Did The Early Church believe in a Papacy?

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The thesis this evening is as follows. The early church did not believe in a papacy.

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Affirming that thesis, this is a little bit complex, I must admit, by the way. To affirm a negative is somewhat difficult.

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But James White has leaped to the cause and will attempt to affirm the negative.

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The early church did not believe in a papacy. Denying the negative?

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Yes, denying the negative is Mr. Matitix. The early church did not believe in a papacy.

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He is denying that. The way this will be conducted is as follows. Each of them will make an opening statement laying out his basic position.

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That will be 25 minutes each. There will then be a time of rebuttal and then a second period of rebuttal.

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We will then have a question and answer period where they will direct questions to each other.

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We will have closing statements and then we will have, as time allows, time for question and answer from the audience.

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Mr. White, you have 25 minutes. It is good to be with you this evening.

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I must confess it is slightly unfair because if you'll notice the windows right over there on the far side, you'll see an open

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Bible and then you'll see Alpha and Omega right next to it, of course, I'm the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and this proves, of course, that I am closer to the

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Bible than my position is therefore correct. But be that as it may, we will attempt to press on even with the obvious bias that is present.

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But anyways, it is good to be with you this evening. This evening we continue our debate on the subject of the papacy and the claims made by Roman Catholics concerning Petrine primacy.

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We focus upon the early fathers and ask the question, do we see in the early church a functioning awareness of the concept of the supremacy of the

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Bishop of Rome as the head of the universal church, the vicar of Christ on earth? Did the early fathers hold the same theology as modern

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Rome regarding papal prerogatives? It is my position that an even semi -unbiased review of the history of the early church will show that Roman supremacy is a development that took place over time due to many factors, political, geographical, etc.

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and is not an apostolic tradition in any way. We must first refresh our memories concerning the claims made by Rome.

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This is very important as our debate this evening focuses on whether the early church believed not in a papacy, but the papacy as defined by Roman Catholicism itself.

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Recall my quotation numerous times last evening of the words of the first Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution entitled

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Pastor Aeternus, given April 24, 1870. I quote, We therefore, for the preservation, safekeeping, and increase of the

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Catholic flock, with the approval of the sacred council, do judge it to be necessary to propose to the belief and acceptance of all the faithful in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church, the doctrine touching the institution, perpetuity, and nature of the sacred apostolic primacy.

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We know that this supposedly infallible document asserts that the modern Roman doctrine of the papacy, which included for Vatican I not only the concept of Petrine primacy and the primacy of Peter's supposed successors as the bishops of Rome, but the concept of papal infallibility as well, is in fact the ancient and constant faith of the universal church.

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But remember that Vatican I continued and said, quote, At open variance with this clear doctrine of Holy Scripture, as it has been ever understood by the

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Catholic Church, are the perverse opinions of those who, while they distort the form of government established by Christ the

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Lord and his church, deny that Peter, in his single person, preferably to all the other apostles, whether taken separately or together, was endowed by Christ with a true and proper primacy of jurisdiction.

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End quote. All I must do, of course, is demonstrate that the church has not always understood such passages as Matthew 16 and John 21 as establishing the

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Roman concept of Petrine primacy to demonstrate an error in a supposedly infallible document, and I shall do just that.

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But let us remember once more, Rome's claims are exhaustive and without conditions.

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The defender of such statements cannot simply find a single witness to one aspect of Roman theology in one father over here and another to a different aspect of Roman theology in another father over there.

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No, if the Roman position is true, we shall find all the necessary elements of the

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Roman position in those fathers cited as support of Roman contentions. Given the tremendously ambitious claims of Rome, wherein we are told dogmatically, infallibly, without question, that the

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Roman doctrine of the papacy is the ancient and constant faith of the universal church, nothing short of absolute unanimity on that point will do.

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Anything less is hardly to be defined as the ancient and constant faith of the universal church.

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Now I move on to make some general observations of historical facts that are contrary to Roman claims regarding papal supremacy.

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As there is much information to present, I encourage my listeners to note the various topics presented.

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I hope that many of you will follow up with reading and study on your own in the days and weeks that follow.

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John Henry Cardinal Newman, probably the most noted Roman Catholic scholar of the 19th century, in his work,

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An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, quoted approvingly from Barrow's 1836 work against papal supremacy.

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He noted that it was quite right for the Protestant to point out that there are historical facts that are contrary to a functioning, widely recognized papacy in the early church.

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For example, he agreed with Barrow that had the pagans been aware of the institution of the papacy, they would have surely raised great objections to it, but no such objections are to be found anywhere.

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And very importantly, he quoted with approval Barrow's statement, it is most prodigious that in the disputes managed by the fathers against the heretics, the

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Gnostics, Valentinians, etc., they should not, even in the first place, allege and urge the sentence of the universal pastor and judge as a most evidently conclusive argument, as the most efficacious and convenient method of convincing and silencing them.

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End quote. We should remember that Newman can cite these passages approvingly because he is not asserting that the papacy was, in point of fact, functioning at this time.

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This is the beauty of the entire development thesis, as it can allege that the papacy does come from Christ while admitting the historical reality that there is no evidence for it in the primitive church.

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Such is, of course, an abandonment of the historical field of battle. This is what allows Newman to admit, for example, that Ignatius is silent in his epistles on the subject of the pope's authority.

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Of course, if Newman were to put it right, he would admit, as we shall see, that Ignatius knew nothing of a pope to begin with.

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Be that as it may, the last point quote from Newman should be emphasized. He admits that it is decisive that the early fathers, when debating against the heretics, such as the

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Gnostics, did not appeal to the papacy as judge and arbiter of theological issues. But if modern

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Roman claims are correct, how can this be? Is not the papacy the ancient and constant faith of the universal church?

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Have not Christians always understood the scriptures as teaching the existence of the papacy at Rome? The silence of the church in this instance is devastating evidence against papal claims.

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The next fact to note is provided to us in strong terms by the seventh council of Carthage. Here we have the words of the martyr

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Bishop Cyprian. He wrote, quote, For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishopss, 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, end quote.

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Note that Cyprian denies the existence of a bishop of bishops, one who compels other bishops to the necessity of obedience.

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Such is not the way of the Christian church, he tells us. Much the same concept is found in the apostolic canons, which are appended to the constitutions of the holy apostles.

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Scholars date these canons anywhere from the 2nd to the 5th century. Canon 35 reads, quote, The bishops of every country ought to know who is the chief among them and esteem him as their head, and not to do any great thing without his consent, but every one to manage only the affairs that belong to his own parish and the places subject to it.

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But let him not do anything without the consent of all, for it is by this means there will be unanimity, and God will be glorified by Christ in the

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Holy Spirit, end quote. We see here that there is no hint of a universal head of the church in the bishop of Rome.

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We have no popes and no papacy in such words. Surely the same can be said of the events of the

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Council of Nicaea as well. Here at probably the most important council in all of church history, we not only do not find any papal supremacy, we find quite a bit of evidence that is contrary to such claims.

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First, why did no one inform Constantine that all he had to do was send word to the bishop of Rome and obtain an infallible ruling from the vicar of Christ and the person of the pope, so that all

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Christians everywhere would obey? Obviously, because no one had thought such a thought. Constantine called the council together, again seemingly ignorant that he should have had the bishop of Rome do that.

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And again, no one else seemed to mind as they had never thought that they needed the bishop of Rome to do such a thing anyways. The current bishop of Rome, Sylvester, did not attend, pleading old age, but sent two presbyters in his place.

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History records that Rome had little or nothing to do with the events at Nicaea. It was not the bishop of Rome who undertook the defense of the

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Nicene faith during the years of Arian ascendancy that followed Nicaea, but the bishop of Alexandria, the great

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Athanasius. Indeed, one might note in passing that while Athanasius was forced from his sea five times, yet remained unbowed,

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Liberius, bishop of Rome, from 352 to 366, yielded and signed the Arianized Sirmium Creed.

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Be that as it may, the very fact that the council of Nicaea was convoked is a strange thing indeed, if in fact

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Roman claims are true. Would it not have been much easier to simply ask the Pope for a ruling on such a central doctrine?

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But history will not allow for such simplicities. Even when Nicaea had concluded its proceedings, its creed had to fight for survival for 60 years thereafter, despite the fact that Roman bishops, excluding Liberius' lapse, defended it.

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Again, it is plain that just because the bishop of Rome took a particular position was no guarantee that all of the

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Christians would follow suit. And why is this? Because all of the Christians did not look to the Roman bishop as the final authority in matters of faith and morals.

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The council of Nicaea provides us with yet another fact that is contrary to papal claims. It is to be found in Canon 6 of that council and it reads as follows, quote,

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Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis prevail. Let the bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the bishop of Rome also.

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Likewise, in Antioch and the other provinces, let the churches retain their privileges, end quote.

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Notice that the bishop of Rome is not here given universal sovereignty, but is instead seen as an equal, one with jurisdiction in a particular geographical area, and that geographical area was limited, not worldwide.

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Over a century later, we find more indications of the absence of absolute papal supremacy at the council of Chalcedon.

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Here we find the famous Canon 28, a canon that Rome resisted and for obvious reasons. I read to you in part,

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Following in all things the decisions of the Holy Fathers and acknowledging the canon which has just been read, we also do in act and decree the same things concerning the privileges of the most holy church of Constantinople, which is

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New Rome. For the fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of Old Rome because it was the royal city, and the 150 most religious bishops actuated by the same consideration gave equal privileges to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging that the city which is honored with the sovereignty and the senate and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial

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Rome should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is and ranked next after her."

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Note well what is said here. First it is said the fathers granted privileges to Rome and on what basis?

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Because of Matthew 16 and the bishop of Rome being the successor of Peter? No indeed. The privileges were granted to Rome because it was the royal city and now

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Constantinople being the seat of government assumes such privileges which are bestowed logically on the church that resides in the capital of the empire.

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It is highly instructive to note the reaction of Rome to this canon. When it was proposed to the Roman legate at the council he indicated that he had no instructions from Rome and withdrew.

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The canon was passed in his absence. The next day when he objected his objections were dismissed. When Pope Leo heard about this he was angry and rejected the canon.

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But on what grounds did he reject it? He did so on the basis of defending the older patriarchates Alexandria and Antioch and by so doing of course he was protecting

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Roman claims as well. Leo did not refuse to recognize the canon because it had been passed without his consent but because he said that the canons contradicted the decrees of Nicaea which he said would last forever and could be altered by no one.

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Did this end the dispute? Not at all. In fact the Pope's resistance to the canon had no effect at all.

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The Quinisex council in 681 confirmed all the Calcedon canons without exception and the council of Florence repeated the same order found the canon with Constantinople second.

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But even in light of all this do we not see more reference to Rome as a center of Christian faith and unity than we do of others in these early centuries?

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Quite so but why? Is it because of those reasons put forth by modern defenders of Rome? I think not.

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Let us remember a few facts. First Rome had no competition in the West unlike Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, etc.

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in the East. She resided at the seat of the empire and as a result had great influence due to her geographical and political location.

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Furthermore there was a very practical aspect of the honor given to Rome by other churches. Rome was liberal in giving gifts to others.

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Eusebius for example provided the words of Dionysius in acknowledgement of a donation sent from Rome in the following words

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This has been your custom from the beginning to bestow benefits in various ways on all the brethren and send supplies to many churches in different cities.

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In the supplies which you have been in the habit of sending from the beginning you Romans keep up the traditional custom of the

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Romans. Such factors must be kept in mind in determining upon what basis

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Rome as a church was honored above others. Now before turning to individual fathers and statements they made that are relevant to our subject this evening

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I wish to point out what seems to me to be a fatal flaw in Roman claims on this subject. Patristic scholar

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J. N. B. Kelly has written a fascinating work entitled The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. One of the striking features that many seem to miss in working through this reference source is to be found as an example in his entry on Anacletus who

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Kelly notes is second in the earliest succession lists which do not include Peter as bishop of Rome reflecting

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Irenaeus' statement that Peter and Paul made Linus the first bishop and third on the later list that introduced the novelty of Peter as the first bishop.

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The words seem so innocuous that one might well miss their impact. I quote His actual functions and responsibilities can only be surmised for the monarchial or one -man episcopate had not yet emerged in Rome.

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End quote. Did you catch that? Kelly notes in the days of Anacletus and in fact all the way into the middle of the second century there was no monarchial that is one -man episcopate at Rome.

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As we will see in a moment this truth is reflected in Clement's epistle to the Corinthians and has been generally acknowledged to be the case.

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But think about what this means. We are told that Peter's supposed authority is invested in his successors as bishop singular of the church of Rome.

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Yet the historical fact is that the church at Rome didn't think she needed a single bishop until a century after Peter had died.

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Indeed the confusion of later succession lists may well be due to the fact that later men assuming that there had always been just one bishop of Rome attempted to trace such a succession through the early period when in fact there had been multiple bishops or elders at Rome.

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Are we to believe that Peter did not give proper instructions to the church so as to have one bishop elected to whom he could be given the keys of heaven?

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Can we imagine what the conciliarists of the 15th century would have done with this information? Obviously we see that the history of the church at Rome felt no need to have a single bishop, a single supposed successor to Peter or Paul or anyone else.

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Such is highly significant. I move now to a review of specific statements and actions by early fathers that demonstrate the non -existence of the papacy as claimed by modern

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Roman Catholicism. I begin with the earliest non -scriptural Christian writing, that letter known as Clement's Epistle to the

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Corinthians. Roman apologists are quick to point to this letter as being supportive of their claims. Here we are told we see the

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Roman bishop exercising his primacy and rebuking the errant Corinthians. Yet is this really the case?

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Let's quickly take a look and see. We first know that the authorship and dating of this letter are greatly in dispute.

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Indeed, William A. Jurgen, the Roman Catholic author of the three -volume series The Faith of the Early Fathers, rather than dating

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Clement during the alleged pontificate of Clement, dates it as early as A .D. 80, creating no end of problems for those who would wish to come up with some kind of meaningful list of succession in the supposed

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Roman episcopate. Be that as it may, we note in passing that the letter itself does not present to us the bishop of Rome commanding the

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Corinthians to obey his power as the vicar of Christ on earth. Rather, the letter is written not in the name or person of the bishop of Rome, but in the name of the

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Church of Rome. We find at Rome at this time a multiplicity of elders, not a single bishop. And there is no reference to the concept of the

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Roman papacy as claimed at Vatican I anywhere in Clement. Yet, do we not see here

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Rome as a church acting in a way that is suggestive of a higher view of herself, a view that might eventually lead to papal concepts?

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The great patristic scholar J .B. Lightfoot noted that this was but the first very small step in a very long series that eventually, centuries later, led to papal supremacy.

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He noted, quote, there is all the difference in the world between the attitude of Rome towards other churches at the close of the first century when the

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Romans as a community remonstrate on terms of equality with the Corinthians on their irregularities, strong only in the righteousness of their cause, and feeling as they had a right to feel that these councils of peace were the dictation of the

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Holy Spirit and its attitude at the close of the second century when Victor, the bishop, excommunicates the churches of Asia Minor for clinging to a usage in regard to the celebration of Easter which had been handed down to them from the apostles and thus foments instead of healing dissensions.

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Even this second stage has carried the power of Rome only a very small step in advance towards the assumptions of a

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Hildebrand or an Innocent or a Boniface or even of a Leo, but it is nevertheless a decided step.

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The substitution of the bishop of Rome for the church of Rome is an all -important point. The later

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Roman theory supposes that the church of Rome derives all its authority from the bishop of Rome as the successor of St.

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Peter. History inverts this relation and shows that, as a matter of fact, the power of the bishop of Rome was built upon the power of the church of Rome."

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The truth of this statement can be seen in Ignatius' letter to the church at Rome while recognizing the churches at Rome as having the presidency in the region of the

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Romans, not, I note, over the entire world. Ignatius nowhere addresses the bishop of Rome at all, nor even acknowledges his existence.

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The position of honor that is Rome's is hers, not because of her bishop, but because of her location and her nature as a church.

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As Lightfoot commented on Ignatius' words, quote, this, then, was the original primacy of Rome, a primacy not of the bishop, but of the whole church, a primacy not of official authority, but of practical goodness, backed, however, by the prestige and the advantages which were necessarily enjoyed by the church of the metropolis, end quote.

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The concept that it is the Petrine primacy that gives honor to Rome is nowhere to be found in Clement or in Ignatius.

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Just now I cited Lightfoot, who mentioned in passing the next incident used by Roman apologists to support their position, that being the action on the part of Victor, bishop of Rome, in threatening the

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Eastern churches with excommunication if they did not bow to the Western method of determining the date of the celebration of Easter, the famed

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Quartodeciman Controversy. Here we find the Eastern churches claiming that their method of determining the date of the celebration of Easter was apostolic in origin.

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They refused to abandon this methodology, even when Victor, the bishop of Rome, the monarchical episcopate, having finally emerged at Rome, threatened them with excommunication, a fact that in of itself shows that the

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Eastern churches did not view Victor as the head of the universal church. But beyond this we find

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Irenaeus, the great bishop of Leon, writing to Victor in the name of the entire region of Gaul, rebuking the rash actions of the

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Roman bishop and calling him to remembrance of what had been done by his predecessors. We read, quote,

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For neither could Anicetus, that was the bishop of Rome, persuade Polycarp to forego the observance in his own way, inasmuch as these things had been always so observed by John, the disciple of our

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Lord, and by other apostles with whom he had been conversant. Nor, on the other hand, could Polycarp succeed in persuading

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Anicetus to keep the observance in his way, for he maintained that he was bound to adhere to the usage of the presbyters who preceded him.

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In this state of affairs they held fellowship with each other, and Anicetus conceded to Polycarp in the church the celebration of the

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Eucharist by way of showing him respect, so that they parted in peace one from the other, maintaining peace with the whole church, both those who did observe this custom and those who did not, end quote.

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One has well pointed out that if the tables had been turned, and it was Irenaeus who had rashly threatened the eastern churches with excommunication, and Victor had written to him rebuking him and counseling him to peace, that Victor's letter would surely be touted today as evidence of papal supremacy at this early date.

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Instead, we only find the Bishop of Rome trying to force the eastern bishops to toe the line on an issue on which in fact

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Victor was in the majority. Yet not only do we not find the eastern churches complying, but we find the western bishop

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Irenaeus, and those bishops with him, writing to Victor, counseling him to back off of his impetuous course of action.

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I note in passing that Victor failed in his attempt. The eastern churches continued their means of worship for years to come.

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Victor was not the last bishop to be told to cool his jets, so to speak. As mentioned earlier,

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Stephen, bishop of Rome from 254 through 257 was rebuked by Cyprian, the great bishop of Carthage, when

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Stephen attempted to overturn the actions of the churches in North Africa. Cyprian wrote

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Neither can it rescind an ordination rightly perfected that Basilides, after the detection of his crimes and the bearing of his conscience even by his own confession, went to Rome and deceived

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Stephen our colleague, placed at a distance and ignorant of what had been done and of the truth, to canvass that he might be replaced unjustly in the episcopate from which he had been righteously deposed.

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It doesn't seem that Stephen liked being rebuked by the North African bishops. In fact, history does not provide us with a very complementary picture of Stephen.

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In fact, it is highly instructive that the first bishop of Rome, whoever makes mention of Matthew 16 and a succession from Peter as basis of his arguments, is in fact

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Stephen and that in the context of arguing against the likes of Cyprian. J .N .B. Kelly notes,

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Stephen emerges as an imperious and uncompromising prelate. Fully aware of his special prerogative, his rival bishops did not hesitate to put the blame for splitting the church on him.

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It is interesting that he was accused of, quote, glorying in his standing as bishop and of claiming to hold the succession from Peter on whom the foundation of the church was laid, unquote.

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He was, in fact, the first pope, so far as is known, to find a formal basis for the Roman primacy in the

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Lord's charge that the apostle Peter cited in Matthew 16, 18, end quote. What does it mean that we find the first instance of a pope citing

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Matthew 16 in support of his position in the context of argumentation with rivals? Surely we can be suspect of claims that derive from personal interest as these did.

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And let us not forget that despite such blustering, Cyprian did not find Stephen's arguments convincing. And that, despite the fact that Cyprian would have agreed that Peter was the rock of Matthew 16.

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Obviously, it did not follow that the bishops of Rome were the successors of Peter in the sense

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Rome claims today. And does it not seem strange in light of Roman claims that other bishops found

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Stephen's glorying to be the stuff of insults, not apostolic doctrine? What does it tell us when what is now

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Roman dogma was in fact once considered an insult when applied to the bishop of Rome? But this is not the first time that what was later to become part and parcel of Roman theology regarding the pope was originally intended as an insult when used in the early church.

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Tertullian provides us with an amusing example, amusing I say, if I had not personally encountered a number of Roman Catholics presenting this passage as if it were evidence for the papacy from the early church.

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It is found in one of Tertullian's later writings, De Pudicitia. Here we find the phrases pontifex maximus and bishop of bishops applied by Tertullian to the bishop of Rome.

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Is this not significant? It most certainly is since at this time, at the end of the second century, both phrases were insults.

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We have already seen that Cyprian wrote that no Christian would call himself the bishop of bishopss and listen to Tertullian as he castigates the

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Roman bishop for what Tertullian perceives to be lax morals. And I'll close with this. In opposition to this modesty, could

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I have not acted the dissembler? I hear that there has even been an edict set forth and a peremptory one too.

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The pontifex maximus, that is, the bishop of bishops, issues an edict. I remit to such as have discharged the requirements of repentance, the sins both of adultery and of fornication.

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O edict on which cannot be inscribed good deed far, far from Christ betrothed be such a proclamation.

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What a far cry from being supportive of the Roman concept of the papacy is that we will continue looking at the many instances, the many facts in the early church that demonstrate that the modern doctrine of the

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Roman papacy was absent in that church in the time ahead. Thank you very much. Mr.

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Maddox, you have 25 minutes. I wish the nun in the story that the chaplain began with was correct, that there were no

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Catholics in hell. Unfortunately, although that was an interesting lighthearted story, it many times is true that many people misunderstand the

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Catholic position. On the contrary, the Catholic church has always taught that there are many Catholics in hell. In fact, perhaps the majority of Catholics go to hell because as Jesus says, the way is narrow that leads to eternal life and few there are who find it.

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The church has never taught that all Catholics, just by virtue of being Catholics, are going to make it to heaven.

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St. John Chrysostom, in fact, taught the majority of priests and especially bishops and especially the popes themselves.

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The majority of them probably go to hell because the demands upon them are so great and the assault of Satan upon them is so great.

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So I want to emphasize that so that you don't misunderstand what I'll be doing tonight as arguing that all the popes are wonderful, splendid fellows and they're all saints and they've all made it to heaven, although a high percentage of them have been great examples of virtue and courage.

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I, too, agree with the other opening statement by Tim Fulaboshi and I want to applaud very strongly that we must be absolutely committed to sacred scripture and the authority of sacred scripture in our lives and we cannot believe anything in contrast to what many people think

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Catholics claim that is contrary to the teaching of sacred scripture. No Catholic claims that.

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No pope has the right to demand of you to believe anything that is contrary or contradicted by the teaching of sacred scripture.

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We need to be committed to that, Protestant and Catholic, not just involved in Bible study but committed to it.

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You know the difference, right, between being involved and being committed. I mentioned it to a group of young people this afternoon.

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It's the difference between bacon and eggs. In bacon and eggs the hen is involved but the pig is committed.

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It's important that we die to ourselves and our own theological prejudices and allow ourselves to be open to sacred scripture and that is, of course, what we talked about last night.

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Tonight we're talking about how the early church understood these scriptures and whenever I discuss the question, did the early church believe in the papacy,

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I've noticed that critics of Catholicism tend to make one or more of the following mistakes. Mr.

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White has already made several of them and perhaps we'll make some more.

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I want to simply go through them and alert you to them and point out why they are mistakes. The first mistake, mistake number one, is to argue that the papacy arose from some post -biblical political situation, some vacuum of authority or power left by the decay of the imperial power in Rome.

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And so as a pragmatic solution, or for geographically convenient reasons, the power of the bishop of Rome began to grow.

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To argue that it arose from these historical considerations and not from sacred scripture is mistake number one.

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Now, I will allow a Protestant to refute this idea, not quote a

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Catholic here, lest they be accused of special pleading, and I will quote someone that Mr.

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White has already alluded to, J. N. D. Kelly, the Protestant Oxford scholar in his

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Oxford Dictionary of the Popes. He says this in his article on the first pope, on Peter, and in doing this he provides actually interesting resume of some of the biblical material that we looked at last night.

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He says this, quote, the papacy, through successive popes and councils, has always traced its origins and title deeds to the unique commission reported to have been given by Jesus Christ to Peter, the chief of his apostles, later to be martyred when organizing the earliest group of Christians at Rome.

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Information about Peter's career, personality, and standing in the primitive Christian community is provided by the New Testament, supplemented by ancient, reliable tradition.

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And then he goes on to give a resume of Peter's life, talking about where he was from and who his brothers were and so forth, and he mentions in the course of this that he has mentioned all four

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Gospels agree with minor differences of emphasis that from now onwards Simon was leader and spokesman of the group, recognized as such by the

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Lord. He is mentioned with conspicuous frequencies. He said last night six times as often as any other apostle or all the apostles put together.

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And he appears first in all lists of the twelve. And I found, by the way,

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Mr. White's wild speculation last night that, well, maybe this is because he was the oldest. to be completely theoretical and without any basis in historical data whatsoever.

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I think also it's very odd if the lists do, in fact, go in order of age from oldest to youngest that they differ so widely in the orders of the names.

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Didn't these apostles know how old they were and relative to each other when these lists are provided by the apostles themselves?

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He goes on to say that he lists all the episodes in which

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Peter occurs in this prominent fashion. And then he speaks of these passages where Jesus confers these titles in this office upon Peter.

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And he said Jesus pronounces him blessed because of this inspired insight. And bestowed on him the

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Aramaic name Kephas, rock, rendered Peter in Greek and declared that he would build his indestructible church on this rock and would give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the powers of binding and loosing.

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He lists all these other special privileges in Luke 22 and John 21. And then he goes on to say the first half of Acts discloses that after the ascension, though his relationship to James, the

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Lord's brother, remains unclear, Peter was the undisputed leader of the youthful church.

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And then lists all those passages that I alluded to. And then he goes on to say actually something that I'll come to in a moment about Peter going to Rome.

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But the point of Kelly in this opening part of his article on this first pope is that the Catholic church claims that the authority of the papacy is based upon sacred scripture.

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It does not make some other sort of argument Now, the second thing that I would like to let me just make a comment on that.

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I think that Mr. White made a lot of very clever remarks last night, a lot of very strong points, but he failed to dislodge the cumulative weight of all of this data.

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And worst of all, he asserted that only someone already assuming a papacy would see

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Peter as the rock, would see the gift of keys as built as echoing Isaiah 22's language and so on and so forth.

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When in fact, I cited Protestant scholars after Protestant scholars who agrees with the premise that Peter is the rock.

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Clearly, they're not predisposed to believe that the papacy is true. These are

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Protestant scholars. And yet, they agree that an honest reading of the passage indicates that Peter is the rock.

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They agree that the keys in Matthew 16, verse 19, refer to Isaiah 22 and so forth.

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This biblical data that we looked at, according to J. N. D. Kelly, indicates to the

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Catholic church when it argues for the papacy in the early church that this office given to Peter had successors.

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Kelly mentions this here in his article. And this is an important point that I sought to emphasize last night and I want to reiterate tonight.

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Because even if you grant that the New Testament teaches that Peter was the head of the church, but don't see that the

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New Testament at least implies that this office would have successors, then the early church's testimony is absolutely vapid and vacuous.

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On the contrary, as I pointed out last night, not only was Peter preeminent as an apostle, not only was he one who received a special commission from Christ in office, but it is also indicated in Old and New Testament that this office, that Peter, the other apostles, and the early church itself understood the office to continue in a line of successors.

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Why successors? Because that is God's way. In the Old Testament, prophets, priests, and kings all have successors.

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They all have lineal dynastic successors. If not biological sons, then at least spiritual sons.

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The prophets had them. The priests had them. The kings had them. The office of prime minister or chief steward had successors.

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This is clearly the understanding of the apostles themselves when they refer to their own office in Acts 1 .20 where Peter says after Judas has apostatized and died, not one down, eleven to go, but let another man succeed to his office of bishop, episcope.

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The second mistake that Protestants make when they criticize the case of the early church is that they seem to deny many times that Peter was ever in Rome.

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Now, Mr. White has not made that denial today, although he has and so I will restrain myself from refuting something that perhaps he has changed his mind on.

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I hope that he has. I hope that he has come to wrestle with passages in Protestant scholars who indicate that there is no way of denying that Peter is in fact someone who went to Rome and died as a martyr there.

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J. N. D. Kelly in his dictionary says it seems certain that Peter spent his closing years in Rome. Although the

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New Testament itself appears silent about such a stay, it is supported by 1 Peter 5 .13 where Babylon is a codename for Rome and by the strong case for linking the gospel of Mark with Peter's companion, 1

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Peter 5 .13, is said to have derived its substance from him with Rome. To early writers like Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Irenaeus, it was common knowledge that Peter worked and died in Rome.

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And I have in fact, if you wish, and if it's not relevant, I won't even bother with it, but I have a two -page handout,

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I'd be happy to make a copy for anyone who would like, of the testimony of all the church fathers who say anything about Peter's whereabouts and Peter's death.

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And without exception, every single one of them admits that Peter went to Rome, that he labored there as an apostle, and that he died there.

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So if Mr. White is honest in his claim, and I hope and pray that he is, that he will accept as authentically classical and original

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Christianity something that is universally acclaimed by the early church, and that there are no dissenting voices, then

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I hope that he will accept, as he has not in the past at least, the universal attestation of the fact that Peter did in fact go to Rome.

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Adolf Harnack, a Protestant, wrote that, quote, to deny the Roman stay of Peter is an error which today is clear to every scholar who is not blind.

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The martyr death of Peter at Rome was once contested only by a reason of Protestant prejudice. Oscar Kuhlman, in his book

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Peter, Disciple, and Apostle, keeps up all the historical proof to indicate that Peter indeed did go to Rome, and he quotes these church fathers as well as archeological and paleontological proof.

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So I'm not going to spend any more time on that since Mr. White doesn't seem to want to contest that tonight. The third mistake that many

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Protestants make when they criticize the case is that they assume that if Roman bishops don't boss their readers around that they possess no self -consciousness, that they had inherited authority over the church.

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This is a mistake that I at least understood Mr. White to be making last night in his exegesis of 1

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Peter where Peter appeals in a very humbling way to other bishops as my fellow elders if in fact he is addressing them as fellow elders if that's in fact the proper way to interpret that phrase.

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But why not argue Mr. White that Paul had no apostolic authority because he often employed similar wooing language rather than imperiously claiming his rights as an apostle.

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The answer is in the Bible itself where Paul for example in writing to Philemon in that very short epistle to him says in Philemon verses 8 through 10,

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Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love.

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I then as Paul an old man and now also a prisoner because of Jesus Christ, I appeal to you for my son

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Onesimus who became my son while I was in chains. Would anyone argue from this that Paul did not, was not self -conscious of the fact that he possessed apostolic authority?

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Of course not. So I think it is a mistake, mistake number three on the part of Protestants to say that if they read a letter from Clement or this or that letter and there is no imperious tone or there is more kind of a general or a gentle wooing, that therefore the person did not think that he had any authority over the people that he read, over the people that he wrote to rather.

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Mistake number four is to assume that if the title Pope is not used then the reality itself is absent.

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That the title Pope must somehow be there from the very beginning if the concept of Pope is there.

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We have already pointed out yesterday and I will point it out again tonight that that kind of reasoning would be rejected even by Mr.

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White when it came to a Jehovah's Witness for example, insisting that the

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Trinity can't be taught in the Bible because the word does not occur there. A similar mistake, mistake number five is to say that a full -blown, the full -blown conception of the

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Pope is not present at the very start. That is that you do not have the completely elaborated and detailed understanding that you have in Vatican Council 1 or today.

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Then therefore, there is no legitimate development from a more germinal, a more implicit view of the papacy held in the early century.

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Well, believers on the day of Pentecost didn't walk around saying, I believe that in God there are three persons and one being.

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That in Christ there are two natures in one person. That in Christ there is one will, not one will but two, a human will and a divine will.

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They didn't walk around saying things like that. The proof that they did not is because number one, it's not recorded in Scripture which would be the only proof that Mr.

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White would accept. But secondly, that when these issues were being wrestled with in the early church, people didn't simply appeal to this.

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There was a misunderstanding as to whether or not these things could be legitimately derived or inferred from the data in Scripture.

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There is such a thing as legitimate development, expansion and elaboration of what in fact the

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Bible teaches. Mr. White in effect in several of his points is saying this.

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He's holding up a picture of a huge majestic oak tree in one hand and then he's holding up a little acorn, a tiny acorn in the other hand.

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And he's saying, folks, how could this, this full blown view of the papacy we see in Vatican 1 for example, come from this?

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These little tiny statements that we have in the first century. Or for that matter in sacred Scripture. I don't know how it happens,

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Mr. White, because I don't understand the power, the creative power of God and the mystery of the principle of life, but I know that it does happen.

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I know that great towering majestic oaks do come from little acorns. God is an awesome God and he puts that principle of life into things.

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Jesus himself warned us to expect that the kingdom of God would start out small like a grain of mustard seed and yet would gradually grow to become a large and flourishing plant.

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And so it's legitimate to look for a development of the understanding of the papacy as long as the basic principles are there at the outset.

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Mistake number six, which Mr. White again has made, is to say that well if we find evidence of disputes, if we find certain bishops disputing the

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Bishop of Rome, disputing a decision of his, that proves therefore that the Bishop of Rome was not given any authority.

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Descending from Peter, by Jesus Christ all the way up to the ultimately, again, I would simply point out what I pointed out last night, that simply because we could tape record conversations in a home in which teenagers are telling their parents, you're not going to tell me what to do, or wives are being rebellious to their husbands, or all kinds of upheaval or discord is going on, congregations getting rid of their pastors, that this somehow proves that parents have no authority over their children, wives have no authority over their husbands, pastors have no authority over their congregation, or mobs, rulers have no authority over the mobs who overthrow their rule.

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In fact, 1st Clement, the very letter which Mr. White read from, addresses just as a situation, and in 1st

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Clement he writes throughout the letter that they were wrong to depose the elders that the apostles had appointed over them in Corinth.

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This is the way Clement puts it in 1st Clement chapter 40, and also in verse 44.

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The apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus the Christ was sent from God. Thus Christ is from God, the apostles from Christ.

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In both cases the process was orderly and derived from the will of God. The apostles received their instruction and he goes on to say they preached in country and town, appointed as their first fruits after testing them by the spirit, men to be deacons, bishops and deacons of those who were going to believe.

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He goes on to say that our apostles knew in chapter 44 through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife on the question of the bishop's office.

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Therefore for this reason since they had complete foreknowledge they appointed the aforesaid persons and later made further provision that if these men should die that other approved men should succeed to their ministry.

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Therefore when men who were appointed by the apostles or afterwards by other men of repute with the approval of the whole church have done their service blamelessly to the flock of Christ with humility of heart in a peaceful and gentlemanly way then we consider it unjust to depose them from their office.

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For it will be no trivial sin on our part if we depose from the bishop's office those who have in a blameless and holy manner offered the sacrifices.

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It is to confuse de facto with de jure to say that simply because there is in fact in the situation a resistance to authority that therefore there is a denial that there is in a de jure authority any grant of authority given to such individuals.

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Mistake number seven is this. It's a related mistake. The idea that if we can find some fathers who don't agree with the church's teaching because it's in the process of being defined and elaborated then it can't be true.

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This is a mistake because the Catholic church has never taught that all fathers are infallible as individuals.

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An individual father can and frequently does err in not understanding something that has been part of the church. So when

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Vatican I says it's been the constant teaching of the church, it doesn't mean that every single individual father has always held this or believed it.

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It only means that the church that has spoken authoritatively and officially to these matters, even if not everyone understood it or was in sync with it, has never taught one thing and then done a complete about -face and taught something else.

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The only thing that Vatican I is insisting upon, is claiming, is that the Catholic church did not teach for a time, oh, there is no special authority.

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There is no special authority exercised by the Bishop of Rome. But then later on, the

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Catholic church changes its mind and says, no, in fact, there is an authority the

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Bishop of Rome has descending from Peter and the Apostles. You cannot find, and Mr. White cannot prove, because there is no such documentation that the

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Catholic church in fact ever taught the opposite. You have no statements emanating from the

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Church of Rome saying, we have no special authority from Christ through Peter, our first father.

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We don't have any such authority. And then later on saying, no, we do. That is what would prove that Vatican I is wrong.

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But Mr. White cannot produce such a bit of evidence because it does not, in fact, exist. What do we look for?

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We look for a growing consensus. And that is exactly what we find in other parallel issues.

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Would the canon of the New Testament, Mr. White, fit your criterion if you interpret constant teaching in this overly rigidified way?

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And in other words, Mr. White believes that the 27 books in his New Testament and in mine are indeed the books that Jesus intended the church to read as coming from the apostles and their associates today.

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But would Mr. White insist that this could not be true? Because as we look at the lists of the canon through the first, second, and third centuries and the fourth centuries, that these lists are not all identical.

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That they grow. That books are added to them. This does not pose a problem for Mr.

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White when he accepts these 27 books as the inspired New Testament. For him to play fair, for him to be logically consistent, and to play by the fair rules of the game, he would have to say that that same kind of growth and development can occur in the understanding of the

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Bishop of Rome's authority as well. There is a continuation. There is a growth. There is no about -face.

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There is no overturning. There is no flip -flop. But there can be a growth. The same is true of the Trinity. Each creed elaborates in which these three persons are one.

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It elaborates in which the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father and the Son. You do not find this clearly articulated in the first century.

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It is a growing thing. Now, what we look for in this growing consensus can be found in any anthology of primary source documents.

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Let me mention two of them that I would encourage you to get hold of yourself, because you are going to hear lots of church fathers slung around this evening, and it is going to be difficult to keep track of all of Your head is going to swim.

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So I would ask you to listen to what Mr. White says and what I say as an entrée into the subject, but to realize that perhaps what we are saying is not going to satisfy you here and now tonight, and you might need to look into it a little bit more on your own.

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The book that bowled me over while I was a Protestant is a book written by a Protestant, Documents Illustrating Papal Authority, from A .D.

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96 to 454, edited and with introductions and critical notes by Edward Giles, a

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Protestant historian of the time. He rejects the papacy. He is a

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Protestant. Let me make that very clear so Mr. White doesn't make hay of it later on.

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However, in this book in which he has assembled all the primary church documents that are relevant to this issue, he begins with 1

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Clement, which he dates in 96 A .D. I will talk about the date when I get back to it in our second period for this evening because I won't have time now.

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And he goes all the way up to 454 A .D., to the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon, which met a

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And what Giles says is this. He says there is no point in going beyond this date because it is undeniable that by this point there is a general consensus throughout the church's provinces that the

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Bishop of Rome has the authority to adjudicate doctrinal disputes and dissensions because at the

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Council of Chalcedon, Leo I, the Bishop of Rome, sent a tome in which he articulated the precise well -being of the way in which the two natures are united in the one person of Jesus Christ, our

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Savior and our Lord. And the church says, Peter has spoken through Leo.

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Rome has spoken. The matter is settled. By this point, Giles says, this conviction is firmly in place.

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Now, the question is, if that is true by the middle of the 400s, is this authority just pulled like a rabbit out of a hat earlier in the 400s or in the 300s or the 200s?

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Well, where does this come from? What I did as a Protestant coming upon this book in a Protestant university library is sit down and just read through it.

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And I read through it, as a matter of fact, in one sitting. I was so enthralled by this primary source document. Not a Catholic book, not a

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Protestant book against the papacy, but simply reading all the sermons, reading all the homilies, the commentaries by the early church fathers.

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And this is what I discovered. And you can pick up the book and discover it for yourself. I discovered that what

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Giles the Protestant admits is the understanding of the church by 454 is an organic development of what the church affirmed in the preceding generation.

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And that, in turn, is organically derived from what occurred in the preceding generation and all the way back. I saw an oak tree, in other words, springing ultimately from the acorn of what you find in 1st

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Clement and, in fact, in sacred scripture itself. What I will seek to do in my second period, my period of 12 minutes this evening, is to give you some of the highlights of what

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Giles the Protestant But I would encourage you, again, to get hold of a book like this book or a book like this and read these things for yourself.

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Yes, you will hear a clinking note now and again. Yes, you will hear a church father who says, I'm not sure that the rock in Matthew 16 is, in fact,

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Peter. It may be his confession of faith. It may be his confession in the deity of Christ or the deity of Christ himself.

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But, by and large, you will see a mounting crescendo of voices until there is a consensus in the church that the bishop or the bishop of Rome exercises his authority by virtue of his descent from Peter and is inheriting the authority of that office.

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Thank you very much. I would like to state, for the benefit of Mr.

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Manitix, Mr. White, and those of you who do not know Chaplain Felker, that when

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I was ordained into the Evangelical Presbyterian Church as a minister,

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I went through an ordination trial after going through all these tests that I had to take, and it was fairly rigorous.

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Then, before this austere body of people were to vote on whether I would be accepted,

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I had the opportunity to choose someone to speak on my behalf.

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I made the mistake of asking Mr. Felker to come speak on my behalf, and I admit to you, under the that I am a lawyer, and Chaplain Pastor Felker did nothing during my entire defense but tell lawyer jokes.

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That was the extent of it. Then he went and sat down and I squeaked through.

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One of the challenges I would give to any of you out here, no matter what your view is, is could you articulate a defense of your position against the one who holds the opposing view?

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Now that you have heard each of these men give his opening statement, could you do what

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Jude 3 states, a commandment to contend earnestly for the faith?

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One of the things I appreciate about both these gentlemen is that they contend earnestly for the faith and they demonstrate they are taking seriously what

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God has called us to do. We now enter into the first of two rebuttal periods.

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This first one is 12 minutes, 12 minutes each. Mr. White has the first opportunity.

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Mr. White. If the

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Roman Catholic position regarding the papacy is correct, we should be able to find evidence of this across the entire spectrum of the patristic evidence.

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We should not only find this in creeds and councils, but in treatises and even in the papacy sent by Christians to one another.

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I would like to begin my comments during this time by drawing your attention to a singular example of how the papacy is absent from the everyday life of the early fathers.

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In the middle of the fourth century, a dispute developed over who was the proper bishop at Antioch. The claimants were

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Paulinus, who had the support of the West, and notably Rome, and Miletus, who was supported by the majority of believers at Antioch.

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I note in passing that again we find Rome on the wrong side, for even though Rome did not acknowledge

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Miletus during his lifetime, she has since honored him as a saint. Perhaps the fact that he presided over the second general conference has something to do with this.

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Be that as it may, Miletus was supported by another father of the Christian faith, Basil. And it is to Basil that I wish to turn our attention for a moment.

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Around the year 375, Basil wrote to Count Terentius and spoke of the situation at Antioch.

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He noted that the supporters of Paulinus had a letter from the Westerns, which is most probably a letter from the bishop of Rome himself,

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Damathus. Basil says, with reference to these Westerners, quote, I am not astonished at this.

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They are totally ignorant of what is going on here, end quote. Then a little while later, he mentions that there is a specific letter from Rome that supposedly bears upon the schism at Antioch in support of Paulinus against Miletus.

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I read his comments to you, quote. I accuse no one. I pray that I may have love to all, and especially unto them who are the household of faith.

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And therefore I congratulate those who have received the letter from Rome. And although it is a great testimony in their favor,

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I only hope it is true and confirmed by facts. But I shall never be able to persuade myself on these grounds to ignore

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Miletus, or to forget the church which is under him, or to treat as small and of little importance to the true religion the questions which originated the division.

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I shall never consent to give in merely because somebody is very much elated of receiving a letter from men.

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Even if it had come down from heaven itself, but he does not agree with the sound doctrine of the faith,

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I shall not look upon him as in communion with the saints." Such is hardly how one would expect the great

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Basil to respond to an epistle from Rome, if he held the Roman position, as we have seen it defined, from the dogmatic constitutions of the

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Roman church this evening. He specifically indicates that he does not find Rome to be infallible, even in matters regarding the governing of the church.

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He further identifies such a letter as coming merely from men, not from the successor of Peter, who is the vicar of Christ.

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He goes and gets downright Protestant in insisting that the sound doctrine of the faith cannot be compromised.

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Instead, we must hold to that standard no matter what men may say. Now, unless we wish to sever

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Basil from the church, and today on the radio program Mr. Mattox indicated that Basil's attitude may have been sinful, yet here is yet more evidence that the papacy has not been the ancient and constant faith of the universal church.

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While there is so much more that could be presented, I must need limited time to discuss our review and turn now to the passages we addressed last evening and provide to you interpretations of those passages from the

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Fathers. I begin with Luke chapter 22, verses 31 to 32, where the Lord prays for Peter's faith and instructs him when he is turned back to strengthen his brothers.

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We saw that the New Testament does not indicate that this made Peter a Pope, nor the Prince of the Apostles. Dr. Salmon noted the reference to the patristic aspect of the interpretation of this passage, quote,

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This prayer to Peter is so clearly personal that some Roman Catholic controversialists do not rely on this passage at all.

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Neither can they produce any early writers who deduced from it anything in favor of the Roman seed. Bellarmine can quote nothing earlier than the 11th century except the suspicious evidence of some

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Popes in their own cause, of whom the earliest to speak distinctly is Pope Agatho in his address to the

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Sixth General Council in A .D. 680, end quote. Needless to say, we do not find a modern

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Roman interpretation of this passage popping up throughout the writings of the early church. What of John chapter 21?

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Last evening I quoted, as expressing my own opinion, the words of Cyril of Alexandria, who provided not the

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Roman interpretation, but the Protestant interpretation. Remember that Vatican 1 tells us that the Catholic Church has always, always understood these passages, specifically

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Matthew 16 and John 21, in the way presented by Rome today. But, of course, this is manifestly untrue.

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The existence of different interpretations without the slightest evidence that those giving those passages were attempting to rebel against apostolic doctrine, or to be perverse in their opinions, not only refutes the

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Roman contention, but also shows that these men did not find in these passages the very constitution of the church itself, as later claimed by Rome.

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Now, I pause only briefly to note that I am unaware of a single father of the Christian faith in the first 700 years of the

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Christian era, who ever connected Isaiah chapter 22, verse 22, with Matthew 16, and then applied this to Peter's passage.

01:00:00

Few interpretational stretches are as devoid of patristic support as this one.

01:00:06

I would challenge my opponent to provide us with patristic support, not only of his use of Isaiah 22, 22, but of the many allegorical, typological interpretations he put forward last night with reference to Peter.

01:00:18

Where did the early church speak as you on these subjects, is what I would ask Mr. Matotix. We turn then to the pivotal passage,

01:00:24

Matthew 16, 18. When we look at the patristic information regarding this passage, we find that the Roman Catholic scholars felt it necessary to leave communion with Rome following Vatican I, for any person even slightly familiar with patristic interpretation and slightly concerned about being truthful would never, ever say that the church has always interpreted this passage as it is interpreted by the council.

01:01:00

But before documenting this, I wish to quote a passage from Dr. Salmon that is very important. After going through the various interpretations found in the patristic sources, he writes,

01:01:10

But none of these can be reconciled with the interpretation which regards this text as containing the charter of the church's organization.

01:01:18

A charter would be worthless if it were left uncertain to whom it was addressed, or what powers it conferred.

01:01:24

So the mere fact that fathers differed in opinion as to what was meant by this rock, and that it occurred to occasionally the same father wavered in his opinion on this subject, proved that none of them regarded this text as one establishing a perpetual constitution for the

01:01:40

Christian church. It is very important to note, then, that when the Roman Catholic advocate makes

01:01:47

Matthew 16 the very charter of the papacy, he is by so doing separating himself from the early church, who saw no such thing in this passage, but instead allowed for a multiplicity of interpretation.

01:02:00

The French Roman Catholic, Lanois, surveyed the patristic evidence, and found seventeen citations supporting the concept that Peter is the rock of Matthew 16.

01:02:09

Please note that this does not mean that all sixteen of these fathers also felt that this meant that the bishop of Rome was a pope, but only that they saw

01:02:15

Matthew 16 and the phrase this rock as referring to Peter. However, Lanois found sixteen citations that identified the rock as Christ himself.

01:02:24

He found eight that identified all the apostles together as forming the rock of Matthew 16. And he found 44 citations indicating that the rock of Matthew 16 was the confession of faith made by Peter in Jesus Christ, the position

01:02:39

I presented to you last night. Now if we add these numbers together, we find that the Roman position, the modern

01:02:44

Roman position, which claims to have always been the faith of the Catholic church, actually represents, in Lanois' survey, twenty percent of the fathers.

01:02:52

Eighty percent of the time, then, the early fathers expressed, in Vatican I's words, perverse opinions at the very best.

01:02:59

I might note, in passing, that even as late as the Council of Trent, one can find even that council referring to this passage as referring to the faith that Peter expressed.

01:03:09

But should one Roman Catholic survey not be enough, we turn to the Jesuit Maldonatus, who writes, quote,

01:03:15

There are among ancient authors some who interpret on this rock, that is, on this faith, or on this confession of faith, in which thou hast called me the

01:03:22

Son of the Living God, as Hillary, and Gregory Nisen, and Chrysostom, and Silo of Alexandria.

01:03:29

Saint Augustine, going still further away from the true sense, interprets on this rock, that is, on myself

01:03:34

Christ, because Christ was the rock. But origin on this rock, that is to say, on all men who have the same faith, end quote.

01:03:44

Was Maldonatus correct? Most definitely so. Let's look, for example, at Hillary's statement regarding Matthew chapter 16 verse 18, as found in his work

01:03:51

De Trinitate book 6 chapter 37. Quote, This faith it is, which is the foundation of the church.

01:03:58

Through this faith, the gates of hell cannot prevail against her. This is the faith which has the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

01:04:05

End quote. Indeed, as one reads all of chapter 37, one finds Hillary referring to each of the prime texts upon which the papacy is built, including

01:04:14

John 21 and Luke 22, and yet not once mentioning the papacy. Can you imagine a modern

01:04:20

Roman apologist citing all three of these passages and not mentioning the papacy at all? From whence cometh this perverse notion that the passage here refers to the faith of Peter's confession, and not to Peter himself?

01:04:32

Was it not the common belief of Christians for centuries before that that this passage referred to Peter, thus establishing the papacy?

01:04:39

How could Hillary be ignorant of such a basic truth, and how could he be joined by the likes of John Chrysostom or Gregory Nazianzus?

01:04:47

How could these great men and preachers be ignorant of such a basic truth? Unless, perhaps, it was not a basic truth at all?

01:04:54

And what of the great Augustine? Surely many are aware of his statements and his retractationis regarding this passage and its meaning, and I shall not take the time to read it to you yet once again.

01:05:04

I will point out, however, that Augustine left his readers to decide how they would interpret the passage.

01:05:11

May I ask us all to think seriously about what it means that the great bishop of Hippo, Augustine, could think that how one views this passage is a matter of freedom, when

01:05:21

Vatican I tells us it is a matter upon which the anathema can and should be used? Can we not see in this the tremendously huge amount of evolution that has taken place between the early part of the 5th century and the latter part of the 19th?

01:05:34

Indeed, we can. In fact, I might note in passing that Dr. Froehlich said, quote, the most astonishing fact is that in the entire

01:05:41

Middle Ages, in contrast with the polemical literature of the period, specifically exegetical literature universally made the equation rock

01:05:50

Christ, not rock Peter. End quote. I am inclined to agree with William Cathcart who wrote with reference to the patristic interpretation of the rock as Christ, quote, the same view of this scripture was taken by other leading fathers of the church and outside of Rome for the first five centuries of our era no

01:06:09

Christian father of any note dreamt that this saying gave Peter the sovereignty of the church.

01:06:16

End quote. And I will finish my time reading from Jackson who said in regards to the time of Basel, quote, in truth the supremacy of the

01:06:23

Roman state was as it has been understood in later times was hardly on the horizon at this time. No bishop of Rome had even been present in Nicaea or at Sardica where a certain right of appeal to his sea was conceded.

01:06:34

A bishop of Rome signed the Sermian blasphemy. No bishop of Rome was present to save the world from the lapse of Ariminum.

01:06:41

The great intellectual Aryan war was fought out without any claim of Rome to speak. Half a century after Basel's death great orientals were quite unconscious of this supremacy referring there to Theodorus.

01:06:53

End quote. Who has presented the early church evidence this evening? Who has been quoting the early fathers?

01:06:59

I will continue to do so in the time that is allotted to me after this. Thank you very much. You have 12 minutes in your revival.

01:07:08

Let's look at some of this material that Mr. White has been drawing our attention to. I think some important aspects of it have been left out, perhaps not intentionally.

01:07:18

If you turn to the back index of a three -volume work, which is much larger than the book

01:07:24

I mentioned before by Giles, although admittedly the drawback for those of you who are perhaps overly concerned about bias is that it is edited by a

01:07:32

Catholic scholar. You have a three -volume work called The Faith of the Early Fathers. It too is just simply an anthology of primary source documents.

01:07:40

In the back of it there is a scripture index, a topical index, there is a propositional index.

01:07:47

If you turn to that propositional index, an index of propositions taught by the Church Fathers, you find the following propositions made under the subheading

01:07:55

The Primacy of the Pope. These statements are made. Proposition 430, in other words, all the statements that the

01:08:02

Church Fathers teach are all numbered and listed out for you. Among the Apostles, Peter received from Christ the primacy of jurisdiction over the

01:08:12

Church. That is, he is the first governor over the Church. He has a headship over the Church. And there are 20 quotes from the

01:08:23

Church Fathers that substantiate this particular proposition from the early

01:08:29

Church Fathers. The second proposition is this one, 21, excuse me.

01:08:35

The second one is 431, Peter came to Rome and died there. 17

01:08:41

Church Fathers attest that. Thirdly, Peter established his Episcopal See at Rome and made the

01:08:46

Bishop of Rome his successor in the primacy. 17 Church Fathers attest to that.

01:08:54

The Roman Pontiffs have always laid claim to the primacy of jurisdiction. 20

01:08:59

Church Fathers speak to that. From earliest times, the Roman Church has been regarded by the

01:09:05

Church as the center of its unity. 11 Church Fathers speak to that. And from earliest times, lastly, it was acknowledged that supreme power over the whole

01:09:14

Church belonged to the Bishop of Rome as successor of Peter. 27

01:09:20

Church Fathers defend that. Now, that's a lot of statements and I don't have the time to read them all tonight.

01:09:27

I would love to take you through each and every one of these. But as I say, I'll simply focus on, just for the sake of intellectual honesty and to maintain credibility with you,

01:09:37

I will simply focus on the ones that Mr. White himself has brought up as arguing against the Catholic position.

01:09:43

So let's look first of all at these successor lists that he alludes to in Kelly's dictionary on the

01:09:51

Popes. Actually, I won't take any time with that. Let me move on to Clement because I think that is something

01:09:57

Mr. White leaned upon more heavily. But I should simply note in passing that the reason in some of these earlier lists that Anacletus is the first in the list and not

01:10:06

Peter is because if you look at the whole list, ladies and gentlemen, I would encourage you to look them up in jurgens as I was doing.

01:10:12

These lists are lists of successors to Peter. That is why

01:10:18

Peter's name does not appear there first. The later lists give the lists of the Bishop of Rome.

01:10:23

I'm going to read you the most famous of those in Irenaeus and Peter is there listed first. Let me move on secondly then to Clement's letter to the church at Corinth.

01:10:33

As Mr. White points out, the date is in dispute. The general consensus is that it was written in 96 A .D. while Clement was

01:10:39

Bishop of Rome. But Father Jurgens argued that it might have been written in A .D. 80.

01:10:46

Many scholars, an increasing number in fact, are arguing that it was written prior to A .D. 70.

01:10:52

Because in the letter of Clement, he compares the worship of Christians to the worship that the

01:10:59

Jews are still performing in the temple and speaks in the present tense as though it is still going on. The sacrifices are still being offered there.

01:11:06

The Levites and the priests are engaging in this worship in a still standing temple. The date, therefore, is perhaps important.

01:11:16

But regardless of when you date the letter, the letter undeniably comes across with a strong emphasis of authority.

01:11:24

Let me read to you a couple of quotes from this letter. Something that I don't believe

01:11:30

Mr. White did, and I want him to correct me if I'm wrong on that. I don't want to accuse him of anything. He's a very articulate speaker and he's saying so many things that I'm not always keeping up with him.

01:11:43

But here's what Clement says to the church at Corinth. He says, because they're having this problem of deposing the elders, he says this in chapter 59.

01:11:52

If any disobey the words spoken by the Lord through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and in no small danger.

01:12:05

You will give us joy and gladness if you, obedient to what we have written through the

01:12:12

Holy Spirit, you root out the lawless anger of your jealousy and envy and reinstate in office those men whom you have unlawfully deposed.

01:12:23

Now Giles, the Protestant, in the footnote says this. The apology for delay at the beginning of the letter suggests that the

01:12:30

Corinthian Christians had written to Rome for advice in their dispute about the authority of the ministry. The church of Corinth was founded by Paul and John the

01:12:38

Apostle was probably still alive. That's even more true, of course, if this were written prior to 70

01:12:44

A .D. as I believe it was and as the great Protestant New Testament scholar John A .T.

01:12:49

Robinson in his book Redating the New Testament argues in the appendix to that book. He says the church of Corinth is founded by Paul and John the

01:12:55

Apostle is probably still alive but it is Rome some 600 miles away which intervenes and Bishop Gore, an

01:13:02

Anglican bishop who is trying to resist the conclusion that this establishes papal authority admits,

01:13:09

Giles says, that the letter is written with a tone of considerable authority. Now, if it was written prior to 70

01:13:17

A .D. then Clement was not the bishop of Rome at the time. He was not bishop until the 90s and that would explain why he does not, as Mr.

01:13:26

White said, write in the name of himself as a personally possessing authority but he writes in the authority of the church of Rome.

01:13:35

He is writing as the secretary of state for the church which is what the shepherd of Hermas tells us he was prior to his promotion to the pontificate.

01:13:44

So his job is to speak on behalf of the church of Rome the way Cardinal Ratzinger for example might write some statement on homosexual rights legislation or what have you or in vitro fertilization on behalf of the pope.

01:13:58

He is writing in the name of the church but it is not the pope himself who is writing it but still it has this tone of authority coming from the church of Rome.

01:14:08

Let's look thirdly at Ignatius who Mr. White pointed out does not write to the bishop of Antioch.

01:14:16

He sends seven letters to seven churches and when he writes to Rome he does not address the bishop.

01:14:21

What is interesting to me though is that in all the other letters he insists that these churches in Asia Minor to whom he writes remain completely submissive to the bishop.

01:14:34

The way he puts it is this. He says that you must heed the bishop because follow all of you the bishop as Jesus Christ followed the father.

01:14:49

Let no man do anything pertaining to the church apart from the bishop. Let that Eucharist alone be considered valid which is under the bishop or him to whom he commits it.

01:14:56

Wherever the bishop is there let the people be just as wherever Jesus Christ is there is the Catholic church.

01:15:02

You must hold with the bishop. There was not that problem at Rome however and so he does not bring it up in his letter to Rome.

01:15:08

Here is what he says. Ignatius to that church that is beloved and illuminated by the will of him who willed all things which exist in faith and love to Jesus Christ our

01:15:19

God, to her that presides in the district of the region of the Romans, that church which is worthy of God, worthy of congratulation, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy in purity, having the presidency of charity over the churches, following assiduously the law of Christ, bearing the

01:15:38

Father's name, which church I salute in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, to them that are united in flesh and spirit with every one of God's commandments who are completely filled with the grace of God without wavering and who are strained clear from every foreign stain.

01:15:55

He says I do not command you as Peter and Paul did, referring to their authority over the church at Rome.

01:16:05

Newman found no difficulty, Giles says in the footnote, in the fact that the Pope is never mentioned by Ignatius.

01:16:12

He thought the occasion for the exercise of papal authority had not yet arisen. Chapman, another scholar, thought that the

01:16:18

Pope's name was concealed for fear of persecution. By the way, Mr. White mentioned

01:16:23

John Henry Newman as the greatest Catholic apologist of the 19th century. Even in his development of Christian doctrine, in his famous book, he admits that the bishop of Rome did not derive this authority from the

01:16:38

Petrine statements and so forth. What Mr. White did not tell you, and I take exception to this as one scholar to another, is that John Henry Newman was not a

01:16:48

Catholic when he wrote on the development of Christian doctrine. He was a Protestant fighting against the conclusion that Catholicism was true.

01:16:57

Newman spent many years and many works trying to protect himself from becoming a

01:17:04

Catholic. He was not able to effectively successfully do so and finally capitulated and converted to Roman Catholicism but it was after he wrote his famous essay on the development of Christian doctrine.

01:17:15

So to not give you that important bit of information and to argue that Newman, this Catholic scholar, is somehow making some point damaging to the

01:17:24

Catholic cause is I think a little bit, you know, well something that I want to take exception to. I'll simply leave it at that.

01:17:30

Now, he mentions also Irenaeus counseling Victor not to impose

01:17:36

Pope Victor to impose this standardization of the date on which

01:17:42

Easter should be celebrated on the Eastern churches. What Giles says in his work when he examines this whole

01:17:49

Easter controversy is that no one in the early church, no one argues, even though they disagree with Victor's desire to impose on the churches of Asia Minor the same date for celebrating

01:18:05

Easter. See they were following according to the Jewish moon calendar and not the calendar used in Rome. No one argues, this is

01:18:12

Giles the Protestant speaking, no one said that Victor's action was ultra viris. That's a

01:18:17

Latin legal term that Mr. Philobosian would know meaning that he was acting outside the bounds of his authority.

01:18:24

No one said you have no right to do this. They were saying you're being imprudent, you're being unwise. This very Irenaeus who counseled

01:18:31

Victor not to do it goes on to say some rather astounding things about the authority of the church of Rome.

01:18:37

Here's what he says. He says anyone who wishes to discern the truth may see in every church in the whole world the apostolic succession clear and manifest.

01:18:48

We can enumerate those who were appointed as bishops in the churches by the apostles and their successors down to our present day.

01:18:54

But it would be very long in a book of my kind to enumerate the successions of all the churches. So I will simply point out the succession of bishops in that greatest, most ancient, most well -known church founded and established by the two most glorious apostles,

01:19:09

Peter and Paul, at Rome. And by doing this we can confound all those who dispute what this church teaches.

01:19:15

For to this church, on account of her more powerful principality, it is necessary that every church should agree that the faithful everywhere with the tradition from the apostles preserved in this church.

01:19:28

I'll continue in our next period. Right now we have a nine -minute period for each of the two gentlemen to give a final rebuttal.

01:19:39

We then move into the question and answer period where they may go at each other. So Mr.

01:19:45

White, we start with your nine -minute rebuttal. Thank you very much.

01:19:52

Jerry made mention of the index to Juergens, the faith of the early fathers, and made lists and said there are so many fathers who support this, support that, so on and so forth.

01:20:02

He said, I'd love to take you through all these, and I would too. I really would because I know, for example, a friend of mine who, as a

01:20:10

Roman Catholic, began seeing there were problems with this doctrine and he turned to this and studied every single one of the references that Jerry said.

01:20:17

As a result, left the Roman Catholic Church because he found out that what the passages supposedly taught, they don't.

01:20:24

I'd like to give you just one of them. For example, Jerry mentioned the Roman Pontiffs have always claimed the primacy of jurisdiction.

01:20:31

He said there are a certain number of fathers who support this. Actually, it's not true because there are just listings here. Not everyone is from a different father.

01:20:37

The first one that's listed is 10a. I'd like to read to you what supposedly indicates that the

01:20:44

Roman Pontiff has always claimed jurisdiction over the entire Church. Quote, The Church of God which sojourns in Rome, the

01:20:50

Church of God which sojourns in Corinth. To those who are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace from Almighty God be multiplied to you through Jesus Christ.

01:20:59

This is simply the beginning of Clement's letter which as we have seen does not even mention a Roman Pontiff. In fact, it's always written in the plural, a plurality of elders.

01:21:07

So what I would like to encourage you to do is yes, do get hold of this resource and do look through it because I have found to be one of the most valuable resources in finding quotations that are taken out of context.

01:21:17

Go take what's said in Jurgens, go to the larger sets that give all the reference, read the whole thing.

01:21:23

And I have found many, many, many times when that has demonstrated that the proposition supposedly being supported wasn't there.

01:21:31

Now, Jerry also mentioned Giles and Giles' comment in regards to Clement. But what

01:21:37

Jerry didn't read to you is the rest of what the footnote in Giles said. He went down to the point where he mentions

01:21:43

Gore admits the letter is written with a tone of considerable authority. But the quote goes on to say, the force of this may be a little weakened by the fact that Julius Caesar had repopulated

01:21:52

Corinth with Italian freedmen in 46 B .C. So it was racially in close touch with Rome.

01:21:57

And it goes on to quote the same passage I quoted to you from Lightfoot and then says, but Lightfoot also says that Clement writes as the mouthpiece of the

01:22:05

Roman church and on terms of equality with the Corinthians, not as successor of Peter.

01:22:11

So I would recommend that you read all of what Giles has to say and look at those passages as they are presented to us.

01:22:18

Now, next, in Jerry's opening arguments, he presented to us various and supposed problems in Protestant argumentation.

01:22:27

And he gave us, remember the acorn example? He said, you don't need to find the fullness of what

01:22:33

Vatican I says in the early church. And yet, what did Vatican I say? I just have to hold

01:22:38

Jerry to exactly what Vatican I says. It says that this is in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church and regards to Matthew 16 and John 21, it says that this is a clear doctrine of Holy Scripture as it has been ever understood by the

01:22:55

Catholic church. The only way to get around what Vatican I says is to cut off from the Catholic church all those early fathers who disagree, which is a convenient way of doing a study of early church history, but I don't think it's a very fair way of doing that.

01:23:08

And then he used the example of, well, what if you have an acorn and you have a giant oak? You see, there's this development that takes place between the two.

01:23:16

My friends, Vatican I claims that it's always been a giant oak. Vatican I denies it was ever an acorn because it says it's the ancient and constant faith of the church.

01:23:25

And that is why so many Roman Catholic scholars had so much of a problem with Vatican I because they knew historically that that was not the case at all.

01:23:34

Now, Jerry just mentioned in regards to Newman. Newman writes this before he becomes a Roman Catholic. Well, it's interesting.

01:23:41

Jerry used to work for the group that was mentioned Catholic Answers. And Carl Keating of Catholic Answers cites quite freely from Newman and presents his perspectives as being representative of Roman Catholic thinking.

01:23:53

And so hopefully it's not incumbent upon me to give you a historical background of every single author that I'm going to cite because Newman's opinions continue to be held by Roman Catholics today as representing truth about the

01:24:06

Roman Catholic church itself. Now, Jerry went on to say that it is a first mistake to believe that the papacy rose from political considerations.

01:24:16

And he says J. N. D. Kelly refutes this. And yet when he read from J. N. D. Kelly, all he proved to us is that Rome claims that it didn't arise from political considerations.

01:24:24

If you'll read all of Kelly, you'll find out how very important politics very much were because as you go through you'll find over and over and over again that there isn't a

01:24:32

Pope in Rome for a year because they're waiting for political papers to arrive in Constantinople so the next

01:24:39

Pope can be elected, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And nothing has been said so far by Mr. Mattox in response to the citation of the 28th canon of Chalcedon which specifically states that the reasons of the privileges of Rome are due to it being the royal city.

01:24:52

I didn't write that. That is a part of the council of Chalcedon and if that's the case, why did such forged documents as the donation of Constantine have to be made that Rome relied on for literally centuries to support her position and yet what is more political than the donation of Constantine even though we do discover later on that it is a fraud that Rome has been relying upon for so long.

01:25:16

Then Jerry brought up the idea of Peter not being in Rome and in the process he said talking about Peter functioning as an apostle in Rome this is what the early church taught and that's very very true.

01:25:26

But the early church taught that he was an apostle in Rome. The very same passage that Jerry just read from Irenaeus says that Peter and Paul then made the first bishop of Rome not that Peter and Paul were the first bishop of Rome and not that Peter was the first bishop of Rome.

01:25:47

I hope you listen closely to what he was saying at that time. Then he says well if Roman bishops don't boss people around then

01:25:54

Protestants think that they're not there. And yet Cyprian and Stephen the conflict that they have shows that the very first time that we find any bishop of Rome claiming to be a successor of Peter is in the very situation where he's trying to boss someone around.

01:26:10

This is the very context out of which this comes and which we encounter for the very first time in the history of the church.

01:26:19

Now, then Mr. Matic says well if the title Pope isn't used Protestants say that the concept is not there.

01:26:26

No, I'm not saying that but I do not believe that there is a parallel between the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the papacy. The doctrine of the

01:26:31

Trinity is based upon a wide and deep entire witness of Scripture.

01:26:37

Clear plain teaching about monotheism, the deity of Christ, the person of the Holy Spirit. The papacy is in no way, shape or form parallel to the doctrine of the

01:26:46

Trinity in that situation. But it is interesting to me that I'm not aware of anyone calling the Bishop of Rome Pope.

01:26:52

I know people calling Cyprian Pope and other people Pope but not anyone the Bishop of Rome and it's not until 1086

01:26:58

A .D. that the Bishop of Rome says everyone needs to call me a Pope. Something about development can certainly be seen there.

01:27:07

Now, then Mr. Matic says well you know evidence of disputes does not show that Peter had no authority or that the

01:27:13

Bishop of Rome had no authority. Well, certainly that would be very much the case. However, we cannot assume the concept of papacy and then say well disputes don't disprove what

01:27:22

I'm assuming. We can't assume things here tonight. We have to find these particular things.

01:27:28

And some of the examples I have provided to you, for example, regards to Basel, if that was found in a modern context it would plainly demonstrate that those that are involved in the dispute do not hold to a concept of patrium primacy.

01:27:40

If you had a Bishop here in the United States, if you had some conflict about who was a Bishop of a particular diocese and you find another

01:27:47

Bishop writing and saying well I know that Rome has said this man is the Bishop but hey that's just a letter from men.

01:27:53

I don't believe in that. What would that tell you? Well Mr. Matic would say well that person is being sinful. But if we don't automatically assume that people like the

01:28:01

Bishop of Basel were being sinful, isn't it just quite possible that these individuals didn't have the

01:28:07

Roman understanding at this early time in the history of the church that Mr. Matic has today? I certainly think that that is the case.

01:28:15

Then Mr. Matic quoted from chapters 40 and 44 of the letter of Clement and said listen to the tone that this has.

01:28:22

But did you catch what it said in chapters 40 and 44? It specifically presented a plurality of elders as being normative both in Corinth and in Rome.

01:28:32

Not one successor, not one Pope in Rome speaking to the Corinthians, but a plurality of elders.

01:28:39

There is no one person writing this letter that says I am the Bishop, I am the successor of Rome therefore

01:28:44

I talk to you in that position. Thank you very much. As a nine minute rebuttal period.

01:29:09

I agree with Mr. White that you need to read the whole quote to get the full reason why one of us is citing it.

01:29:15

Mr. White to read the whole quote attacked the credibility of the index in the back of Juergens said look the very first citation they give you for the authority of Rome over other churches is the following and he turned to the first citation 10a and he said and he read the beginning of Clement's letter to the

01:29:36

Corinthians, the church of God which says Rome is the church of Corinth. He said this is simply the beginning of the letter. How could this prove this proposition?

01:29:44

But he himself with the page right in front of him didn't go on to read the very next sentence because the very next sentence says owing to the sudden repeated calamities and misfortunes which have befallen us the church at Rome and that's either referring to the

01:29:57

Neronian persecution if you date this book prior to 70 AD or the persecution under Domitian between 81 and 96.

01:30:03

He says we must acknowledge that we have been somewhat tardy in turning our attention to the matters in dispute among you beloved and especially to that abominable and holy sedition alien and foreign to the elect of God which a few rash and self -willed persons have inflamed to such a madness that your venerable and illustrious name worthy to be loved by all men has been greatly defamed.

01:30:23

The reason this is cited as the first evidence, not a very powerful one admittedly, but it's the first indication and Giles includes it himself, that the church at Rome has a self -conscious that it itself is responsible for the behavior of other churches, that it has some right to intervene in the affairs of another church even though it's 600 miles away in another country altogether.

01:30:46

So please do get it. And I know that Tim was absolutely right,

01:30:52

Tim Philaboshian, in saying that these books are somewhat hard to find and are expensive. I am willing to do this as my sort of contribution to the pursuit of truth and that is what

01:31:01

I want to pursue tonight. Not winning a debate, not proving the chasm is true no matter what, even if we have to fudge facts or I don't want to engage in these stretching things as Mr.

01:31:09

White says. I would be willing to sell, and this is a precedent I don't want to establish across the board, but I would be willing to get to you the set of jurgens,

01:31:20

Fifth and Early Fathers, which Biblical Foundations does sell. We don't have any tonight. I'd be willing to give it to you at cost, to not make any profit on it.

01:31:28

As many people here as want a copy for themselves, I get it from the publisher at 40 % off. I'll give it to you just at the cost.

01:31:34

I don't want to make a penny on it. If you would like to read this yourself, I'll go further. Giles, the anthology written by the

01:31:41

Protestant, which I mentioned, I will be willing to give you a copy of it.

01:31:46

I will, at our own expense, the Biblical Foundation's expense, and if you knew how tiny our budget was and how a miracle it is that we can pay our bills each month, we only have one employee, and that's me, and a part -time secretary that I pay $5 an hour just to do some xeroxing and so forth for me on an occasional basis.

01:32:02

I will pay him to make as many xeroxed copies as you would like. If you will simply give me a copy of this, give me a self -addressed stamped envelope that I can, or reimburse me for the postage so that I can get it to you in the mail.

01:32:13

I will be happy to see you can study these things for yourself. Now, he mentioned Kelly, also, and he said that Kelly simply argues that the

01:32:24

Catholic Church claims that it bases its thing on Scripture. That was exactly my point in citing him.

01:32:29

What I was seeking to do was refute the idea that the Catholic Church only invented the Scriptural support for its claims for the papacy later on in the

01:32:40

Middle Ages, not before 1000 A .D. or what have you. No, Kelly, a

01:32:45

Protestant, says the papacy, through successive popes and councils, has always traced its origins and title leads to the unique commission reported to have been given by Jesus Christ to Peter.

01:32:54

He doesn't say he believes in the papacy for that reason. I'm not asking you to believe in it, but I'm simply asking you to believe what this historian says, that the

01:33:02

Catholic Church has always made a Biblical argument for the authority of its popes.

01:33:08

By the way, he mentioned that Kelly says there is no monarchical, in his article on Anacletus, no monarchical episcopate until the second century.

01:33:17

He said, did you catch that? The problem is that Mr. White himself would reject J. N.

01:33:23

D. Kelly, though a great scholar, a liberal at this point, his liberal presuppositions of higher criticism. If you read

01:33:29

J. N. D. Kelly's commentaries on the letters of Peter and Jude and the pastoral epistles, he follows the higher critical view that any reference to a monarchical episcopate, which you do have in Paul's letter to Timothy and Titus, is therefore a late development and couldn't have been written by Paul himself.

01:33:45

So beware of people's biases when you do that. Now let's go on to the passages that Mr.

01:33:51

White has been drawing our attention to. Irenaeus, I was in the midst of reading this, in Irenaeus, his work against heresies,

01:33:58

I had read the passage where he said that every church must agree with this church of Rome. I will simply give the genealogy, the pedigree of this church.

01:34:06

And he goes on to do that. He says, in the very next paragraph, paragraph three, he says, the blessed apostles, and I'm reading from Giles' translation here, a

01:34:15

Protestant, the blessed apostles, after founding and building up the church, entrusted the office of bishop to Linus.

01:34:22

Paul speaks of this Linus in his epistles to Timothy. Anacletus then followed him. After him, in the third place after the bishop, he not only saw the blessed apostles, but he also had communications with them and had their preaching ringing in his ears and before his eyes.

01:34:37

He was not alone in this, for there were many still left at the time who had been instructed by the apostles. And then he goes on to trace the line of descent down to the pope of that particular day,

01:34:48

Eleutherus, the twelfth from the apostles who now occupies the sea. And Irenaeus says this, in the same order and in the same succession, the tradition of the apostles in the church and the preaching of the truth have come down to us.

01:35:00

And this is a most complete proof that it is one and the same life giving faith, which has been preserved in the church from the apostles until now and handed down in truth.

01:35:08

Mr. White does not believe this. It is his theological opinion that there is no apostolic succession of bishops who faithfully transmit the truth from the apostles down to the present day.

01:35:21

Irenaeus argues that this is the understanding of the early church, that there were people who were alive in these apostles who could have protested at this usurpation of authority.

01:35:29

In fact, this is not the case. And Irenaeus says, as an example of one of those apostolic successions, you have the apostolic succession of the

01:35:36

Pope of Rome. He has inherited his authority from Peter and Paul himself. Tertullian is another church father that Mr.

01:35:46

White made reference to, referred to one treatise of his.

01:35:52

And Tertullian says this. About apostolic succession.

01:35:58

He says, besides if any heresies dare to plant themselves in the apostolic age, that is that they claim that they were existing back then, that they may seem to have been handed down from the apostles because they existed under the apostles, we can say, let them make known the originals of their churches.

01:36:10

Let them unfold the role of their bishops, so running out in succession from the beginning that their first bishop had for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles, or of apostolic men who continued steadfast with the apostles.

01:36:20

For this is the way the apostolic churches reckon their origin. This is the way the church of Smyrna reports that Polycarp was placed there by John and that of the

01:36:28

Romans that Clement was ordained by Peter himself. And he says, run through the apostolic churches in which the very seats of the apostles preside over their own places, in which their own authentic writings are recited and their voice sounds and their faith is expressed in each and every one.

01:36:42

He says, is Achaia near you? You have Corinth. If you're not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi. If you're near Italy, you have

01:36:48

Rome, where authority is at hand for us, too. What a happy church, or a blessed church, is that Roman church on which the apostles poured out their whole doctrine along with their blood, where Peter had a passion similar to the

01:37:01

Lord referring to his being crucified, and so on and so forth. He says, it's in the work of Tertullian and his contemporary

01:37:07

Clement of Alexandria, Giles says, that we have the church's earliest extant comments on the famous Petrine texts, the texts of Matthew 16 and others.

01:37:15

He refers to Blessed Peter, the chosen one, the one who was crucified, the one who picked out the first of the apostles, for whom only, and for himself, the

01:37:20

Savior pays the tribute. He refers to the Lord leaving the keys of the church to Peter, and threw him to the church.

01:37:31

Tertullian also speaks of the Bishop of Rome in this very treatise,

01:37:36

De Pudit Citsia, to which Mr. White refers, as the sovereign pontiff, the bishop of bishops, the kind shepherd and shepherd and minister and blessed pope.

01:37:49

Now Cyprian, in Giles, is also quoted as someone standing up for the authority of the church of Rome.

01:38:00

St. Cyprian has this to say, actually Giles has to say about Cyprian, he says,

01:38:05

Cyprian is clearer than origin. Okay, we now enter into the question and answer period, and I want to take just a moment to thank explain this to you because it is somewhat complex.

01:38:41

See, tonight we start with, who's going first? Who's asking the first question? Jerry is. Jerry, Mr. Matafix will ask the first question of Mr.

01:38:48

White. He has one minute to ask his question. Mr. White has three minutes to give his answer.

01:38:57

He will then have two minutes to rebut the answer, and he'll have one minute to respond to the rebuttal to the answer.

01:39:06

And I will be timing all of these. The idea is to have good dialogue back and forth.

01:39:16

So it starts with a question, and then the answer. He'll have a chance to go again, and then he will.

01:39:24

Each one will ask two questions of the other, and we start with a question from Mr. Matafix to Mr.

01:39:31

White. Mr. White, would you comment upon the

01:39:37

Church Father that I was about to get to, the Church Father Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage. You used him,

01:39:45

I guess, as an example of someone who denied the authority of Rome, and yet could you explain for us why it is that Cyprian, in his treatise on the unity of the

01:39:55

Catholic Church, addresses the issue of Peter's place in the

01:40:01

Church, and in fact quotes all these biblical texts. Matthew 16, for example, this primary text, as being in support of this primacy that was given to Peter.

01:40:13

I recognize that there is a second edition of Cyprian's work that he produced after his dispute with Stephen, but I would like you to comment on that in the light of your contention that there is no early testimony to the biblical support for Roman primacy.

01:40:31

I'm very happy that you brought that up because I was going to spend most of my closing statement on it, so now I get to put three minutes into it. Cyprian, at the

01:40:38

Council of Carthage, says that the Church set himself up as a bishop of bishops. Some scholars feel that he's referring there to Stephen.

01:40:45

Nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his calling 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 none other than he himself can judge another.

01:40:55

Now, Cyprian, I think, is one of the most important people to understand. I think he's one of the key elements to my argument this evening, and that is

01:41:01

Cyprian does see Matthew 16 as identifying Peter as the rock, but it is plain as day that that does not result in Cyprian viewing

01:41:11

Stephen, the bishop of Rome, as the successor and infallible vicar of Christ of Peter on earth in Rome.

01:41:20

He does not see that, and this is very plainly seen. If you will take the time to look at the Epistles of Cyprian, Epistle 73, it's 72 in the

01:41:28

Oxford edition, it is in the Library of the Antonicing Fathers, Volume 5, beginning at page 386.

01:41:36

If you will take the you will read his Epistle to Pompey in regards to his conflict with Stephen.

01:41:41

You will see some incredible statements on the part of Cyprian demonstrating that he feels that Stephen has totally denied his position.

01:41:50

He has denied the faith of the church in allowing heretical baptism to stand.

01:41:56

There is so much in here that I can't even begin to attempt to read everything that we have here, but let me just read a section of it, certainly.

01:42:06

And it says, An excellent and lawful tradition is set before us by the teaching of our brother Stephen, which may afford us a suitable authority.

01:42:13

And this is in derision, this is a slam. He says, For in the same place of his epistle he has added and continued,

01:42:21

Since those who are especially heretics do not baptize those who come to them from one another, but only receive them to communion.

01:42:26

To this point of evil has the church of God and spouse of Christ been developed, that she follows the examples of heretics, that for the purpose of celebrating the celestial sacraments light should borrow her discipline from darkness, and Christians should do that which antichrists do.

01:42:42

But what is that blindness of soul, which is that degradation of faith, to refuse to recognize the unity which comes from God the

01:42:50

Father and from the tradition of Jesus Christ, the Lord and our God? He's talking about the bishop of Rome.

01:42:56

So he very clearly, and here's an example, for Mr. Matitix to make his point, he cannot simply show us an early father like Cyprian who says

01:43:04

Peter is the rock. It must be Peter, Peter has successors, those successors of the bishop of Rome, and hence their popes.

01:43:12

And Cyprian is a glowing example of one of the minority of early fathers who viewed Matthew 16 the way that the

01:43:18

Roman Catholic does today, but very obviously did not see that that means, well, Stephen, the bishop of Rome, is the vicar of Christ on earth.

01:43:25

I must obey him as I would obey Peter himself. I have two minutes to reply.

01:43:38

The fact is, as Mr. White just actually alluded to, Cyprian was wrong doctrinally on whether the baptism performed by a heretic was valid and had to be redone.

01:43:48

He was possessed by a theological error at this point. But would Protestants and Catholics agree on that? No Protestant would argue that if we find out later on that the man who baptized you held erroneous views that you didn't know at the time, you've got to call all those people back and baptize them again.

01:44:02

Because he was consumed with his conviction, an erroneous conviction, that even Mr. White would agree was erroneous, that this was a false idea, he then disputed with the

01:44:12

Pope Stephen. But the fact remains that Cyprian does teach that, as Giles says, that to him the rock is

01:44:21

Peter and our Lord built his church on Peter. He says this so often, this is Giles that I'm quoting, that no one doubts that it is his view.

01:44:27

Cyprian also claims that this text gives the bishops their authority, for the church is settled upon them. It is not the case, it is a caricature of the

01:44:35

Catholic Christians who say that every church father must hold all the aspects of the doctrine intact.

01:44:40

No, Cyprian is cited as an example of the proof that Peter was understood even in the early church as being the rock.

01:44:47

There are others, like Irenaeus, who show that there are descendants of this authority. Cyprian says that none of us sets himself up as bishop of bishops in Carthage.

01:44:57

He's simply referring to the North African bishops, it's being quoted out of context here. We don't lord it over the church by way of tyrannical terror, of course, the popes don't claim that themselves.

01:45:07

So, he disagreed with Pope Stephen on whether these heretical baptisms were valid or not, and as a result, he toned down his original treatise, but nonetheless, in it, he speaks of, on Peter, Christ built the church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep.

01:45:21

And he gives Peter a primacy, whereby it is made clear that there is but one chair, church, and one chair.

01:45:28

And then goes on to speak of saying, if someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith?

01:45:34

If he deserts the chair of Peter upon which the church is built, can he still be confident he's in the church? A lot of things get into one minute.

01:45:41

Jerry just said, well, the thing from the Council of Carthage, that's just about North African bishops.

01:45:46

The next sentence after it is, but we all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do only North African bishops await the judgment of our

01:45:53

Lord Jesus Christ? I somehow doubt. From Giles, I quote in regards to Cyprian's statements, but be it first observed that all who ask

01:46:00

Cyprian's counsel, of all his own counselors, of prelates assembled from Africa, Numidia, of Phrymillion and Dionysius the

01:46:09

Great, no one suggests the least reference to the Roman sea. Nor mentions its estimate of itself as an element in the question or as a scruple to be borne in mind.

01:46:17

Augustine, who marshals every argument and refutation of his opinion, never suggests that obedience to Rome speaking would have saved him from his error.

01:46:25

That is in the same passage. And I don't have enough time, but I just refer you to Cyprian's statement to Stephen when he says, why has the bitter obstinacy of our brother

01:46:33

Stephen broken forth to such an extent in his response to him? The Bishop of Rome is not the

01:46:38

Vicar of Christ for him. Mr. White, a question for Mr. Matitix. I can have just a moment to get to my notes, please.

01:46:48

Mr. Matitix, please explain to us all how Canon 28 of the

01:46:55

Council of Chalcedon could ever have been written if in fact Vatican I's definition of the constant and ancient faith of the universal church is true.

01:47:09

So I can punch this in. Okay, I have three minutes. Well, once again, we have a misunderstanding on the part of Mr.

01:47:17

White, I hope not an intentional one, of what the church means when it speaks of the constant and ancient teaching.

01:47:23

Mr. White is blowing that into an absolutized description that every single time you ever have any council, write any canon, any bishop, write any, preach any homily, that there must be the exact same identical faith being articulated.

01:47:37

That is not what the Catholic Church claims. It has never claimed that. Vatican I's definition does not claim that.

01:47:44

It is a fact of church history, and it has been for 2 ,000 years, that councils can promulgate canons, that is disciplinary policy statements, that may or may not be revoked by subsequent councils, that may or may not be approved by the bishop of Rome.

01:48:03

In fact, we have several instances in the first four centuries where the bishop of Rome may approve the doctrinal formulations of a particular council but reject their canons, and the canon which gave

01:48:13

Constantinople, for example, a secondary status after Rome, because it was the new

01:48:19

Rome, politically, was rejected by Leo for that very reason.

01:48:25

There is a political reasoning there that is erroneous. No one claims that every single canon of a council, until it is ratified by, no

01:48:33

Catholic apologist, I should say, claims that every single canon, until it is ratified by a pope, possesses ipso facto infallibility.

01:48:40

The infallibility ultimately flows from the pope. White is assuming an infallibility of the canon and the council per se that does not follow.

01:48:47

The same thing is true about the council of Nicaea. Mr. White shows a similar confusion there on a slightly different version.

01:48:55

He says the council's convocation by Constantine proves that the bishop of Rome didn't have authority to solve the

01:49:01

Arian crisis single -handedly. The pope simply didn't attend, but he sent two men.

01:49:07

He sent two priests. Well, if you look at the history of the council of Nicaea, you see that these legates were sent to observe and superintend the process to report back to Rome, and if, in fact, the findings of Nicaea were acceptable to Rome, then, and only then, does it become an ecumenical council that is binding upon the whole church.

01:49:24

The fact of the matter is the original historical situation is that the council of Nicaea was only to deal with a more localized eastern crisis, and that is why none of the western churches went.

01:49:35

Not simply Rome. But it's interesting that Rome alone sends two papal legates to exercise his authority on their behalf.

01:49:42

The very fact that the council was convoked doesn't prove that the bishop didn't have the power to single -handedly solve the crisis.

01:49:49

Mr. White, let me ask you, I mean, is that a logical way of reasoning? Could you argue that, gee,

01:49:54

Vatican II proves that Catholics don't believe today that John XXIII has any papal authority today, because otherwise he wouldn't have called the

01:50:04

Second Vatican Council. He would have simply unilaterally issued an encyclical and addressed all these issues himself. No.

01:50:10

You can't reason that way, folks. It's not fair to reason that way today. It's not fair for Mr. White to reason that way about the

01:50:15

Council of Nicaea. First of all, you'll note that there's no explanation for the

01:50:21

XXVIII canon. It's just said, well, it's wrong. It's not infallible. And so in other words, anything that disagrees with Rome's position is simply dismissed.

01:50:28

That is how Rome has done it down through the years, once she developed her claims long down the road that did not have any support in the early church.

01:50:35

And yet, the Pope has confirmed these canons, and even the Council of Florence, which

01:50:41

Jerry accepts, utilizes the same order in regards to Constantinople. And Leo did not reject it on the basis of what

01:50:48

Mr. Mattock said in my opening presentation. I demonstrated that that was the case and made comments on that. He then went to Nicaea and said that because it's called by Constantine, that proves something.

01:50:56

No, I was just pointing out to you that nobody at the early church at this time had any concept that there was any necessity, either for the

01:51:02

Pope to call it, or then Jerry just said that one of the most anachronistic statements

01:51:07

I've ever heard made in a historical setting that is supposed to be scholarly is that the legates are there to report back to Rome and Rome will decide whether this is going to be an ecumenical council.

01:51:17

My friends, historically, that is the grossest anachronistic statement that could possibly be made.

01:51:23

No one at this time dreamed, and I would challenge Mr. Mattock, show us a single shred of evidence from that time period that the rest of the church believed that the decrees of Nicaea were going to have to go to Rome and get the approval of the

01:51:36

Bishop of Rome before that to council become an ecumenical council. There is nothing in the historical records and I don't know of a single scholar that is dealing with the patristic sources who would even begin to suggest that that's the case.

01:51:49

That is something, again, that develops way down the road and has no support in the early fathers as we read them today.

01:51:56

I would challenge Mr. Mattock to show us that that is the case. A canon six of Nicaea shows that Rome was not seen as having universal jurisdiction.

01:52:07

Mr. Mattock has not dealt with that. Where does it come from, Mr. Mattock, if the universal faith of the church was that the

01:52:14

Roman church, because of the Roman bishop, had universal jurisdiction? The counsel of Constance is irrelevant here.

01:52:30

No one is denying that the Catholic church never denied, nor am I denying tonight as a Catholic apologist, that Constantinople could not be appropriately recognized as having a secondary influence.

01:52:41

What was rejected by Leo was not its desire to be second in rank after Rome, but was the reasoning behind that, saying it is because we are new

01:52:48

Rome, because of our imperial status. What Leo found objectionable was this idea that Rome has authority simply because it was the seat of the secular power.

01:52:58

That completely ignores, Leo said, the teaching of these ancient Christian writers, which I have alluded to already, that Rome is that most blessed, most preserved, and watched over city because it was the beneficiary of the of the two chief apostles,

01:53:15

Peter and Paul, because they gave the fullness of their doctrine there, they spilled their blood there, and in a way they continue to preside over the church.

01:53:33

Mr. White, you mentioned this evening and also on the radio today, and I called you on it then, and I'm going to call you on it again now, you mentioned

01:53:49

Basil the Great as making the statement that the people at Rome, and by the implication that you're making, you're referring to the bishop of Rome, doesn't know the truth, that there was a denial on the part of Basil the

01:54:05

Great that there was any sort of grasp of true doctrine at Rome. Now, if you're simply saying he doesn't know the truth about all the historical circumstances of whether Meletius or Paulinus is the proper bishop, then, of course, there's no real problem being opposed to the

01:54:19

Catholic position, because we don't claim that the pope has omniscience, or is infallible in his knowledge of, you know, who won the

01:54:26

World Series in a certain year, or whether this man is being lied about, or what have you, but would you elaborate on that, and would you actually give us the quote, which you did not, that shows that the bishop of Rome's doctrinal authority is being attacked here by Basil the

01:54:38

Great? Well, first of all, you've misrepresented me very grossly in a number of accounts. I obviously did not say that Basil said anything about the bishop of Rome being clueless in doctrinal issues.

01:54:48

I was demonstrating, as we have demonstrated many, many times this evening, that the concept of papal supremacy, as announced in Vatican I, is not found in the early church.

01:54:58

And I did provide you the quote, maybe you didn't hear it in my opening statements, but I did provide it to you directly, but if you'd like to have it again, this is found in the

01:55:06

Nicene, Post -Nicene Fathers, Christian Faith, second series, volume eight, and it's found, the letter begins on page 253, if anyone would like to take a look at it.

01:55:15

It talks about those who have this letter from the Westerners. I quote, I hear more or less the same thing over and over, that the

01:55:22

Paulinians are caring about a letter of the Westerns, assigning to them the episcopate of the church in Antioch, but speaking under a false impression of Miletius, the admiral bishop of the true church of God.

01:55:31

I am not astonished at this. They, that is the Westerns, are totally ignorant of what is going on here.

01:55:37

The others, though they might be supposed to know, give an account to them in which party is put before truth. And it is only what one might expect, that they should either be ignorant of the truth, or should even endeavor to conceal the reasons which led the

01:55:50

Paulinians. And then I continue my quote just a little bit farther down there, where I said, I congratulate those who have received the letter from Rome.

01:55:56

And although it is a grand testimony in their favor, I only hope it is true and confirmed by facts. But I shall never be able to persuade myself on these grounds to ignore

01:56:05

Miletius, or to forget the church which is under him, or to treat as small and of little importance to the true religion the questions which originated the division.

01:56:13

I shall never consent to give in merely because somebody is very much elated at receiving a letter from men, even if it had come down from heaven itself.

01:56:21

But he does not agree with the sound doctrine of the faith. I cannot look upon him as in communion with the saints.

01:56:27

End quote. And there is an interesting note that is produced at the end of the word that comes from men. Quote, St.

01:56:33

Basil seems quite unaware of any paramount authority in a letter from Rome. End quote.

01:56:39

My point once again, over and over again this evening, has been to demonstrate to you instance after instance after instance that we see in the early church where men act in utter ignorance of modern papal claims.

01:56:53

And my assertion to you is that unless again you engage in anachronistic historical research and take a later development that does not develop for a long time and read it back into these people you will find no reason to believe that they believed as Vatican I teaches.

01:57:09

Now I recognize Vatican I, that's awful strong stuff but I repeat yet once again, Vatican I claims that this is how the

01:57:17

Catholic Church has ever understood these passages. Vatican I claims that this is the ancient, isn't

01:57:22

Basil ancient? This is the ancient and constant faith of the church. Here is a bishop of the church.

01:57:27

Is he ignorant of these most fundamental things? No. I say that passages like this and they could be multiplied indefinitely demonstrate they did not function with the knowledge of the papacy.

01:57:37

Thank you. Once again Mr. White is sharing with us his misunderstanding of what

01:57:45

Vatican I, Vatican Council means when it talks about the ancient faith of the church.

01:57:50

It does not mean that therefore every person who wrote in the ancient age automatically walked in lock step and agreed on every single detail.

01:57:59

That is not what Vatican I is claiming and it is false for Mr. White to indict it or to accuse it of failing to substantiate a claim that it is in fact not making.

01:58:09

He is trampling upon a straw man. Of course Basil is ancient but the church has always recognized as it's read these fathers that they disagree on some things and that individual fathers do not see certain things.

01:58:21

It is correct to say as he said earlier that Cyprian did not see the universal jurisdiction of the

01:58:27

Bishop of Rome over his internal affairs in Carthage. He did not see that with the fullness of what the church did later on.

01:58:33

No one is claiming that all these bishops performed blamelessly or infallibly.

01:58:40

It's interesting to me and I'm glad that he re -read it that and Mr. White said earlier and I wrote his exact words down he said that Basil was referring to this letter of the

01:58:50

Westerners probably from the Bishop of Rome. Folks this is a debate about the papacy not about Westerners and how truthful they may be.

01:58:59

There is no evidence that this letter comes from the Bishop of Rome at all and so it is completely irrelevant to the debate that these

01:59:07

Westerners are ignorant of the truth even that statement simply means that they are ignorant of the truth of who in fact was being more accurate in this controversy between Miletus and Paulinus.

01:59:16

Not a truth as to what the apostles had taught and what in fact the authority of the Pope was. He said that he hoped that it was true and that it could be supported by facts but on the mere grounds of a letter from men from Westerners he said

01:59:27

I'm not going to change my support and loyalty for Miletus and I don't think he should have and no Catholic apologist today claims that he should have.

01:59:34

It's irrelevant. It doesn't seem that Mr. Matzik has the source in front of him so I'll just give him the citation that is put on the term

01:59:43

Westerners by the scholars who compiled this quote. This description might apply to either of the two letters written by Damasus to Paulinus on the subject of the admission to communion of Vitalius, bishop of the

01:59:53

Apollinarian schism of Antioch. Numerous references given. The date may necessitate it being referred to the former.

01:59:59

And obviously a letter from Rome would specifically refer to the fact that it is known by all historians that the

02:00:05

Roman bishop supported Paulinus against Miletus. There is no question of what is going on here. It is very, very relevant and Mr.

02:00:12

Matzik had this in front of him. You can see that. Now Mr. Matzik said well, certainly people might not agree with Rome.

02:00:18

My point is that Basil, it is not a matter of his disagreeing with papal claims, it is a matter of his not knowing about them because they don't exist yet.

02:00:26

That is the point. It is not a matter of his being somehow disagreeable or sinful. And have you noticed that everyone who disagrees with the

02:00:32

Roman position is wrong? They are just automatically wrong. They are somehow in error. Mr.

02:00:40

White, a final question for Mr. Matzik. Thank you, sir. Mr. Matzik, I cited in my presentation the interpretation of Hillary in regards to Matthew 16, 18 in which he said that the rock of that passage is the faith that is confessed by Peter.

02:00:59

In light of the statements of Vatican 1, would you say that Hillary's interpretation and the other fathers who followed him is perverse and sinful?

02:01:11

I'll say it one last time for the record. Please listen carefully everybody. The Catholic Church understands that our understanding, and Protestants would agree with this, our understanding of the scriptures grows over time.

02:01:28

The scriptures clearly teach only one thing, but because we are finite human beings, and in fact sinful human beings, we grow in our understanding of the implications of scripture down in the history of the interpretation of the

02:01:41

Bible, in the church, and even as well as among Protestants. There is such a development, and the church has always taught that there is a freedom to interpret the scriptures within certain parameters.

02:01:52

Contrary to what you might think, the Catholic Church does not have some infallible dogmatically defined interpretation of everything.

02:02:42

Few verses in the Bible have been defined as they teach this and they cannot be interpreted as teaching that.

02:02:49

And those are only arrived at when certain people attack or use the scripture or abuse it.

02:02:54

For example, there were people at the time of the Reformation that said that when Jesus said that unless a man is born of water and the spirit, he cannot inherit or enter the kingdom of God.

02:03:04

And there were people at the time who were saying that baptism isn't important, and so water does not refer to baptism here.

02:03:10

It was only at that point, when the church was being pushed on that point, that the church solemnly defined by its infallible authority that no, this is not what the apostles taught.

02:03:22

The reference to water does refer to the sacrament of baptism. And the meaning of the passage cannot be watered down, therefore, no pun intended.

02:03:31

After that point, someone who would deny, someone who would obstinately say, no, I'd still disagree.

02:03:37

I disagree that in John 3, 5, Jesus is saying you have to be baptized. At that point, they're being perverse.

02:03:44

Prior to that point, there's freedom, that the perversion is not being retrojected into the past, Mr. White. So you cited

02:03:50

Augustine as well as saying, you know, I'm not quite sure what the rock means here.

02:03:56

The fact of the matter is until the Council of Trent, you have no solemnly magisterially defined interpretation of Matthew 16 at the highest level.

02:04:06

You have early church fathers who apply Matthew 16 to Peter. I've given you several examples of them.

02:04:12

You have Cyprian and Tertullian and others who say Peter is the rock. On Peter, the church is built.

02:04:18

And you have others who say Peter has successors. And you have others who say we must listen to these successors as we would listen to Peter himself, as the people at the

02:04:26

Council of Chalcedon said. But the church had not said under pain of sin that whenever everyone reads

02:04:31

Matthew 16, verse 18, they must interpret it to be the rock until the time of the

02:04:37

Council of Trent. So Hillary, Mr. White, was not being perverse because he was not going against, he would simply be going against what a fellow bishop of his may have been said who may have been wrong.

02:04:48

Individual bishops can be in error. He would have been perverse if after the Council of Trent, he had denied that was the meaning of the phrase.

02:04:56

I again point out to you that when you surveyed the early church, you discovered that 80 % of the fathers who addressed this passage did not give the

02:05:02

Roman Catholic perspective. 80 % of them gave other perspectives. Now, again, Vatican 1 keeps coming up, but I'll just read it to you and let you understand it yourself at open variance with this clear doctrine of Holy Scripture as it has been ever understood by the

02:05:17

Catholic Church are the perverse opinion of those who, and then it goes on to these other things. Now, you say, well, there's this freedom, and it's interesting

02:05:23

Vatican 1 also said, this is the teaching of Catholic truth from which no one can deviate without loss of faith and of salvation.

02:05:30

My point, once again, is that Hillary, and Gregory, and Chrysostom, and Augustine, and all these fathers that disagreed, the majority of the early fathers who disagreed with Roman Catholicism, these people come after the point in time where Jerry has said this is something that's well -known.

02:05:48

This is something that's generally acknowledged in the early church. How can that be? Or were they ignorant of these things?

02:05:55

Did they just not know about these things? These are bishops. These are expositors of Scripture. Obviously, what we see here is that the early church did not hold the

02:06:05

Roman Catholic position. And let me ask you something. You listened, if you were here last night, if you were at the debate last night, you listened to Jerry's presentation.

02:06:13

If you didn't hold to the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matthew chapter 16, would you believe in the papacy as Rome does today?

02:06:20

If you did not believe that Peter was the rock, upon what other basis would you possibly hold the concept of Roman Catholic papacy?

02:06:28

And 80 % of the early fathers who addressed the passage didn't! I believe that my position and the duties that have been mine to demonstrate that the early church did not hold to the papacy as defined by Roman Catholic teaching has been fully substantiated by the citations that I have provided to you, including this citation that we are discussing here in regards to Hillary.

02:06:58

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was supposed to have a minute left. Just let me punch the minute in.

02:07:11

These fathers are not subsequent to the time that we're looking at. These are fathers from the very precise period of history that we're supposed to be looking at, the period of the early church,

02:07:20

Hillary and Augustine and so forth. And so their opinions are, they're still in the thick of things while this thing is still in flux.

02:07:27

I'm tired of hearing about this magical 80%. The fact of the matter is that no Protestant or Catholic here believes that simply by counting noses or taking a poll, we arrive at what the truth is.

02:07:39

Percentages can change over time. And the fact is that even though, even if it were true that 80 % of the fathers rejected the fact that the rock referred to Peter, the consensus grew to be quite otherwise as time went on.

02:07:52

The fact of the matter, though, is that it is erroneous to imply that 80 % of the people did not see this Petrine primacy because many of these people who thought that the rock referred to something else still used the phrase, the church was built on Peter, without referring to the rock.

02:08:06

And they still referred to Peter as being the bishop of Rome and having successors.

02:08:11

There are other passages that they would base their... At this point,

02:08:18

I feel compelled to repeat something that I said last night. In case there yet remains one or two of you who are somewhat fuzzy and you're thinking, well, and haven't had every single answer clarified up to this point, we will allow each of these gentlemen to give a conclusion, which undoubtedly will satisfy you completely and totally.

02:08:42

Each will have 12 minutes to give a concluding statement, and we'll start with Mr. White. I would like to address some of the issues that Mr.

02:08:57

Mattox has brought up by again referring you to the early fathers. He referred to Irenaeus, and I would like to read to you from Irenaeus.

02:09:05

He talked about apostasy and as if that was somehow relevant to the papacy in the sense that, well,

02:09:11

I don't believe in... Mr. White doesn't believe in apostolic succession. My friends, I most definitely do. In an apostolic succession of truth, anyone who stands today and preaches the same message that the apostles did stands in apostolic succession.

02:09:24

But it's interesting to listen to what Irenaeus said about apostolic succession in chapter five of the same book that Mr. Mattox quoted from.

02:09:29

Quote, Since, therefore, the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the church and is permanent among us, let us revert to the scriptural proof furnished by those apostles who did also write the gospel in which they record the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our

02:09:43

Lord Jesus Christ is the truth and that no lie is in him. Notice that even when talking about apostolic doctrine,

02:09:49

Irenaeus says it is found in scripture. It is not some extra authority outside of that that must be held to.

02:09:55

It can be proved from scripture, and that directly from Irenaeus's own words.

02:10:00

Now, I was shocked in that he said that as Mr. Mattox went through supposed passages that quote and quoted them in regards to papal supremacy, that Mr.

02:10:11

Mattox quoted the very same passage that I quoted to you in the following words.

02:10:18

But this is not the first time that what was later to become part and parcel of Roman theology regarding the Pope was originally intended as an insult when used in the early church.

02:10:26

Tertullian provides this with an amusing example. Amusing, I say, if I had not personally encountered a number of Roman Catholics presenting this passage,

02:10:33

I would not have been able to quote this passage as if it were evidence from the papacy from the early church. It is found in one of Tertullian's later writings,

02:10:38

De Pudicitia. Here we find the phrases Pontifex Maximus and Bishop of Bishops, applied by Tertullian to the

02:10:44

Bishop of Rome. And then Jerry quoted this. But listen again to what it actually says.

02:10:50

This is, and recognized by all patristic scholars that I know of, that this is an insult. In opposition to this modesty,

02:10:56

Tertullian says, could I not have acted the dissembler? I hear that there has even been an edict set forth, and a preemptory one too.

02:11:03

The Pontifex Maximus, that is the Bishop of Bishops, issues an edict, quote, I remit to such as have discharged the requirements of repentance, the sins both of adultery and fornication.

02:11:13

O edict on which cannot be written good deed, far, far from Christ betrothed be such a proclamation.

02:11:20

End quote. This is found in the Antonicing Fathers, volume four, page 74, De Pudicitia by Tertullian.

02:11:26

And I didn't have the time to give you my commentary, which is, what a far cry from being supportive of the

02:11:31

Roman concept of papacy. What a far cry from papacy is that this same Tertullian, who charged Victor with allowing heresy into the church, is applying a pagan term.

02:11:40

Pontifex Maximus referred to the chief priest of the pagan religions in the Roman Empire. It was a term of derision amongst

02:11:46

Christians to the Bishop of Rome for his lax penitential standards. The term

02:11:51

Bishop of Bishops is meant as an insult, because it was understood, as we see in Cyprian, that there were no such things.

02:11:58

Now, there is a ready answer for this from the Catholic perspective. De Pudicitia's commentary is one of Tertullian's Montanist writings.

02:12:04

Tertullian is no longer part of the Catholic Church, the Roman apologists might say, which is what I expected Jerry to say.

02:12:10

But my point in saying this is not only to demonstrate that we must examine the context of passages before asserting that they are in fact supportive of our position, but that Tertullian could apply to the

02:12:19

Bishop of Rome terms that, at this time in church history, were insults, but which, with the passage of time and the evolution of papal claims, became accepted titles.

02:12:29

How vastly different is the situation in the primitive church than in Vatican I? I would also like to note, further from the same treatise from Tertullian, his citation of Matthew 16 .18,

02:12:41

here is that passage again, which is again often used as supposed evidence of Petrine primacy.

02:12:47

It is true that Tertullian says that Matthew 16 .18 is speaking of Peter. However, an examination of the 21st chapter of De Pudicitia, please go down to Denver Seminary, look this up yourself, reveals that Tertullian is not and this is in the early 3rd century, is presenting the exact same understanding of Peter's function as we saw last night in Protestant interpreters such as Hendrickson, not as we find in Vatican I.

02:13:15

Indeed, Vatican I called the very exact perspective Tertullian puts forth in the 21st chapter of De Pudicitia perverse, almost word for word.

02:13:27

And so I encourage you, look in the passages. Get the tapes, read them in their full context, not in quote books, not in just resource books, but once you get the quotes and you say, boy, it sounds like it says that.

02:13:41

Go to the sources and read them yourself. You say, but that takes so much time.

02:13:47

Folks, if what we're talking about tonight is that important and you are the diehards who have stayed here this late, you obviously believe that it is.

02:13:55

And I challenge you, one thing that I have experienced over the past number of years in encountering the

02:14:01

Roman Catholic position, is that every single time I have taken the quotations from the early fathers and gone to the early fathers,

02:14:10

I have found the early fathers were not teaching what those source books had said they were. I simply challenge you to do the exact same thing.

02:14:18

Take our references, hold us both to the flame of truth, and examine these references and see if they actually teach what has been said they teach this evening.

02:14:30

Now, I'm not going to about Cyprian, I want to read you some passages from Cyprian.

02:14:37

It's a little bit difficult to do in the brief amount of time that we have. But when we look at what happens in regards to the situation that we attempted to address very briefly in one of the questions, when the

02:14:49

North African bishops rejected Stephen's interference and rejected Stephen as the

02:14:55

Bishop of Rome's decree, and Giles mentions this, look it up in Giles, the

02:15:00

North African bishops rejected Stephen's position and they met in council and held a different position and promulgated a different position.

02:15:11

This was not just in North Africa that you had this resistance to Stephen. Please look again in the sources to Familian, the

02:15:19

Bishop of Caesarea and Cappadocia's letter to Cyprian. I cannot read it to you this evening, but it is incredible what this man says about Stephen, and I'll just give you this one quotation from Familian.

02:15:30

With respect to the reputation of custom which they seem to oppose the truth. This is the

02:15:36

Romans. Who is so foolish as to prefer custom to truth? Or when he sees the light, not to forsake the darkness.

02:15:43

And this indeed you Africans are able to say against Stephen, that when you knew the truth, you forsook the error of custom.

02:15:50

But we join custom to truth, and to the Romans' custom, we oppose custom, but the custom of truth.

02:15:59

My friends, does it sound familiar? The bishop, the bishop who is writing, the bishop of Caesarea and Cappadocia, holds to Vatican 1?

02:16:13

Certainly doesn't. But is there any evidence that he says, oh, I know I'm going against the ancient faith of the church here, but I'm going to do it,

02:16:20

I'm going to become a heretic and rebel? No! This man had no idea that Stephen is supposed to be the head of all

02:16:28

Christians on earth. Because that concept has never been yet developed in the history of the church in any way, shape, or form.

02:16:37

One last thing historically I'd like to point out to you, I'd like to refer you to Augustine's writings against the

02:16:43

Donatists. I don't have time to go into it, I wanted to this evening. I was doing some studying this this afternoon. Look at how

02:16:49

Augustine answered the Donatists. Here is a position where you'd find Augustine and be able to really understand how one of the greatest thinkers in Christian history would understand the formation of the church.

02:16:59

And if you read his writings against the Donatists, you'll find him over and over and over again as he attempts to fight against Cyprian's position.

02:17:08

Holding up Peter as what? The first infallible Pope? No. Over and over and over again.

02:17:14

Look up Peter in the back of the volume in Augustine's works. His writings against the Donatists. Look every single one of them up.

02:17:20

Over half of them will be showing that Peter was wrong. In Galatians chapter 2 he led the church astray and since he was willing to be corrected by Paul, then those who followed

02:17:29

Cyprian should be willing to be corrected too. Not of any appeal to the

02:17:35

Bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ on earth to end all questions and all controversies. Very, very important stuff.

02:17:41

Now let me just try to summarize. I do not believe that last evening it was shown to us that we must, by weight of evidence in the

02:17:50

New Testament, believe in the doctrines of papacy. And I believe without a shadow of a doubt this evening that we have demonstrated clearly that we have demonstrated clearly from the early fathers that the position taken by modern

02:18:02

Rome is an anachronism. It is not found in the early church. It is contradicted by fact, after fact, after fact.

02:18:10

These are not just simply opinions of early church fathers but we find them in the apostolic canons, in the council of Nicaea, canon 6, in the 28th canon of the council of Chalcedon.

02:18:23

We find them in those types of sources, in doctrinal treatises, in the personal letters of the early fathers themselves.

02:18:30

The entire spectrum of patristic interpretation shows us, fact after fact, that it is contrary to the

02:18:36

Roman position. And this is why many Roman Catholic scholars today embrace the concept of development so that they do not have to demonstrate that this was in fact the constant faith of the church all the way back to papacy.

02:18:46

It wasn't developing at that time, but it develops over time, that the Roman bishop is not viewed by Christians as the head of the church.

02:18:55

Now, the question that we have to ask to then decide is, has Mr. Matatix demonstrated that the early church did function with a knowledge of the papacy?

02:19:08

And I submit to you that every time Mr. Matatix has been faced with an irreconcilable fact, his reaction has been to say, well, the canons of the council of Chalcedon are not infallible.

02:19:21

Cyprian wasn't infallible. Augustine wasn't infallible. Basil wasn't infallible. Hilary wasn't infallible. Christendom wasn't infallible.

02:19:27

Gregory of Nazareth was not infallible. Now we can go on and on and on. My friends, if we simply define everybody else out of existence that disagrees with us, we will be able to find unanimity.

02:19:40

But we cannot do that if we want to be honest with the history of the church. He just said he doesn't like the 80 % number.

02:19:48

There's a Roman Catholic who did the survey. He says percentages change.

02:19:53

Not in historical research they don't. If you've got a fixed body of literature and you do a good job surveying it, those percentages aren't going to change and how far are they going to change?

02:20:03

The simple fact of the matter is the Roman Catholic position that is presented to you as being binding upon your conscience today is a novelty in the early church.

02:20:10

It is an anachronism. This has been demonstrated clearly from the facts that have been presented to us tonight.

02:20:16

And so I conclude that we found no evidence in the New Testament that the early Christians in the New Testament functioned with the same concept of the papacy as defined by Vatican I.

02:20:25

We have looked at the early church literature and we have discovered the exact same thing. Therefore, I do not believe that the man coming to visit this city is what he claims to be in the sense of being the vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter on earth.

02:20:41

The facts, the Bible, and history themselves do not support that contention. I thank you very much for being here.

02:20:47

God bless. Mr. Matitix, you have 12 minutes.

02:20:53

You are the die -hards.

02:21:16

Look at this. In closing,

02:21:22

I want to make an apology since I'm an apologist that seems somehow appropriate. I want to apologize first of all on behalf of all

02:21:30

Catholics who have done a less than noble job, a less than successful job, sometimes even a less than honest job in explaining their faith and defending their faith.

02:21:43

I'm not here to defend Catholics. I'm not even here to defend myself. That is not the truth that I'm standing up for.

02:21:50

What I am standing up for is the truth of the Catholic faith. And we have fallen far short of it many, many times.

02:21:56

If any of you are former Catholics who left the church because of mistreatment, whether it was a sister wrapping your knuckles or something more serious,

02:22:09

I want to apologize to you on behalf of my fellow Catholics. First of all,

02:22:14

I want to the less than Christian way that you have been treated and the less than Christian way you have been taught your faith so that you were never given the biblical foundations of the

02:22:24

Catholic faith and the foundations from early church history as well. The two sources of information we have looked at last night and tonight.

02:22:33

I hope that whatever you think of the results of our interchanges last night and tonight, that you have at least heard some things if you are not a

02:22:41

Catholic or even if you are a Catholic but perhaps indeed doubt about the truth of your faith. You have at least heard me share some things that maybe your priest from the pulpit hasn't shared.

02:22:50

Maybe the sisters in CCD haven't taught you. I hope that you are willing to consider the possibility that here is this guy up here.

02:22:58

He is not, as far as I can tell, making any money by flying all the way out here and doing this. He doesn't seem too stupid.

02:23:04

He doesn't seem like a man who was born and bred in a prejudiced environment because he was a Protestant who hated

02:23:10

Catholicism and condemned it and castigated it as false Christianity and he became a Catholic obviously after great mental resistance to this conclusion.

02:23:23

I hope you are willing to think tonight, even if you are not persuaded by what I have said, that maybe, just maybe, there is some plausibility to the

02:23:33

Catholic case. Maybe all Catholics aren't stupid, or becoming

02:23:39

Catholic or remaining Catholic only because of a sinful nature and the fact that as was put up as a possible hypothesis last night at the first debate.

02:23:49

I hope you are willing to consider the possibility that with intelligence, and with sincerity, and with a genuine desire to be faithful to Christianity as it has been taught for two thousand years, people are converting to, or remaining within, with a clear conscience, the

02:24:09

Catholic faith. I am genuinely troubled by the fact that Mr.

02:24:15

White seems, and I stress the word seems, and I am willing to be shown to be wrong, seems at times in his argumentation to not be a man who is even opening up his mind enough to consider even the remote possibility that this might be true.

02:24:33

He seems to launch into a debate mode that says, this can't be true, and I am going to scour the Fathers to find everything that I can to stack up against the

02:24:41

Catholic position. And perhaps not really wrestle in prayer and openness before the Lord with those passages which do seem to argue for the

02:24:50

Catholic position, both in Scripture and in the Church Fathers. I ask him to be open -minded, and I ask him to pray for me, that I can always be an open -minded person.

02:24:59

I want to tell you something as God is my witness right now. You can dismiss me as a liar if you wish. I have no way of proving this.

02:25:05

I can't show you my heart. But before every one of these debates, I literally set aside my commitment to the

02:25:11

Catholic position. And I re -examine the evidence with as much objectivity as possible. I decide ahead of time

02:25:17

I do not want to come and debate and defend this doctrine unless I really honestly believe it can be defended from Scripture and from the witness of Church history.

02:25:26

I don't come here with a pre -commitment to defend this. I sit in the

02:25:31

Protestant's place. I stand in the Protestant's shoes, and I look at the evidence. And I say, can this persuade me all over again?

02:25:40

Can it re -convert me all over again to the Catholic position? And I have to tell you that the answer has been yes, in debate after debate after debate.

02:25:47

That doesn't prove anything. But I simply present it to you as an attitude, by the grace of God, because I claim no virtue in myself, an attitude that all of us should have to really be willing to listen carefully and closely.

02:26:04

I believe that Mr. White has quoted the Church Fathers out of context. And he's absolutely right.

02:26:09

The only way that you'll be able to know that is not by believing what I say. I don't expect you to believe or follow anything simply because I say it.

02:26:16

It's for you to do the homework yourself. I believe that it's possible to prove anything from the

02:26:21

Church Fathers, just like it's possible, if you really want to, to prove almost any kind of error from the Scriptures themselves.

02:26:27

You yourselves, even if you lay aside the Protestant -Catholic differences, are well aware that there are other groups out there that claim to base their theology upon the

02:26:36

Bible. And they'll quote the Bible to support all kinds of things. So the Bible can be abused.

02:26:42

It can be misinterpreted if we don't approach it with a completely honest, intellectually honest, and open -minded attitude.

02:26:49

Church Fathers and Church history itself can be abused in the same way. I believe that fallacious inferences have been drawn from statements of the

02:26:56

Church Fathers. I believe that Mr. White has falsely defined the task at hand and the burden of proof, saying that if Roman Catholicism is true, then we shall find, these are his words, quote, all the necessary elements of the

02:27:10

Doctrine and Papacy in all the Fathers who write on this issue. The Church has never claimed that, has never said that every

02:27:17

Father must write an exhaustive treatise upon this. You may find one aspect of the truth of the Papacy defended by a

02:27:23

Church Father. That, for example, Peter is the Rock. Even though that same Church Father may err in his understanding of a particular aspect of papal authority.

02:27:33

You might find another Church Father who understands that there are successors to the Apostles. And with all due respect to Mr.

02:27:40

White, I have to vigorously contest his statement that, hey, I believe in Apostolic Succession. Anyone who believes what the

02:27:46

Apostles taught is a successor to the Apostles. It's a succession of doctrine only. My friends, if we can redefine our terms, that's like people saying

02:27:55

I believe in the deity of Christ because he was a wonderful man and God was really present in this loving manner.

02:28:01

I believe in the Resurrection even though they believe the bones of Jesus are still moldering in the grave. That is not Apostolic Succession.

02:28:07

It is a succession of office that Irenaeus is speaking about. He's talking about Apostles appointing a certain individual, not simply saying any of you out there who believe what

02:28:15

I preached, as you believe that you're faithful, it's up to you to decide, then you can consider yourself in the

02:28:21

Apostolic Succession. They're talking about office bearers. They're talking about bishops. And that this is an office established by the

02:28:28

Apostles to preserve the government of the Church. And one of those bishops is the Bishop of Rome. If that's what the

02:28:33

Apostles did, my friends, if they appointed bishops and commanded, as Paul commanded

02:28:39

Timothy and Titus, to exercise that authority and to let no one, as he says to Timothy, gainsay what you teach, what

02:28:46

I taught you, then woe to that person today who rejects the authority of those successors of the

02:28:51

Apostles because in doing that, they reject the Apostles, and in doing that, reject the authority of Christ, and in rejecting the authority of Christ, reject the authority of God who sent him.

02:28:59

I agree with Mr. White that the issue is momentous. This is not some minor slip -up. We are either seriously in error in listening to the

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Pope as any kind of authentic and trustworthy proclaimer of what

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Jesus intends his people to believe and how to live today. We are either blasphemous in attributing to this man a role as a vicar of Christ, or we are grossly negligent in cutting ourselves off from this resource if, in fact,

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Jesus has given us the papacy as a gift to the Church to guide it in controversy after controversy.

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When the Church, when Vatican I speaks of the ancient and constant faith of the Church, it doesn't mean that everyone out there is always going to be

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Orthodox all the time. Mr. White's own position doesn't believe that, even the

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Protestant position. And I find it, therefore, very intellectually much a shell game for him to say, because there are

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Church Fathers who don't subscribe to what Vatican I said, therefore, the claim falls to the ground.

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Mr. White believes that it is the constant and ancient teaching of the Church that were justified by faith alone, a heresy condemned by the

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Council of Trent, or that Scripture alone is the infallible rule of faith in practice. But Mr. White's own scenario of Church history would admit that through great ages, for even a millennium and longer, that these truths were virtually obscured in the vast majority of the

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Church and only retained by a remnant. Would it be fair for me to say,

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Mr. White, therefore, these doctrines cannot be true, because you have so many great

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Church doctors and Fathers denying them. Mr. White isn't being fair.

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And more importantly, he isn't being intellectually honest in stating the case that way. People can dispute the teaching of the

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Church. That dispute can be enormous and widespread. But it doesn't detract from the claim that nonetheless the true position, even if held by a minority, is the constant and faithful teaching and ancient teaching of the

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Church. The Church at Rome, for example, as these early Fathers which I quoted, remained steadfast in these doctrines.

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The Church at Rome was not guilty of the error that Cyprian was in saying that the baptism of heretics is thereby rendered invalid.

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And over and over again, you see what Ignatius said about the Church of Rome and what

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Irenaeus said, that it's removed from any blemish of heresy, authenticated again and again.

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Another convert, Ronald Knox, an Anglican, in his spiritual Aeneid, pointed this out.

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That as he studied Church history, that over and over again, when there were controversies, the Church of Rome always anticipated the judgment of councils and other

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Fathers on the extent of the canon and on issues such as baptism and so forth. That is where we find the ancient and constant faith of the

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Church preserved in Rome. That's what Irenaeus said. Other Churches may err, other

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Church Fathers may err. Protestant denominations can and do err on key and crucial issues.

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That's why I plead with you, in all humility, to be willing to consider the possibility that your Protestant denomination may be in error on a particular doctrine, even while you may be completely

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Orthodox on other ones, and to be willing to subject that error, to listen to what Rome has said on that, and to be willing to correct your opinion.

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After all, if Protestants are fallible and they admit that their denominations are fallible, that seems certainly an advisable thing to do.

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I forgot that Mr. White had said last night that Peter did never go to Rome. That is an indication to me of the desperate lengths to which he will go.

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If he stood before a conference of Church historians and said, to prove the papacy is not true,

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I contend that Peter never went to Rome, there's no evidence for that, he'd be laughed out of court. Resistance to papal authority on the part of many of these

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Church Fathers does not prove anything. Any more than, as I've said before, resistance to other lawfully established authority proves that authority does not exist.

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I believe the authority of the papacy does descend from the apostasy of the Church Fathers, as Irenaeus says, and that that comes from Christ, and I urge you and I plead with you to seriously consider this issue, pray about it, lay yourself before Jesus Christ.

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Thank you very much. Both gentlemen have agreed to stay as long as anyone would like for any questions and answers.

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So we will stand together right now for prayer and take a standing break, and anyone who'd like to stay, and if you have questions for these gentlemen, and it's wide open.

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It's wide open. As long as it deals with Protestant and Catholic, it's wide open. So please stand together with me while I lead us in prayer.

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Our great God and Father, we come before you as individuals and as a group of people who sincerely wish to do that which pleases you.

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It is our desire to walk the path of truth. We desire,

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Father, to know you better, to know your word, to know your will.

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I pray that each one of us might take seriously the commandments to know you, to contend earnestly for the faith, to search the

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Scripture, to love our fellow man, and to spread the good news of Jesus Christ in a hurting and battered world.

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And Father, we pray for the hundreds of thousands of people who are concentrating on this area this week.

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We pray they may come to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We pray that they may, during this time, do significant soul searching.

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We pray that we may be evangelists. We pray that you may use us to work your will.

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And we ask that we may be used by you. We thank you for this time, for the efforts of these two men, and for the commitment demonstrated by those here tonight.

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We pray these things in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Amen.