Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 15.djvu/347

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PAO-TING FU.
302
PAPACY.


very large number of curio and book shops. The city was occupied by the allied troops during the Boxer rebellion on October 19, 1900.

PAPA, pii'pi). A town in the County of Vesz- prem, Hungary, situated on the Tapolcza. about 60 miles south-southeast of Pressburg (Map: Hungary, E 3). It has an extensive palace of the Counts of Eszterhftzv, a house in which Alatthias Corvinus lived, three monasteries, and a Protestant gymnasium. The manufactures in- clude potterv. tobacco, and textiles. Population, in 181I0, 14.417: in 1900, 17,426, chiefly Roman Catholic Magj"ars.

PAPACY (OF. papacie, from ML. papatia. Papal ullke. from Lat. papa, pope, bishop, father : reduplication of pa, an early infantile utterance, supposed to apply to the child's father). The ><ee of Kome considered as an historic institution, claiming to be the head of and centre of unity for the whole Christian Church. The origin of the primacy of Rome is, according to the Roman tradition, to l)e found ( 1 ) in the leading part played by the Apostle Peter in the New Testa- ment records, and (2) in the alleged historic fact of a residence of Peter at Rome as head or bishop of the Christian community there. On the first basis is constructed a theory of a divine com- mission given to Peter by Jesus Christ, in virtue of which Peter was invested with the three at- tributes of king, priest, and teacher over all the followers of his master. On the second basis the Roman Church has built up its practical earth- ly structure of influence and power. The iden- tification of the Petrine idea with Rome was needed to localize and make concrete the abstract claims of a divine commission. Whatever powers were conveyed to Peter by .Jesus Christ were now held to be continued in full measure to his duly appointed successors in the Roman bish- opric. Although a majority of Christians reject both the Roman interpretation of the Petrine commission and the historical proof of a 'bish- opric' of Peter in Rome, and still more emphati- cally deny any connection whatever between these two sets of ideas, the historian finds abundant explanations of the origin and growth of the Roman su]iremacy without resorting to these sources. Doubtless the tradition of an Apostolic origin was a jiowerful aid to the bishops of Rome in enforcing their claims to su|)eriority.

The Roman community was certain!}' one of the earliest Christian foundations. It enjoyed the prestige of the work and of the martyrdom of the great Ajjostles, Peter and Paxil. It was the centre of life of the vast Roman Empire, and the focal point toward which all ideas streamed in and from which they were redistributed in effective form. Rome, however, had never been an important source of ancient culture. Her gifts to the world were law and administration, her culture was always a borrowed one. This same tradition of practical administrative skill was now to be continued by the Church. The authentic records of Roman church life during the first two centuries are few, and many in- stances of the exercise of Papal power at this time are not to be foimd.

The evidences of an aggressive, dominating jurisdiction appear very clearlv in the adminis- tration of Victor I. ( ?19.3-20.3); This active and zealous churchman was bent upon securing uni- formity in the outward practices of the Church, and he made the existing variations in the time of celebrating Easter a test question. He de- manded of the Eastern churches agreement with the Roman Easter period and threatened them with excommunication if they refused. Excom- municatiiin, as the refusal to share Christian fellowship with an offending brother, was the right of every church, but we distinctly see here the Roman practice of treating it as a pun- ishment to be inflicted by a superior upon an inferior. Irena^us, Bishop of Lyons, himself a Syrian, but in agreement with Victor on the Easter question, admitted the potentior princi- palilas of Rome, a phrase naturally quoted by Roman controversialists to support their claims of right. They also cite, as justification of these claims, a letter of Clement 1. to the Corinthians (A.D. 95 or 90), the epistles of Saint Ignatius, and passages of Tertullian, Origen. and other Christian writers of the .second and third cen- turies. Whatsoever may be the value of these testimonies, as cited to sustain the claims of Papal su])remacy in these early ages, the subse- quent fact of a Papal domination is outlined dis- tinctly in historical perspective by the end of the fourth century.

The Western world turned as naturally to Rome in religious as in secular matters, partly as the result of the habit of centuries, partly because there was no other resort. Papal Rome met the demand with a steadiness and prudence worthy of the great political tradition to which she was succeeding. In matters both of faith and practice she was always to be found on the side of a stanch but liberal orthodoxy. While Gnostics on the one hand and Montanists on the other were trying to make of the Church a se- lect esoteric community of the specially initiated, Rome steered carefully between the extremes and lent all her weight to the 'Catholic' or in- clusive idea of the Church, as the medium of sal- vation for all men. On the vexed questions of heretical baptism and ordination and the treat- ment of the 'lapsed' her position was always moderate and liberal. While the theologians of the Ea.stern world were speculating with philo- sophical refinements over the great Christian problems, the Roman Church quietly but per- sistently held fast to the idea of a mystery of redemption not to be solved by any human phi- losophy, but to be accepted once for all bj' an act of faith. When, in the storms of the Ger- manic invasions, the weak and cowardly pm- perors deserted Rome, the Roman bishops re- peatedly stood forward in their place and dealt with the invaders in the name of a power great- er than their own.

The earliest point at which we can clearly discern the existence of a well-developed ma- chinery of Papal power is in the administration of Leo I. (440-461). He grasped, as none of his predecessors had done, the vast range of his opportunity. He aimed to establish, both in the East and in the West, a system of Papal vicariates through which the Roman jurisdiction could be enforced and the Roman forms of faith and practice maintained. Eastward from the Adriatic his success was only partial and tem- porary. The pressure of Greek Christianity backed by the forces of the Greek Empire was too great, and we may from this point practical- ly dismiss the East from our view. At the Coun-