htm>

3. Joyce, George H. (1911). The Pope. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12260a.htm>

4. Against Heresies, Book III 3.3. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885).<http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm>

5.  Against Heresies, Book III 3.2, as quoted by Joyce. 

6. From S. Herbert Scott’s The Eastern Churches and the Papacy (London: Sheed & Ward, 1928), 40-41.