The Petrine claims : a critical inquiry

Front matter

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: ® yet o PRINCETON, N. J.

Littledale, Richard Frederick, 1833-1890.

Chapter. 1, Legal Evidence Of Scripture

The Papal claims pushed to their final goal by the Vatican decrees —Roman controversy henceforward limited toa single issue— Claim that the Church of Rome is the whole Church—Language of the Vatican decrees—Three concurrent tests of divine privilege—Vatican decrees on the Papal claims—Need of conclusive evidence to prove them—Evidence as to St. Peter all contained in the New Testament—Rules of the Roman Canon Law to govern claims of privilege—The Petrine Charter in the New Testament—As expressed in Christ’s words—As implied by Christ’s actions—As evidenced by St. Peter’s own conduct after the Ascension—As attested by St. Peter’s language—St. John and St. Paul more dogmatic in teaching than St. Peter—Greater bulk and importance of the Pauline writings—Evidence of St. Paul as to the constitution of the Apostolic Church—Claims to authority made by St. Paul— Disciplinary rules laid down by him— Result of comparison between the positions of SS. Peter and Paul—Obscurity of wording in the alleged Petrine Charter—Bellarmine’s argument—Its legal invalidity—The epithet ‘‘ Rock” in Scripe

Vill

THE PETRINE CLAIMS.

ture—The rank and privileges of Jerusalem under the Mosaic dispensation—No reason for any similar privilege under the Gospel—Slight and unemphatic mention of Rome in New Testament—No direct connexion with St. Peter—Doubtfulness of identifying Babylon and Rome—No evidence for the Petrine Claims deducible from the letter of Scripture, viewed as a legal document alleged in proof ............... pa

CHAPTER IL.

LEGAL EVIDENCE OF LITURGIES AND FATHERS.

The general belief and practice of the Christian Church may be accepted as evidence in the absence of express Scriptural statement—Evidential value of such testimony—Recapitulation of the points to be proved in order to establish the Petrine Claims—Five main sources of inquiry—What sort of evidence is inadmissible—Evidence of the Liturgies—Authority of the Fathers as witnesses—Patristic interpretations of the three great Petrine texts—Evidential value of honorific epithets of SE. Peter: 36). Seid bub Rahod ye cdoweeibaane <sReRNay oh$ cabal aore or page

CHAPTER: fi.

LEGAL EVIDENCE OF CONCILIAR DECREES.

Authority attributed to the Councils by the Church of Rome—

Apostolic Canons know no rank superior to Metropolitan— Council of Nice implies limitation of Roman Patriarchate—

Contents

Council of Sardica—Its Canons, granting appellate jurisdiction to Rome, almost certainly forged in the Papal interest— Second General Council of Constantinople exclusively Eastern ——Recognises no appellate jurisdiction in Rome—Concedes second place in the hierarchy to Constantinople—Council of Carthage in 418 repudiates Papal jurisdiction, rejects the alleged Sardican Canons, and prohibits appeals beyond sea— Council of Carthage in 424 renews the repudiation of Papal jurisdiction—Third General Council of Ephesus held because of the failure of the Pope to settle the Nestorian question— Takes no account of the Papal deposition of Nestorius— Enacts a Canon forbidding all bishops to extend their jurisdiction over fresh territory—-Fourth General Council of Chalcedon constitutes an appellate system incompatible with the Roman claims—Enacts a canon alleging the Roman Primacy to be a merely human grant on political grounds—Maintains and reaffirms it against the protest of the Papal Legates— Conclusions which flow from this enactment—Proof of the historical truth of the Canon—Language of St. Irenzeus as to the precedency of Rome—lIts most probable interpretation— Roman synods in the fifth century—Trial of Pope Symmachus—Councils of Gaul and Spain in the sixth century—Unfavourable to Petrine Claims —Fifth General Council of Constantinople-—-Condemns Pope Vigilius—Roman Councils in sixth century—Councils of Gaul and Spain in the seventh century—Sixth General Council of Constantinople — Condemns Pope Honorius as a heretic—Roman attempts to set aside this condemnation—Disproof of such attempts—Evidence of the Council of Frankfort against the Papal claims— Synod of Rome in 963 deposes Pope John XII.—Council of Sutri in 1046 deposes three rival Popes—Council of Pisa in 1409 deposes and excommunicates two rival Popes—-Council of Constance in 1415 deposes three rival Popes—Council of Basle, though not canonically recognised, of great value as historical testimony—Its anti-Papal enactments—Legal effect of the deposition and election of Popes at Pisa and Constance ... page gt x THE PETRINE CLAIMS.

CHAPTER IV.

LEGAL EVIDENCE OF. ACTS, CONCILIAR, PAPAL,

Chap. I. ] Legal Evidence Of Scripture. 3

It will simplify the inquiry to set down the latest authoritative utterances on the subject of revelation, as embodied in the decrees of the Vatican Council itself :—

1. ‘Supernatural Revelation, according to the faith of the Universal Church, as declared by the Holy Council of Trent, is contained in written books, and in the unwritten traditions, which, having been received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or having been, as it were, handed down from the Apostles themselves at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, have arrived even unto us.”—Conc. Trid. Sess. iv, Decr. de Can. Script.)

2. ** And these entire books of the Old and New Testament, with all their parts, as they are set forth in the decrees of the said Council, and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition, are to be received as holy and canonical. These the Church holds to be holy and canonical, not because, having been compiled by mere human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority, nor merely because they contain revelation with no admixture of error, but because, having been written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God for their author, and have been delivered as such to the Church herself. . . . That is to be held as the true sense of Holy Scripture which Holy Mother Church hath held and does hold, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of Holy Scripture, and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture contrary to this sense, nor, likewise, contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.” —(Conc. Vatic. Sess, ili. cap. 2.)

The last clause is somewhat obscurely worded, and it is well to cite in explanation the different wording of the third clause of the Tridentine Profession of Faith, commonly called the Creed of Pius IV., which runs thus :—

**T also admit Holy Scripture according to that sense which Holy Mother Church has held and does hold, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures; wether well I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.”

This creed (seriously differing from the Vatican decree in the clause above italicised) has to be formally professed by all bishops and clergy in the Roman Church, and by all lay converts who are sufficiently educated to understand it.

What we have established so far is, that any claim o

B 2 privilege, in order to be accounted Divine in the Church of Rome, and warranted by Revelation, must be based (a) on Holy Scripture, (4) on the historical tradition of the Church, (c) on the wuxanzmous consent of the Fathers. This excludes all visions and quasi-revelations, as also expressions of ecclesiastical opinion later than the time of St. Bernard, who is accounted the last of the Fathers, and who died in 1153, as evidence of Divene right, which must be proved by these three concurrent testimonies.

The claims set forward in the Vatican decrees on the Constitution of the Church are as follows :—

1. ‘‘If any one shall say that blessed Peter the Apostle was not appointed by Christ the Lord the Prince of all the Apostles, and the visible Head of the whole Church Militant; or that he received a primacy of honour only, and not directly or immediately one of true and proper jurisdiction from the same our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.”

2. ‘‘If any should say that it is not by the institution of Christ the Lord Himself, or by Divine right, that blessed Peter should have a perpetual line of successors in the primacy over the Church Universal, or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy, let him be anathema.”

3. ‘* None may reopen the judgment of the Apostolic See, than whose authority there is none greater ; nor can any lawfully review its judgment; therefore they err from the right course who assert that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman Pontiffs to a General Council, as to an authority higher than that of the Roman Pontiff. If, then, any shall say that the Roman Pontiff has the office merely of inspection or direction, but not full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the Universal Church, not only in things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those which relate to the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the world ; or assert that he possesses only the chief part, and not the entire fulness of the supreme power ; or that this power which he enjoys is not ordinary and immediate, both over each and all the Churches, and over each and all the pastors and faithful, let him be anathema.”

4. ** The Sacred Council approving, we teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed, that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedrd, that is, when discharging the office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Church Universal, by the Divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine

CHAP. 1. | LEGAL EVIDENCE OF SCRIPTURE. 5 e concerning faith or morals; and that, therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church. But if any one—which God avert—presume to contradict this our definition, let him be anathema.”

In proportion as these claims are vast and startling, the proofs alleged need to be abundant, clear, and conclusive, and every step in the process must be rigorously established by convincing evidence of its Divine origin and institution, as distinguished from mere ecclesiastical powers of human origin, arrangement, and concession. For the claim is that it is nothing less than divinely revealed, and that not by any such visions and miracles as are alleged on behalf of particular devotional practices in modern times, but by the threefold testimony of Scripture, Church history, and the writings of the Fathers.

Further, as the entire claim of Papal Infallibility rests avowedly on asserted heirship to St. Peter, and right of succession to all his privileges, while no allegation is made that those privileges have been specifically re-granted to any Pope since his time, much less increased, developed, and amplified in any manner, it follows that the Pope can claim no more than is plainly discoverable as conferred upon and exercised by St. Peter himself. But the whole of the evidence now extant upon this head is confined to the books of the New Testament. The few meagre and uncertain notices of St. Peter’s life which have come to us from uninspired writers do not touch this question of his primacy, jurisdiction, and transmission of his powers at all. Consequently, the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles contain not only his whole chatter of privilege, but our whole means of ascertaining what he actually enjoyed and exercised 1 in virtue of that charter.

For the Roman claims, then, to have any firm basis, this

evidence must establish clearly and expressly, and not by mere possible implication orinference, the following points :—

1. That St. Peter was given by Christ a primacy, not of honour and rank alone, but of direct and sovereign jurisdiction over all the other Apostles.

2. That this primacy was not limited to St. Peter’s person only for his lifetime, but was conferred on him with power to bequeath it to his successors.

The subsequent question, as to whether he did actually so bequeath it to the Bishops of Rome, belongs to a later date in Church history than that comprised in the New Testament period, and must be deferred for the present. It is our business now to examine the charter, conveyance, and exercise of that which in the language of modern Roman theologians is called the “ Privilege of Peter.” The reason why the proof of it needs to be express and clear, is because privilege, being a private exception to the usual public course of law, either in the form of exemption from some burden generally imposed, or of enjoyment of some benefit generally withheld, is essentially an invidious thing, and requires fuller proof than any other right before it can be allowed as valid. Consequently, the Roman Canon Law (by which an exclusively Roman claim cannot reasonably or even plausibly refuse to be tested!) has laid down the following broad rules (amongst others) to govern all cases of the sort :—

1. The authoritative document containing the privilege must be produced.—(Decret. Greg. 7X. ; lib. v. tit. xxxili.)

2. Its wording must be certain and manifest, not obscure or doubtful.—(Decret. Greg. LX. ; lib. v. tit. xl. 25.)

3. It must be construed in the most strict and literal sense.—(Reg. Juris. ; vi. and xxvill. ; Fagnan. de Past. et Prelat. 7; Zypaus de Privil. Consult. 1.)

4. If personal, it follows the person [not the office] ; and it dies with the person named in it.—(Bontface VITT. De Regulis Juris. ; reg, vii.)

5. It may not be extended to any other person, because of identity or similarity of reason, unless such extension be

1 As by pleading that the Petrine privilege, being older than the Canon Law, cannot be subject to its rules. For the question is as to the devolution of this privilege to the reigning Pope, whose claim to it must be subject to the tests of contemporary Canon Law. And the claim itself was not formulated definitely till the fifth century.

CHAP. I.] LEGAL EVIDENCE OF SCRIPTURE. 7 expressly named in it.—(Decret. Greg. /X.; lib. v. tit. XXXIil. 9.)

6.—It may not be so interpreted as to deny, interfere with, or encroach upon the rights and privileges of another. —(Decret. Greg. IX. ; lib. v. tit. xxxili. 4.)

7. Itis forfeited by any excess or abuse in its exercise.— (Decret. ii. xi. 3, 1x.)

Let us now examine the evidence of Holy Scripture, not mainly from a theological point of view, but rather from a legal one, as the principal document tendered in proof of claim. Our Lord’s charter to St. Peter is held to be contained in three clauses of the Gospels :—

1. ‘And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona : for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which isin heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”—St. Matthew xvi. 17-19. :

2. ** And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not : and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” —St. Luke xxii. 31, 32.

3. ‘*So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed My lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? He saith to Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed My sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? Peter was grieved, because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me? And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things ; Thou knowest that I love Thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed My sheep.”—St. John xxi. 15-17.

This is the sum of the charter. If we look somewhat more minutely into it, we shall find that certain portions of it are not peculiar to St. Peter, but are common to cthers. First we are told that in what appears to be the interval between St. Peter’s going away to pay the tribute money for Christ and himself (St. Matthew xvil. 27) and his return to the other Apostles, when he put his question to Christ on the forgiveness of injuries, our Lord conferred the same power of binding and loosing on the remaining Apostles, apart from St. Peter, saying :— |

‘* Verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” —St. Matthew xviii. 18;

and again bestowed it on all the Apostles, collectively, after His Resurrection—

‘Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as My

Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost : Whosesoever sins ve remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.”—-St. John xx. 21-23.

Accordingly, the clause as to binding and loosing in St. Matthew xvi. 19 is no part of the especial privilege of Peter, and constitutes no difference between him and the remaining Apostles.

The second passage, that from St. Luke, so far from exalting St. Peter, actually puts him below the level of his colleagues, as the context shows. All of them are to be tried and sifted by Satan like wheat. Peter is the only one whose actual fall and denial of his Lord is foretold— cowardly flight being the worst fault of the other Apostles —and thus he is the only one who stands in need of “ conversion.” And he is bidden, when this necessary repentance and change have taken place in himself, to support, by his newly-revived zeal, his yet unfallen brethren, lest they should sin as he had just done. To fortify them by confession of his own weakness is in no respect akin to exercising authority over them.

The third passage (apart from the difficulty that in the only one place of Holy Writ where the Apostles are spoken of as “sheep,” St. Peter is included amongst them, and not separately named as their shepherd:—“ Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,” St. Matthew x. 16) in like manner confers no exceptional

CHAR; Li LEGAL EVIDENCE OF SCRIPTURE. 9 privilege, because we have it twice attributed to the ordinary ministers of the Church—the Elders, far below the Apostles in power and dignity, while one of these two attributions is made by St. Peter himself. The clauses are, first, St. Paul’s address to the Elders of the Church at Miletus :—

**Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.”— ACtS xx, (28.5 and next, St. Peter’s similar exhortation :—

‘The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly ; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.” —1 St. Peter v. 1-3.

And, in truth, part of the immediate context of St. John xxi. 17, which has been generally overlooked in this connexion, furnishes incidental but adequate disproof of the Ultramontane gloss :—

“‘Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following ; which also leaned on His breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth Thee? Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou Me.”— St. John xxi. 20-22.

It is obvious that if St. Peter had received jurisdiction over St. John only a few minutes before, his question was perfectly legitimate and reasonable, and merited a reply, as being his concern, because affecting one for whom he had been just made responsible. But the answer. he actually receives can denote nothing short of St. John’s entire independence, and the restriction of St. Peter’s own commission to attending to his own specific and limited share of Apostolic work, with no right of control over St. John.

There remains, therefore, so far, as the whole charter of special Petrine privilege, only the one passage :—

** And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”—St. Matthew xvi. 18.

But before we enter on the question of its interpretation, to be considered later, even if we take St. Peter to be the rock, it appears that even this title does not stand alone in such sort as to constitute a gift of sovereign authority. For this same attribute of being foundations of the Church is in two other places ascribed to the Apostles generally, once by St. Paul:—

‘* Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but _ fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God ; and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone ; in Whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” —Eph. i. 19-21 ; and again by St. John :—

‘* And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb,’’—Rev. xxi. 14;

where, moreover, it is not unworthy of notice, that the jzrs¢ stone, a jasper, is much inferior in beauty and value to some of the remainder, as the sapphire, emerald, and chrysolite, which severally form the second, fourth, and seventh foundations.—Reyv. xxi. 19, 20. As to the clause about the power of the Keys, see later, Chap. II. Nevertheless, as the whole New Testament ought, for the purposes of this inquiry, be construed as a single document, there may be other expressions and indications in it from which the extent of the Petrine charter may be reasonably inferred, and if a collation of them give any more specific authority to St. Peter than is visible thus far, it must be read into and incorporated with that charter. Conversely, if the additional evidence point to a strict and narrow construction, or even to further limitation, of it, that too must needs be taken as conditioning its terms. The first piece of evidence, then, is that zmmedzately after the bestowal by Christ of whatever gift or privilege

CHAP. I.] LEGAL EVIDENCE OF SCRIPTURE. II is conferred by St. Matthew xvi. 18, 19, and most probably in the course of the very same conversation, as appears from a comparison of St. Mark vill. 27-34, by far the sternest rebuke ever uttered to an Apostle by Christ falls on St. Peter :—

‘From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto His disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto Thee. But He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art an offence unto Me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.””—St. Matthew xvi. 21-23.

This proves at the least that St. Peter did not acquire in virtue of that previous charter the gift of infallibility, nor even that of not directly contravening the will of God. And so evident is this deduction, that a modern infallibilist has endeavoured to escape from it by alleging that the Peter of the second clause was a different person from the Simon Bar-jona or Peter of the first one.

Next, if the passage St. Matthew xvi. 17-20, be, as it is from a Roman Catholic point of view, one of the most significant and important items of Divine revelation, we are entitled to expect to find it emphasized by the other Evangelists.

If it lay outside their plan, and they made no reference whatever to this conversation at Czesarea Philippi, no conclusion either way could be drawn from their silence, any more than from St. John’s omission of the Last Supper or the Ascension.

But St. Mark and St. Luke both do embody St. Peter’s confession of Christ in their narratives, yet leave out entirely all reference to the words “Thou art Peter,” &c.,—St. Mark vill. 27-34, St. Luke ix. 18-23. Hence it is clear that in their minds the important part of the conversation was the declaration of our Lord’s person and office, not the definition and scope of St. Peter’s privilege. Nor is this all. The received tradition of the Roman Church is that St. Mark was the disciple of St. Peter, and wrote his Gospel by St. Peter’s directions.and under his supervision.

But St. Mark, while omzttmg the words “ Thou art Peter,” &c., zzserts the words ‘Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou savourest not of the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.”—St. Mark viii. 33.

The inevitable inference from this most weighty fact is that St. Peter himself did not consider the words of Christ in St. Matthew xvi. 17-20 necessary to be communicated by St. Mark to those for whom his Gospel was written, and therefore it is clear that he did not attach the meaning to them which Roman controversialists now allege as the true one; since, had he done so, he was bound for the highest reasons to make his peculiar commission known, precisely as an ambassador is required to produce his credentials, and the governor of a colony to exhibit his patent from the Crown, at his entry upon his office. Nor can such a breach of duty as silence under such circumstances be excused by attributing it to St. Peter’s humility, because the truest humility is implicit obedience to God’s commands, whether tending to exalt or abase him to whom the command is given.

Further, St. Peter uses language in his own Epistles which implies, if not ignorance on his part as to any special privilege attaching to his own person, at any rate abstinence from pressing it, and that to the extent of employing phrases which seem to exclude it, so far as it is held to be based either on St. Matthew xvi. 18, or on St. John xxl. 15-17. For in the first place, he seems to recognise no foundation of the Church save Christ himself :—

“‘Tf so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. To Whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and ihe that believeth on Him shall not be confounded.”—1 St. Peter 1, 3-6.

And in the next place he names only one Chief Shepherd and Bishop—

CHAP: 1. | LEGAL EVIDENCE OF SCRIPTURE. 13

‘* Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that

we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by Whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray ; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.”—1 Peter ll, 24, 25.

With this may be contrasted the language of Pius IX., who, in a public address, applied to himself the text St. John xiv. 6,—“‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,”! words which cannot by any accommodation be applied save to Him Who spoke them, as two of them denote incommunicable attributes; whereas St. Peter might have found justification for claiming the titles of ‘‘ Foundation of the Church? .and ‘‘ Chief “Shepherd,” as ‘his own, had he thought they belonged to him.

The next question to consider is, what additional light the language of our Lord in the Gospels sheds on the extent and nature of the privilege of Peter. First, then, soon after the utterance in St. Matthew xvi. 18, and just before the bestowal of the power of binding and loosing on all the Apostles in St. Peter’s absence, the question of precedence in Christ’s kingdom is raised, and is answered by our Lord in terms inconsistent with the opinion that the disciples understood Him to have already settled that point, or that He had in fact done so, whether they understood Him or not :—

‘* At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”—St. Matt. xvili. 1-4.