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Peter & Succession (Understanding the Church Today)
Ignatius Insight ^ | 2005 | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Posted on 10/21/2006 4:52:03 AM PDT by NYer

From Called To Communion: Understanding the Church Today

Editor's note: This is the second half of a chapter titled "The Primacy of Peter and Unity of the Church." The first half examines the status of Peter in the New Testament and the commission logion contained in Matthew 16:17-19.

The principle of succession in general

That the primacy of Peter is recognizable in all the major strands of the New Testament is incontestable.

The real difficulty arises when we come to the second question: Can the idea of a Petrine succession be justified? Even more difficult is the third question that is bound up with it: Can the Petrine succession of Rome be credibly substantiated?

Concerning the first question, we must first of all note that there is no explicit statement regarding the Petrine succession in the New Testament. This is not surprising, since neither the Gospels nor the chief Pauline epistles address the problem of a postapostolic Church—which, by the way, must be mentioned as a sign of the Gospels' fidelity to tradition. Indirectly, however, this problem can be detected in the Gospels once we admit the principle of form critical method according to which only what was considered in the respective spheres of tradition as somehow meaningful for the present was preserved in writing as such. This would mean, for example, that toward the end of the first century, when Peter was long dead, John regarded the former's primacy, not as a thing of the past, but as a present reality for the Church.


For many even believe—though perhaps with a little too much imagination—that they have good grounds for interpreting the "competition" between Peter and the beloved disciple as an echo of the tensions between Rome's claim to primacy and the sense of dignity possessed by the Churches of Asia Minor. This would certainly be a very early and, in addition, inner-biblical proof that Rome was seen as continuing the Petrine line; but we should in no case rely on such uncertain hypotheses. The fundamental idea, however, does seem to me correct, namely, that the traditions of the New Testament never reflect an interest of purely historical curiosity but are bearers of present reality and in that sense constantly rescue things from the mere past, without blurring the special status of the origin.

Moreover, even scholars who deny the principle itself have propounded hypotheses of succession. 0. Cullmann, for example, objects in a very clear-cut fashion to the idea of succession, yet he believes that he can Show that Peter was replaced by James and that this latter assumed the primacy of the erstwhile first apostle. Bultmann believes that he is correct in concluding from the mention of the three pillars in Galatians 2:9 that the course of development led away from a personal to a collegial leadership and that a college entered upon the succession of Peter. [1]

We have no need to discuss these hypotheses and others like them; their foundation is weak enough. Nevertheless, they do show that it is impossible to avoid the idea of succession once the word transmitted in Scripture is considered to be a sphere open to the future. In those writings of the New Testament that stand on the cusp of the second generation or else already belong to it-especially in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Pastoral Letters—the principle of succession does in fact take on concrete shape.

The Protestant notion that the "succession" consists solely in the word as such, but not in any "structures", is proved to be anachronistic in light of what in actual fact is the form of tradition in the New Testament. The word is tied to the witness, who guarantees it an unambiguous sense, which it does not possess as a mere word floating in isolation. But the witness is not an individual who stands independently on his own. He is no more a wit ness by virtue of himself and of his own powers of memory than Peter can be the rock by his own strength. He is not a witness as "flesh and blood" but as one who is linked to the Pneuma, the Paraclete who authenticates the truth and opens up the memory and, in his turn, binds the witness to Christ. For the Paraclete does not speak of himself, but he takes from "what is his" (that is, from what is Christ's: Jn 16: 13).

This binding of the witness to the Pneuma and to his mode of being-"not of himself, but what he hears" -is called "sacrament" in the language of the Church. Sacrament designates a threefold knot-word, witness, Holy Spirit and Christ-which describes the essential structure of succession in the New Testament. We can infer with certainty from the testimony of the Pastoral Letters and of the Acts of the Apostles that the apostolic generation already gave to this interconnection of person and word in the believed presence of the Spirit and of Christ the form of the laying on of hands.

The Petrine succession in Rome

In opposition to the New Testament pattern of succession described above, which withdraws the word from human manipulation precisely by binding witnesses into its service, there arose very early on an intellectual and anti-institutional model known historically by the name of Gnosis, which made the free interpretation and speculative development of the word its principle. Before long the appeal to individual witnesses no longer sufficed to counter the intellectual claim advanced by this tendency. It became necessary to have fixed points by which to orient the testimony itself, and these were found in the so-called apostolic sees, that is, in those where the apostles had been active. The apostolic sees became the reference point of true communio. But among these sees there was in turn–quite clearly in Irenaeus of Lyons–a decisive criterion that recapitulated all others: the Church of Rome, where Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom. It was with this Church that every community had to agree; Rome was the standard of the authentic apostolic tradition as a whole.

Moreover, Eusebius of Caesarea organized the first version of his ecclesiastical history in accord with the same principle. It was to be a written record of the continuity of apostolic succession, which was concentrated in the three Petrine sees Rome, Antioch and Alexandria-among which Rome, as the site of Peter's martyrdom, was in turn preeminent and truly normative. [2]

This leads us to a very fundamental observation. [3] The Roman primacy, or, rather, the acknowledgement of Rome as the criterion of the right apostolic faith, is older than the canon of the New Testament, than "Scripture".

We must be on our guard here against an almost inevitable illusion. "Scripture" is more recent than "the scriptures" of which it is composed. It was still a long time before the existence of the individual writings resulted in the "New Testament" as Scripture, as the Bible. The assembling of the writings into a single Scripture is more properly speaking the work of tradition, a work that began in the second century but came to a kind of conclusion only in the fourth or fifth century. Harnack, a witness who cannot be suspected of pro-Roman bias, has remarked in this regard that it was only at the end of the second century, in Rome, that a canon of the "books of the New Testament" won recognition by the criterion of apostolicity-catholicity, a criterion to which the other Churches also gradually subscribed "for the sake of its intrinsic value and on the strength of the authority of the Roman Church".

We can therefore say that Scripture became Scripture through the tradition, which precisely in this process included the potentior principalitas–the preeminent original authority–of the Roman see as a constitutive element.

Two points emerge clearly from what has just been First, the principle of tradition in its sacramental form-apostolic succession—played a constitutive role in the existence and continuance of the Church. Without this principle, it is impossible to conceive of a New Testament at all, so that we are caught in a contradiction when we affirm the one while wanting to deny the other. Furthermore, we have seen that in Rome the traditional series of bishops was from the very beginning recorded as a line of successors.

We can add that Rome and Antioch were conscious of succeeding to the mission of Peter and that early on Alexandria was admitted into the circle of Petrine sees as the city where Peter's disciple Mark had been active. Having said all that, the site of Peter's martyrdom nonetheless appears clearly as the chief bearer of his supreme authority and plays a preeminent role in the formation of tradition which is constitutive of the Church-and thus in the genesis of the New Testament as Bible; Rome is one of the indispensable internal and external- conditions of its possibility. It would be exciting to trace the influence on this process of the idea that the mission of Jerusalem had passed over to Rome, which explains why at first Jerusalem was not only not a "patriarchal see" but not even a metropolis: Jerusalem was now located in Rome, and since Peter's departure from that city, its primacy had been transferred to the capital of the pagan world. [4]

But to consider this in detail would lead us too far afield for the moment. The essential point, in my opinion, has already become plain: the martyrdom of Peter in Rome fixes the place where his function continues. The awareness of this fact can be detected as early as the first century in the Letter of Clement, even though it developed but slowly in all its particulars.

Concluding reflections

We shall break off at this point, for the chief goal of our considerations has been attained. We have seen that the New Testament as a whole strikingly demonstrates the primacy of Peter; we have seen that the formative development of tradition and of the Church supposed the continuation of Peter's authority in Rome as an intrinsic condition. The Roman primacy is not an invention of the popes, but an essential element of ecclesial unity that goes back to the Lord and was developed faithfully in the nascent Church.

But the New Testament shows us more than the formal aspect of a structure; it also reveals to us the inward nature of this structure. It does not merely furnish proof texts, it is a permanent criterion and task. It depicts the tension between skandalon and rock; in the very disproportion between man's capacity and God's sovereign disposition, it reveals God to be the one who truly acts and is present.

If in the course of history the attribution of such authority to men could repeatedly engender the not entirely unfounded suspicion of human arrogation of power, not only the promise of the New Testament but also the trajectory of that history itself prove the opposite. The men in question are so glaringly, so blatantly unequal to this function that the very empowerment of man to be the rock makes evident how little it is they who sustain the Church but God alone who does so, who does so more in spite of men than through them.

The mystery of the Cross is perhaps nowhere so palpably present as in the primacy as a reality of Church history. That its center is forgiveness is both its intrinsic condition and the sign of the distinctive character of God's power. Every single biblical logion about the primacy thus remains from generation to generation a signpost and a norm, to which we must ceaselessly resubmit ourselves. When the Church adheres to these words in faith, she is not being triumphalistic but humbly recognizing in wonder and thanksgiving the victory of God over and through human weakness. Whoever deprives these words of their force for fear of triumphalism or of human usurpation of authority does not proclaim that God is greater but diminishes him, since God demonstrates the power of his love, and thus remains faithful to the law of the history of salvation, precisely in the paradox of human impotence.

For with the same realism with which we declare today the sins of the popes and their disproportion to the magnitude of their commission, we must also acknowledge that Peter has repeatedly stood as the rock against ideologies, against the dissolution of the word into the plausibilities of a given time, against subjection to the powers of this world.

When we see this in the facts of history, we are not celebrating men but praising the Lord, who does not abandon the Church and who desired to manifest that he is the rock through Peter, the little stumbling stone: "flesh and blood" do not save, but the Lord saves through those who are of flesh and blood. To deny this truth is not a plus of faith, not a plus of humility, but is to shrink from the humility that recognizes God as he is. Therefore the Petrine promise and its historical embodiment in Rome remain at the deepest level an ever-renewed motive for joy: the powers of hell will not prevail against it . . .


Endnotes:

[1] Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 2d ed. (198 1), 147- 51; cf. Gnilka, 56.

[2] For an exhaustive account of this point, see V. Twomey, Apostolikos Thronos (Münster, 1982).

[3] It is my hope that in the not-too-distant future I will have the opportunity to develop and substantiate in greater detail the view of the succession that I attempt to indicate in an extremely condensed form in what follows. I owe important suggestions to several works by 0. Karrer, especially: Um die Einheit der Christen. Die Petrusfrage (Frankfurt am Mainz, 1953); "Apostolische Nachfolge und Primat", in: Feiner, Trütsch and Böckle, Fragen in der Theologie heute (Freiburg im.Breisgau, 1957), 175-206; "Das Petrusamt in der Frühkirche", in Festgabe J. Lortz (Baden-Baden, 1958), 507-25; "Die biblische und altkirchliche Grundlage des Papsttums", in: Lebendiges Zeugnis (1958), 3-24. Also of importance are some of the papers in the festschrift for 0. Karrer: Begegnung der Christen, ed. by Roesle-Cullmann (Frankfurt am Mainz, 1959); in particular, K. Hofstetter, "Das Petrusamt in der Kirche des I. und 2. Jahrhunderts", 361-72.

[4] Cf. Hofstetter.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; History
KEYWORDS: catholic; petrinesuccession; primacyofpeter
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To: Quix
Quix,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. You've expressed some very reasonable concerns about institutions and authority. If you were addressing your concerns to a bishop's conference, I'm sure a lot of the bishops would be nodding their heads in agreement with many of your sentiments. Here and elsewhere, you have said some very good things about the relationship of the individual to God, and your comments about problems in Church organization would serve well as a nucleus for discussion about the current state of the Christian Church.

In that, we are on the same page. Nonetheless, we are left with a question of authority. Is every individual the ultimate authority as to what is and is not legitimate Christian doctrine and dogma? Is every denomination the ultimate authority? I think you and I would answer both of these questions in the negative. As for the article at the head of this thread, its point is not to disparage Protestant Christians. No one is asking you to fly to Rome and kiss Pope Benedict's ring or renounce your personal opinions. Rather, this is a call for a mature dialog with sincere Christians of differing view points, and you've brought some very reasonable concerns to the table.

We have problems in the Church. Some of those are very understandable and expected. The Church is a hospital for ailing souls, and problems of individual sin are inevitable in a Church whose mission is to sinners, both inside and outside its ranks. However, we also have a tremendous scandal of a divided Church. This runs completely against Christ's prayer that we all be one, hampers evangelization, and allows for dangerous heresies to exist among sincere and well intentioned Christians, side by side with orthodox Christian teaching. We've all felt the frustration of trying to sort out the serious and competing claims made by different groups. Which group(s) are correct? You and I have also both seen Christians forcefully mis-represet repugnant views as being foundational to the Christian message.

Fundamentally, the opening piece serves to move the conversation about authority out of a very unproductive rut. How is the authority of God manifested in His Church? We live in a fallen world, and we human beings have fallen natures. As you alluded, this leads to problems with human organizations. It also leads, however, to severe problems with individuals as well, and this includes the attempts by individuals to arrogate to themselves absolute authority to determine what is and is not authentic Christian morality and doctrine.

We are not saying that the Christian Church can substitute for the individuals relationship with God. What we are saying, however, is that Christ did indeed found an organization, a Church, and that as an organization, the Church, plays a crucial role in the divine plan of salvation. This includes a role in which the Church exercises authority in teaching doctrine and morality.


What then is the relationship between the individual and the Church? The individual does not determine doctrine. The Church has been entrusted with the Apostolic deposit of faith, and it falls to the Church to determine whether or not a particular doctrine is consistent with or opposed to the Apostolic faith. To the believer falls the choice of dissent or assent. In this the Catholic Church teaches that the individual must follow a well-formed conscience.

The Christian Faith has been handed down through the Church. It was our predecessors who received the faith from the Christ through the Apostles, and who have passed their understanding of the faith down to us. We Catholics believe that the Church had an Apostolic and hierarchical structure, and we believe that this Church has existed since the time of Christ. We are presenting views here which we think are quite reasonable, as we feel they are consistent with Scripture, and with our historical understanding of the history of Christianity. There is still plenty of room for discussion and sincere disagreement within this framework.

For the purposes of sincere Christian dialog, it would be helpful if the reasonableness of our views was acknowledged, even if you do not agree with them. It is also helpful to have our partners in dialog give a frank assessment of their own positions, and it is important that we both be willing to move away from slogans which do not reflect reality. I think you have gone a long way toward accomplishing this in several of your critical posts, and you have also made an important call to not lose sight of the individual's relationship to God when Christian authority is discussed.

I'm glad to see you voicing your opinions on this thread. I've seen enough of your posts to realize that you do have something very important to say. If this conversation is making you feel that we Catholics are being condescending to you our Christian brother, then we have failed in some sense. If this is the case, perhaps you could suggest how we might do better in the future.
1,381 posted on 10/25/2006 11:34:10 AM PDT by InterestedQuestioner (Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you and your household will be saved.)
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To: Running On Empty
Thank you for your reply!

Indeed, there is a lot of "experting" going on around here - which one ought to expect if the conversation is truly an academic one and not just railing back and forth.

And I do agree with you about boldfacing, supersizing, colors and caps - I tend to not read posts which have a lot of visual emphasis and thus miss whatever point was being made.

1,382 posted on 10/25/2006 11:38:50 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
There are two worldviews:

1. The absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

2. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I go with #1 which is typical in physics and math.

These are not worldviews, since a worldview is a *comprehensive* view of the world, and these are very limited and specific claims.

One does not have to choose between #1 and #2 because whether #1 or #2 is true is situation-specific. Absence of evidence of x is evidence of the absence of x *only when* we have good reason to expect that if x is present, we would observe evidence of x. But when that condition is not met, then absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That is why the more sure and reliable principle is "absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence."

-A8

1,383 posted on 10/25/2006 11:42:56 AM PDT by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: adiaireton8; Quix
One does not have to choose between #1 and #2 because whether #1 or #2 is true is situation-specific. Absence of evidence of x is evidence of the absence of x *only when* we have good reason to expect that if x is present, we would observe evidence of x. But when that condition is not met, then absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That is why the more sure and reliable principle is "absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence."

So you are in the gray area. Ergo you leave the door open to accept "just so" stories (and the opinion of experts) on par with evidence and proofs --- whereas I value them only one step above "imaginings."

No big deal. We're different creatures, part of God's magnificent living canvas - together we add contrast to an unfolding picture.

1,384 posted on 10/25/2006 11:49:50 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl

Thanks very much for your agreement with me about boldfacing, supersizing, colors and caps. I also tend not to read posts like that...period, because whatever they are attempting to convey, trying to read them makes me feel like I'm being screamed at from some large, high perch.

As for "truly academic" discussions---because I am not an academic, nor can I claim any time spent in the world of academia, I am always grateful to see purity of truth expressed in simplicity of language.

I don't know how many other full-time lurkers, and only rare-times posters like me may see it the same way.


1,385 posted on 10/25/2006 11:51:38 AM PDT by Running On Empty
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To: Alamo-Girl

"ergo" is kinda cool tho.


1,386 posted on 10/25/2006 12:02:27 PM PDT by 1000 silverlings (why is it so difficult to understand)
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To: 1000 silverlings
Was Mark Peter's son?

Peter was married, and tradition says that his wife was martyred in Peter's presence, and, if I remember correctly, Peter did have a [biological] son. I can't remember Peter's son's name, but I'm quite sure that Mark was not Peter's biological son. Mark was the daughter of a certain Mary (Acts 12:12), but that wasn't Peter's wife. Maybe someone who knows this better than me can give some more information.

-A8

1,387 posted on 10/25/2006 12:04:59 PM PDT by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: proud_2_B_texasgal

AMEN, Texasgal.


1,388 posted on 10/25/2006 12:04:59 PM PDT by Marysecretary (Thank you, Lord, for FOUR MORE YEARS!!!)
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To: technochick99

Sure, some could and some won't.


1,389 posted on 10/25/2006 12:05:41 PM PDT by Marysecretary (Thank you, Lord, for FOUR MORE YEARS!!!)
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To: Running On Empty
Thankfully there appears to be two different kinds of threads here on the Religion Forum - and even on threads that include both the academic discussions and the clarity of statements, there are posters who seem to specialize - posters we can kind of "look up" to see where the best conversations are from day-to-day.

IOW, Free Republic seems to have something for everyone.

1,390 posted on 10/25/2006 12:08:37 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: 1000 silverlings
LOLOL! Thanks for the chuckle, 1000!
1,391 posted on 10/25/2006 12:09:15 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Quix

I did. They were pretty graphic and a bit harsh.


1,392 posted on 10/25/2006 12:09:17 PM PDT by Marysecretary (Thank you, Lord, for FOUR MORE YEARS!!!)
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To: adiaireton8
Yes, The Mark that Peter is referencing is probably John Mark, a scribe and not his biological son. Since that particular scripture is taking liberty with fact, there is no reason to assume that the "Babylon" referenced is the actual place in Iraq, or even the code for Rome. It can just mean a place of confusion, and probably means Jerusalem, for at the time, Jerusalem was in a major state of confusion.

."...they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus." (Acts 17:6 - 7)

1,393 posted on 10/25/2006 12:09:26 PM PDT by 1000 silverlings (why is it so difficult to understand)
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To: Alamo-Girl
So you are in the gray area. Ergo you leave the door open to accept "just so" stories (and the opinion of experts) on par with evidence and proofs --- whereas I value them only one step above "imaginings."

A "just so" story is an imaginary but entirely speculative explanation of some event or phenomenon. We should reject "just so" stories, ceteris paribus, because there is no evidence that they are true. But that does not mean that personal testimony is therefore unreliable or non-evidential. The notion that we must choose between accepting "just so" stories and personal testimony is a false dilemma. A personal testimony is evidence, and its strength depends on the character and credibility of the speaker.

-A8

1,394 posted on 10/25/2006 12:10:26 PM PDT by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: wagglebee

His Church is the body of Christ, not just one denomination, wagglebee.


1,395 posted on 10/25/2006 12:12:23 PM PDT by Marysecretary (Thank you, Lord, for FOUR MORE YEARS!!!)
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To: Quix
I like obeying and following Scripture.

You like obeying and following [your interpretation] of Scripture. Who wouldn't? Everyone who follows their own intepretation can make it say exactly what they want it to say. And they do. Hence, 20,000+ sects.

-A8

1,396 posted on 10/25/2006 12:13:55 PM PDT by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: Marysecretary

Over ONE BILLION Catholics disagree with this 16th Century notion.


1,397 posted on 10/25/2006 12:14:36 PM PDT by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: wagglebee; Marysecretary

over 1 billion have eaten at McDonald's too. Doesn't make it fine cuisine.


1,398 posted on 10/25/2006 12:15:56 PM PDT by 1000 silverlings (why is it so difficult to understand)
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To: adiaireton8

And who are the rightful leaders of the church? I am sincerely interested.


1,399 posted on 10/25/2006 12:17:34 PM PDT by Marysecretary (Thank you, Lord, for FOUR MORE YEARS!!!)
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To: Quix
Organizational followings tend to lead to fossilization and a host of RELIGIOUS evils.

So, why is your local church [the one which you attend so that you do not violate the command not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together (Heb 10:25)] not an "organization"?

-A8

1,400 posted on 10/25/2006 12:18:13 PM PDT by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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