Friars' Bookshelf 313
The See of Peter. By James T. Shotwell, Ph. D., LL. D., and Louise Ropes Loomis, Ph. D. Pp. xxvi-737. New York: Columbia University Press. $10.00. Due to a misapprehension, the Church is often accused by her opponents of basing her thoroughly logical structure of dogma and doctrine upon an argument which is a flagrant petitio principii. When asked for her credentials, they say, the Church points to the Scriptures, but when asked for a guarantee of their authority she adduces her own. If this were true the Church's theology would be as unsound as the Hindu cosmogony with its Elephant and Tortoise. A simple distinction, however, shows the unfoundedness of the charge. The authority of the Church is based upon the Scriptures, not precisely as the inspired Word of God, but as the historical record of a God become Incarnate and leaving behind Him a Church endowed with His authority. Hence the importance of the text, "Thou art Peter," and the cognate passages of the New Testament. Yet it is possible that we, in this latter time, are wrong in our interpretation of them and it becomes necessary to find out what was the Christian interpretation of them from the beginning. Are the Fathers in agreement, at least rudimentarily, with us in our attitude to wards the Holy See? What, precisely, was their relation, what their teaching? To answer this is the task set themselves by the authors of the present work. It should be noted, at the outset, that their attitude is that of the historian interested only in sources and their historical and critical value.
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