Primacy of Rome - Fact or Fiction
In Gary Wills book "Why I Am A Catholic" I discovered the origin of the phrase: "Roma Locuta Est, Causa Finita Est." Wills notes that in 417 AD, an African Council condemned Pelagius as a heretic but he appealed to Pope Zosimus. The Pope wrote three letters to the African hierarchy defending Pelagius and asserting that Rome has final authority on all matters of doctrine and practice. In response the African leaders including Augustine called a new Council to condemn Pelagius and at the same time sent a secret delegation to Emperor Honorius in Ravenna, asking him to enforce their decision. "When Honorius did so, Zosimus had to back down and join in the condemnation."
"This papal defeat was misrepresented later as a papal victory. When Zosimus was forced to issue his condemnation of Pelagius, Augustine is supposed to have said, 'Rome has spoken, the matter is ended' (Roma locuta est, causa finita est.) He did not say that , but even if he had, the maxim would not have indicated a Roman primacy, since Zosimus's real initiative, his exoneration of Pelagius, had not 'ended the matter.' What Augustine actually said, at the end of the struggle was 'In this proceeding [causa], two council findings were sent to the Apostolic See, and a report has come back. The proceeding is ended -- I wish that the heresy were.' It is the victory of Africa's two councils that he is celebrating -- a victory sealed when even the Pope had to comply with them, despite his reluctance."
I don't think one can have a mature understanding of the Papacy and Rome without being exposed to the information that is brought together by Gary Wills in "Why I Am A Catholic". It is mind boggling.
Richard
Frannie, I am not sure I
Frannie, I am not sure I understand exactly what you are saying, but could it be that the Council of Jerusalem was that, a council where everyone was heard and the conclusion of their debate was simply atriculated by the one presiding over it as opposed to simply having been listeded to and the presider then making the decision?
Thanks. And that you for not
Thanks. And that you for not pointing out that it was of course James and n ot Stephen. Sometimes I get foggy-brained.
God Bless our Holy Father
God Bless our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI.
An excerpt from an article about Pelagius (portion that mentions Pope Zosimus' involvement):
"The struggle with Pelagianism then entered its Roman phase. In March 417 Innocent died. His successor was Zosimus. After reading Pelagius's profession of faith, he restored him to unity with the Church. As for Caelestius, the Pope wrote to the bishops of Africa, saying Heros and Lazarus had acted hastily and that the bishops should either exonerate Caelestius or prove his heresy in the presence of the Pope. The letter "amounted to a panegyric of Pelagius and Caelestius, in which they figured as the calumniated victims of the malice of the bishops!" [Philip Hughes, A History of the Church (London: Sheed and Ward, 1948), 2:17. It should be noted that this incident cannot be used against the doctrine of papal infallibility, and that for two reasons: (1) The letter by Zosimus does not meet the requirements for an infallible papal decree, as outlined at Vatican I, in that it is not a declaration made to the whole world, and (2) Zosimus drew his conclusions based on Pelagius's confession of faith; at most Zosimus was saying that the confession of faith was orthodox; lacking convincing evidence to the contrary, Zosimus was bound to take the confession as an accurate representation of Pelagius's opinions].
The African bishops met in synod in November and composed a letter to Zosimus, asking him to withhold final disposition of the case until Pelagius and Caelestius had confessed the necessity of grace. By a rescript issued the next March, Zosimus said he had not yet pronounced definitively, [This shows what his intentions were regarding whether the earlier letter was an exercise in infallibility--it could not have been, if Zosimus claimed not to be teaching definitively], and he forwarded to Africa all documents bearing on Pelagianism so a new investigation could be made. There followed a council at Carthage. The bishops again branded Pelagianism a heresy and affirmed the following points, among others, as elements of the true faith: (1) Death came through sin, (2) newborns must be baptized because of original sin, (3) justifying grace assists the Christian in avoiding sin, (4) grace imparts a strength of will to avoid sin, (5) without grace meritorious good works are impossible, (6) all men are sinners.
When the acts of the council were forwarded to Zosimus, he confirmed them in a letter in which he gave a summary of Pelagianism's history and errors and in which he renewed the excommunication of Pelagius and Caelestius. He ordered all bishops of the Church to sign the letter. When Theodotus, patriarch of Antioch, received the Pope's letter, he summoned a council, and Pelagius was expelled from Palestine and entirely disappeared from history. Caelestius refused to accept Rome's judgment, but escaped punishment because of his protectors.
After 418 the leader of the Pelagians was Julian, bishop of Eclanum. "A formidable dialectician and of a pugnacious turn of mind," [Danielou and Marrou, 404], he and 17 other bishops of Italy declined to sign Zosimus's letter and insisted a general council be convened to reconsider the case afresh. All 18 were excommunicated, deposed, and exiled, giving Julian the freedom to commence a literary war with Augustine.
The two exchanged salvos repeatedly. Julian concluded that orthodoxy, as defined by Augustine and Zosimus, "represented a crude form of pietism, from which he must rescue Christianity at all costs, if it was to keep hold of cultivated people." [B. J. Kidd, A History of the Church to A.D. 461 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1922), 3:124]. Dismissing his opponents in general as "uneducated and stupid" and Augustine as "that Punic preacher, dullest and most stupid of men," [Ibid. 3:128], Julian, after being driven from Roman territory, found refuge in Cilicia with Theodore of Mopsuestia. After Theodore's death in 428, he went to Constantinople, and after that he too disappeared from history (and is also now presumed dead). Warren Carroll says that "Bishop Julian revealed, in his methods of debate as in much of its substance, the intellectual arrogance to which the denial of the doctrine of original sin often quickly leads." [Carroll, 89].
Pelagianism was not finally crushed in the East until the ecumenical Council of Ephesus, held in 431, confirmed the condemnation pronounced by the Western bishops."
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1994/9402prof.asp
It seems that the Pope's response was more complex than presented above. Primacy does not mean impeccable. The authority that truly exists in the Papacy can be misused but this does not mean it doesn't exist.
Peace and Good,
Your Brother in Christ (Franciscan Tertiary of Mary, Mother of the Most Holy Eucharist)
I have a similar question.
I have a similar question. I have never understood why Peter was called to Stephen and the Council of Jerusalem and there overruled on circumscision if Peter were Pope and the final authority.