Posted on 06/20/2015 12:42:46 PM PDT by rwa265
Listers, we’ve catalogued the first ten Vicars of Christ for the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Save the information on our first pope – St. Peter – all the information presented is taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia and links for further reading are provided.
1. Pope St. Peter (32-67)
St. Peter held a primacy amongst the twelve disciples that earned him the title “Prince of the Apostles.” This primacy of St. Peter was solidified when he was appointed by Jesus to the Office of the Vicar – demonstrated by Christ giving St. Peter the Keys to the Kingdom. To understand St. Peter, one must first understand Christ and the Church Christ came to establish. Jesus is the “Son of David” and his life and ministry fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of the New Davidic Kingdom and New Jerusalem; hence, we look to the historic kingdom of King David as a guide to the New Davidic Kingdom. King David had a vicar that ruled his kingdom when David was absent and the sign of authority for this vicar was the keys of the kingdom. In the New Davidic Kingdom, Christ the Son of David gave the keys to his Vicar to guide the Kingdom until the return of Christ – we now refer to this vicar as “the pope.” SPL has written extensively on these issue in http://www.stpeterslist.com/45/10-biblical-reasons-christ-founded-the-papacy/ and http://www.stpeterslist.com/94/13-biblical-reasons-st-peter-was-the-prince-of-the-apostles/.
(Excerpt) Read more at stpeterslist.com ...
So what exactly does the Pope “bind and loose” on Earth that is then “bound and loosed” in heaven?
Jesus was talking about the Faith Peter was demonstrating. The Church is founded on Faith in Jesus Christ.
I [Pope Francis] have said to the Lord, “You take care of me. But if it is your will that I die or something happens to me, I ask you only one favour: that it doesn’t hurt. Because I am a real wimp when it comes to physical pain.”‘
To:
O Lord my God, I now at this moment, readily and willingly accept at Thy hand whatever kind of death it may please Thee to send me, with all its pains, penalties and sorrows."
I truly believe that Francis doesn't believe in Purgatory, or if he does, it's painless.
(Big) if anyone held a “primacy” among the apostles, I would be more inclined to say it was Paul. Paul did more to spread the Gospel of Jesus than any of the others.
Well that gets a huge BINGO! But that wouldn’t add to the Nicolaitan power base don’tchaknow.
I’m not going to get into the ecclesiastical debates, there is no end to them. I do have a question about the portraits on the site, however. Two of the popes are portrayed with the triregnum. I’m assuming that’s an anachronism, but I just want to be sure...
Peter – rock
Matthew 16:18 - http://bible.cc/matthew/16-18.htm
Jesus said that Peter was *petros*(masculine) and that on this *petra*(feminine) He would build His church.
Greek: 4074 Pétros (a masculine noun) – properly, a stone (pebble), such as a small rock found along a pathway. 4074 /Pétros (”small stone”) then stands in contrast to 4073 /pétra (”cliff, boulder,” Abbott-Smith).
“4074 (Pétros) is an isolated rock and 4073 (pétra) is a cliff” (TDNT, 3, 100). “4074 (Pétros) always means a stone . . . such as a man may throw, . . . versus 4073 (pétra), a projecting rock, cliff” (S. Zodhiates, Dict).
4073 pétra (a feminine noun) – “a mass of connected rock,” which is distinct from 4074 (Pétros) which is “a detached stone or boulder” (A-S). 4073 (pétra) is a “solid or native rock, rising up through the earth” (Souter) – a huge mass of rock (a boulder), such as a projecting cliff.
4073 (petra) is “a projecting rock, cliff (feminine noun) . . . 4074 (petros, the masculine form) however is a stone . . . such as a man might throw” (S. Zodhiates, Dict).
It’s also a strange way to word the sentence that He would call Peter a rock and say that on this I will build my church instead of *on you* as would be grammatically correct in talking to a person.
There is no support from the original Greek that Peter was to be the rock on which Jesus said he would build His church. The nouns are not the same, one being masculine and the other being feminine. They denote different objects.
Also, here, Paul identifies who petra is, and that is Christ. This link takes you to the Greek.
http://biblehub.com/text/1_corinthians/10-4.htm
1 Corinthians 10:1-4 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock (petra) that followed them, and the Rock (petra) was Christ.
http://biblehub.com/text/romans/9-33.htm
Romans 9:30-33 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock (petra) of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
http://biblehub.com/text/1_peter/2-8.htm
1 Peter 2:1-8 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”
and
“A stone of stumbling, and a rock (petra) of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
All occurrences of *petra* in the Greek.
Thank you for the post. I’ve printed it for further study.
While you may believe with all your heart that Jesus was not referring to Peter as the rock, there are those who believe with all their heart that Jesus was referring to Peter as the rock.
Below are two statements from the second link in the article, http://www.stpeterslist.com/45/10-biblical-reasons-christ-founded-the-papacy/,
that explain how Jesus was referring to Peter as the Rock.
6. Is there a distinction between Petros and Petra?
A popular grammatical question on the Matthew passage often takes the form of the following: But in Greek, St. Peter’s name is Petros and Christ says, “upon this petra,” so Christ was not referring to St. Peter, was he? First, note that the premise of this question is that for over two thousand years, the Office of the Papacy has been founded upon a missed nuance in Greek grammar that no one apparently noticed, including those Early Church Christians who spoke and wrote in ancient Greek.
A few thoughts. First, while the Gospel is written in Greek, Christ arguably spoke Aramaic; thus, “You are kepha and on this kepha I will build my Church.” It’s the same word. Furthermore, St. Peter is referred to as Cephas, meaning Rock throughout the New Testament. The distinction in Greek is slightly more nuanced.
Greek is an inflected (not “reflexive”) language, which means that the forms of nouns change based on the function a word is performing in a sentence. When this happens, the base meaning of the word remains the same. The inflection communicates information about how the word is being used grammatically but not what it means.
In the case of petros vs. petra, the change is not an inflection. Petros and petra are two different words in Greek. They are similar because they are cognates (just as “president” and “presider” are cognates in English but are nonetheless two different words with different, though related, meanings). Because they are two different words, the inflection (change of form) of petros and petra is not what is at issue here. The basic meanings of the terms is.
The point the article is making is that in Attic Greek there was a slight difference in meaning between the two, but in Koine Greek (the dialect of the New Testament) they were synonyms.
Petros and petra are two distinct words, but without a distinction in meaning. The grammatical distinction does not import any error on the historical understanding that St. Peter is the Rock referred to in St. Matthew’s passage.
7. Is not Christ The Rock?
There are two general arguments here. First, that Christ alone bears the title The Rock; thus, it is not appropriate to grant that title to St. Peter. Second, that the passage in Matthew 16 is referring to Christ as the Rock of the Church.
First, Christ is not the only person to hold the title/name Rock. Christ is referred to as the Rock, because he is the foundation of all things; however, in the rabbinical tradition, Abraham also bore the title Rock. Isaiah 51:1-3 states, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn… look to Abraham your father.” Cardinal Ratzinger comments on the similarity between St. Peter and Abraham as Rock:
Abraham, the father of faith, is by his faith the rock that holds back chaos, the onrushing primordial flood of destruction, and thus sustains creation. Simon, the first to confess Jesus as the Christ and the first witness of the Resurrection, now becomes by virtue of his Abrahamic faith, which is renewed in Christ, the rock that stands against the impure tide of unbelief and its destruction of man.
Christ retains the name The Rock, but both Abraham and St. Peter have carried the title Rock as well. Regarding, the St. Matthew passage, it was Jesus Christ who named Simon Bar-Jona, Peter, the Rock. It would not make any sense for Christ to name St. Peter Rock and then be – without any contextual clues of a transition – be referring to himself as the Rock upon which he will build his Church. The entire context of the passage focuses on Peter: his name is changed, he is explicitly given the keys, and his authority is explained. There is no grammatical reason why Christ would be referring to himself in the passage, especially since, again, it was he who changed Peter’s name.
In that vain I heard an interesting notion, that when Moses was angry and struck the Rock in Mirabah instead of speaking to it that God kept him from inheriting the land because God wanted to prefiguring The Messiah, with Rephidim he was told to strike but at Mirabah where he was supposed to only speak to the Rock.
Historically speaking, that's impossible. If there wasn't any Catholic Church until Constantine, then where did all those bishops come from that he invited to the Council of Nicaea? He didn't appoint them. He didn't consecrate them. They were in place before he was even emperor.
How could there be hundreds of Catholic bishops in place, inside of the Roman Empire as well as beyond its borders, before Constantine, if the Catholic Church didn't exist until Constantine?
Thank you for explaining this for the umpteenth time. : )
“There is no grammatical reason why Christ would be referring to himself in the passage, especially since, again, it was he who changed Peter’s name.” There is however a very excellent reason to believe Jesus was referring to the profession of Peter since it fits Salvation by faith in Jesus as the one God has sent, as Jesus told the Sanhedrin members.
There is however a very excellent reason to believe Jesus was referring to the profession of Peter since it fits Salvation by faith in Jesus as the one God has sent, as Jesus told the Sanhedrin members.
On the other hand, the first several chapters of Acts provides substance to believe that God was using Peter as the rock to build His Church. Peter brought thousands of people to Jesus through his words, actions, and deeds.
In order to say "Thou art the Rock, --- but wait, no, not really, you're not the Rock. Um... let me start this sentence over"?
How about "Thou art NOT Peter, but hey, thanks for the profession of faith, 'cuz that's the Rock... did'ja get that, Matthew?"
Too bad Matthew missed the do-over...
Repeating ignorant prot lies will NEVER make them true. Verify what Salvation has told with an independent secular source such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, or even Wikipedia.
“There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church....”
~ Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Another one I like.
“All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics”.
~ Pope Pius V
If you take that route then Paul is the more apt candidate for your flawed reasoning. Do you believe that it is by Faith that we are saved, not of works; never of works? Peter is clearly the one to whom Jesus gave the keys tot he kingdom, showing the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Jews at Pentecost and in the House of Cornelius. To go beyond that by tradition is to stumble along seeking ways to justify error upon error.
In the West, there was only “The Church” until the reformation (1500’s) when denominations began to form. So the Church until them is somewhat like a tap root of every denomination and not owned solely by the Roman Catholic Church.
Who did Paul say IS the Rock? What rock did the builders reject that God has made the head of the corner? Who was the Rock from whom water gushed in the desert at Rephidim and Mirabah? Do you also believe that you drink the literal blood of Jesus in the catholic Eucharist?
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