Friday, January 24, 2020

Kenneth Whitehead (Catholic) on Sermon 131 and Augustine's Understanding of Roman Primacy


Many Catholic apologists appeal to a purported saying of Augustine from sermon 131, “Rome has spoken, the case is closed!” Firstly, Augustine never said such a thing. Furthermore, while trying to salvage belief in Roman Primacy (as understood in light of Vatican I [1870]), one Catholic apologist admitted that sermon 131 and Augustine’s comments therein should be understood in a more nuanced manner:

The views of Pelagius proved to be quite popular among many people and continued to spread, inevitably arousing opposition. The great St. Augustine of Hippo composed a number of incisive tracts against Pelagianism. In due course, two councils held in different parts of Africa condemned the views of Pelagius; in 416, one African council expressly renewed a condemnation of Pelagius that had been decided upon by an African council in 412. The African bishops then forwarded their judgments to Rome.

Pope St. Innocent I replied to the African bishops the following year, accepting the decisions of the two African councils. Concerning this reply, St. Augustine wrote: “Already two synods have sent to the Apostolic See concerning this affair. The rescripts have come from here. The cause is finished (causa finita est). Would that at last the error were finished too!” (Sermo CXXXI).

This incident was ostensibly the origin of the widely quoted statement regularly attributed to Augustine: Roma locuta est, causa finita est (“Rome has spoken, the cause is finished”; meaning the matter is settled). It should be evident from both the text and the context that what St. Augustine actually said was slightly different than what the statement is generally taken to mean. Augustine seems to have been referring to the whole process: two African councils had considered the views of Pelagius and correctly judged him to be in error. Following this, the only possible court of appeal, the bishop of Rome, confirmed the judgment of the African councils; the appeal process was accordingly exhausted, and it time for the heretics to desist as well—they stood no chance of ever persuading the Church of their aberrant views in the face of a Roman judgment upholding a legitimate Church synod.

The matter was indeed settled—not just because “Rome had spoken”, but because the whole Church process for arriving at correct doctrine had been gone through and the rest had gone against the Pelagians. Thus, what Augustine actually meant in this case was more nuanced than what is usually meant when the saying Roma locuta est, causa finita est is quoted. (Kenneth D. Whitehead, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church was the Catholic Church [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000], 272-73, emphasis in original)