Saturday, June 14, 2025

Edward Denny on the Scriptural Witness Against the Roman Catholic Interpretation of Luke 22:32

  

The Scriptural testimony against the Papalist interpretation of St. Luke xxii. 32.

 

154. Additional evidence that St. Peter had no office of strengthening the brethren other than that which, as has been said, he shared in common with the rest of the Rulers of the Church, is afforded by the fact that the word στηριζειν, used by St. Luke in the passage (or its compounds) is also used by the same writer with reference to the work of St. Paul and others in the Acts of the Apostles.

 

So St. Paul and St. Barnabas are related to have confirmed [επιστηριζοντες] the disciples of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. [Acts 14:22] So St. Jude and St. Silas confirmed [επεστηριξαν] the brethren of Antioch. [Acts 15:32] So St. Paul confirmed [επιστηριζων] the Churches of Syria and Cilicia, [Acts 15:41] and the disciples in Galatia and Phrygia, [Acts 18:23] whilst St. Paul used the word GK to describe the purpose for which he sent Timothy to the Thessalonian Church. [1 Thess 3:2]

 

155. It is, moreover, specially worthy of note that the Apostle in his Epistle to the Romans says of himself: 'I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, that you may be established,' [Rom 1:10] εις το στηριχθηναι υμας, words which show that he regarded himself as one who should be the instrument whereby a gift of strength should be conferred on the Christians of Rome. A fact which is specially interesting, as the Roman Christians on Papalist principles were the peculiar charge of Peter, who was actually at this very time, according to the Papalist figment of his twenty-five years' tenure of the Roman See, seated in 'the Chair' which he had placed there. St. Paul's statement therefore would have been, if the Papalist interpretation of St. Luke xxii. 32 were true, in a very special manner an infringement of the prerogatives of Peter, whilst, on the other hand, it would accurately describe the result of the faithful discharge of that Apostolic office which he held in common with St. Peter and the rest of the Apostolic College, and be perfectly consistent with the position of joint-founder with St. Peter of the Church at Rome, which was his privilege. (Edward Denny, Papalism: A Treatise on the Claims of the Papacy As Set Forth in the Encyclical Satis Cognitum [London: Rivingtons, 1912], 77-78)

 

 

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