Marife Dini Araştırmalar Dergisi

Öz

Ernest Renan's name was first heard by a large Turkish audience in Paris in March 1883, following a lecture entitled Islam and Science. The backlash against this infamous treatise earned the author a notorious reputation. Three years earlier, Ernest Renan had been invited to lecture on the relationship between Christianity and Rome at the Institute founded by Robert Hibbert in 1847. The work we have translated is the second in a series of lectures Renan gave in London in 1880 entitled 'The Influence of Rome on Christianity.' The other lectures in the series will also be published by the author.
As far as we can tell from the translated lecture and the others in the series, it concerns the doctrine of papal infallibility declared by Pius IX after the First Vatican Council in 1870. In the context of this development, which caused great anger and concern in Protestant countries, it makes sense that such a conference should be held in England two years after the death of Pope Pius IX. When the Council was held, there had already been a large Irish Catholic population in England, forced to emigrate to the island after the two great Irish famines of 1845–1852 and 1870. W. E. Gladstone, the great Prime Minister of the time, wrote a series of pamphlets from 1870 onwards in which he explained that he had doubts as to which side the Catholic British subjects would lean to when faced with the conflicting orders of the Empire and the Pope and explained how these doubts could be overcome.
In this lecture, as in his other lectures in the series, Renan has taken a route around the claims of legitimacy of the Church of Rome and the nullity of those claims. Here, he gives a history of the rise and fall of Rome to its present prestigious position in the Church hierarchy. He presents a panorama of the pagan era and the new era, marked by the replacement of Remus and Romulus by Peter and Paul.
Renan argues that, far from representing Christ, moreover, the papacy is a structure developed in opposition to His ideals. By linking this claim with the Christian narratives of Paul and Peter and the deeds of Nero, he argues that the papacy, or rather the Church of Rome, formalised the despicable acts of Nero centuries later by decreeing them at the First Vatican Council and making them the doctrine of the Church.
In support of this argument, he claims that the original founders of the Roman Church were Aquila, a Jew from Pontus, and Priscilla, his wife. He further states that other apostles, notably James and Peter, launched some counter-missions in Jerusalem to compete with the influence of Paul's missions and, therefore, that they followed Paul's itinerary in these missions.
Renan states that the conflict between Paul and Peter was essentially between the two traditions, Judaeo-Christian and Hellenic, and that pagan Rome sought to consolidate its position among the churches by establishing a duality in the form of Peter and Paul as the successors of Remus and Romulus. Reconciliation, however, could only be achieved after the deaths of the two apostles. For, as Renan points out, Paul and Peter were bitter opponents during their lifetimes. However, the unity of Paul's Hellenism and Peter's Judaeo-Christianity was essential to the future success of the Roman Church. For, according to Renan, while the Judeo-Christian tradition represents the conservative spirit, without which nothing can be preserved, Hellenism represents progress and development, without which nothing can really exist. The success of the Roman Church lies in its ability to bring these two opposing ends together.