RE: The primacy of Peter and his regognized stztus as the first Pope was not disputed by the Early Church Fathers,
That Peter was treated with respect and deference and that he was considered a leader among the apostles is not doubted. That he has primacy among the rest of them is not something supported by scripture or by history.
Firstly let’s look at scripture. Look at Galatians Chapter 2.
Paul rebuked Peter face to face. He accused Peter of hypocrisy. I doubt Peter was surprised by this charge. But Paul pressed this error to its ultimate and most despicable roots—it was a denial of the gospel.
The gospel declares all men to be sinners, under the wrath of God and doomed to eternal punishment. The Law saves no one by law-keeping but condemns Jew and Gentile alike. When men are saved, they are saved by faith in Christ, apart from good works. The Jews can claim no merit, they can take no credit, with respect to their salvation, and thus they are no better than Gentile saints. The gospel makes equals of every saint, for the only righteousness which will get a man to heaven is Christ’s righteousness, received by faith, apart from works.
The Jews thought that being Jews made them better than Gentiles. They looked upon Gentiles as sinners and upon themselves as saints (2:15). They therefore thought they had the right to establish standards for the Gentiles who would be saved. And the standard they set was to be circumcised as a symbol of their commitment to keep the Law.
When Peter withdrew his fellowship from the Gentile saints and associated himself only with the Jews, he identified himself with the error they embraced and the self-righteousness in which they gloried. And in so doing, Peter functionally denied the very gospel by which he and every other Jew was saved. To be saved, Gentiles do not have to embrace Judaism with its self-righteousness through law-keeping. To be saved, Jews cannot embrace self-righteousness through law-keeping, but must trust only in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter, the so called, primate, the pope, the disciple who was one of the three disciples most intimately associated with the Master, the one who preached the gospel so clearly and forcefully to the Jews at Pentecost and who also preached to the Gentiles at the home of Cornelius, now denies that very gospel. And he is rebuked by Paul for doing so.
How does that argue for Peter having primacy over the rest of the apostles?
Doesn’t this in fact argue for PAUL’s primacy?
But even I do not argue that at all.
It simply argues for SCRIPTURAL PRIMACY. Peter had to be rebuked because his action were JUDGED ACCORDING TO GOD’s WORD -— THE GOSPEL.
Now let’s look at the church fathers. You quoted several of them but I highly doubt if you look at the entire context of what they wrote, they intend it to mean Papal Infallibility or Roman jurisdiction over all churches everywhere.
I do not have time to look at every single one of the patriarchs you quote, but I will pick a few.
Firstly, I am most familiar with Augustine since you quoted him.
Augustine did state that Peter is the first and head of the apostles and that he holds a primacy. However he does not interpret that primacy in a Roman Catholic sense.
He believes that Peter’s primacy is figurative in that he represents the universal Church. Again, he explicitly states that Christ did not build his Church upon a man but on Peter’s confession of faith. Peter is built on Christ the rock and as a figurative representative of the Church he shows how each believer is built on Christ. In Augustine’s view, Peter holds a primacy or preeminence, but none of this applies to him in a jurisdictional sense, because he says that ‘Christ did not build his Church upon a man.’ We can not get a clearer illustration that the fathers did indeed separate Peter’s confession of faith from Peter’s person.
In commenting on one of Augustine’s references to Peter and the rock, John Rotelle, the editor of the Roman Catholic series on the Sermons of Augustine, makes these observations:
‘There was Peter, and he hadn’t yet been confirmed in the rock’: That is, in Christ, as participating in his ‘rockiness’ by faith. It does not mean confirmed as the rock, because Augustine never thinks of Peter as the rock. Jesus, after all, did not in fact call him the rock...but ‘Rocky.’ The rock on which he would build his Church was, for Augustine, both Christ himself and Peter’s faith, representing the faith of the Church (emphasis mine) (John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993), Sermons, Sermon 265D.6, p. 258-259, n. 9.
Augustine does not endorse the Roman Catholic interpretation. Again and again he states that the rock is Christ, not Peter. Augustine claims no exclusive Petrine succession in the Roman bishops and no papal office.
You then quoted Cyprian (in 250).
In his treatise On the Unity of the Church Cyprian gives the following interpretation of the rock of Matthew 16:
The Lord saith unto Peter, I say unto thee, (saith He,) that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. 16:18–19). To him again, after His resurrection, He says, Feed My sheep. Upon him being one He builds His Church; and although He gives to all the Apostles an equal power, and says, As My Father sent Me, even so I send you; receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosoever sins ye remit, they shall be remitted to him, and whosoever sins ye shall retain, they shall be retained (John 20:21);—yet in order to manifest unity, He has by His own authority so placed the source of the same unity, as to begin from one (A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church (Oxford: Parker, 1844), Cyprian, On The Unity of the Church 3-4, pp. 133-135).
Cyprian clearly says that Peter is the rock. If his comments were restricted to the above citation it would lend credence to the idea that he was a proponent of papal primacy. However Cyprian’s comments continue on from the statements given above. His additional statements prove conclusively that although he states that Peter is the rock he does not mean this in a pro–Roman sense. His view is that Peter is a symbol of unity, a figurative representative of the bishops of the Church. Cyprian viewed all the apostles as being equal with one another. He believed the words to Peter in Matthew 16 to be representative of the ordination of all Bishops so that the Church is founded, not upon one Bishop in one see, but upon all equally in collegiality. Peter, then, is a representative figure of the episcopate as a whole. His view is clearly stated in these words:
Certainly the other Apostles also were what Peter was, endued with an equal fellowship both of honour and power; but a commencement is made from unity, that the Church may be set before as one; which one Church, in the Song of Songs, doth the Holy Spirit design and name in the Person of our Lord: My dove, My spotless one, is but one; she is the only one of her mother, elect of her that bare her (Cant. 9:6) (A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church (Oxford: Parker, 1844), Cyprian, On The Unity of the Church 3, p. 133).
Our Lord whose precepts and warnings we ought to observe, determining the honour of a Bishop and the ordering of His own Church, speaks in the Gospel and says to Peter, I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Thence the ordination of Bishops, and the ordering of the Church, runs down along the course of time and line of succession, so that the Church is settled upon her Bishops; and every act of the Church is regulated by these same Prelates (A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church (Oxford: Parker, 1844), The Epistles of S. Cyprian, Ep. 33.1).
Cyprian, like Tertullian and Origen, states that Peter is the rock. But such a statement must be qualified. He definitely does not mean this in the same way the Church of Rome does. In his treatise, On the Unity of the Church, Cyprian teaches that Peter alone is not the rock or foundation on which the Church is built, but rather, he is an example of the principle of unity. He is representative of the Church as a whole. The entire episcopate, according to Cyprian, is the foundation, though Christ is himself the true Rock. The bishops of Rome are not endowed with divine authority to rule the Church. All of the bishops together constitute the Church and rule over their individual areas of responsibility as co–equals. If Cyprian meant to say that the Church was built upon Peter and he who resists the bishop of Rome resists the Church (cutting himself off from the Church), then he completely contradicts himself, for he opposed Stephen, the bishop of Rome, in his interpretation of Matthew 16 as well as on theological and jurisdictional issues. His actions prove that his comments about Peter could not coincide with the Roman Catholic interpretation of his words. To do so is a distortion of his true meaning.
Historically there has been some confusion on the interpretation of Cyprian’s teaching because there are two versions of his treatise, On the Unity of the Church. In the first Cyprian speaks of the chair of Peter in which he equates the true Church with that chair. He states that there is only one Church and one chair and a primacy given to Peter. In the second, the references to a Petrine primacy are softened to give greater emphasis to the theme of unity and co–equality of bishops. Most Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars now agree that Cyprian is the author of both versions. He wrote the second in order to offset a pro–Roman interpretation which was being attached to his words which he never intended. The episcopate is to him the principle of unity within the Church and representative of it. The ‘chair of Peter’ is a figurative expression which applies to every bishop in his own see, not just the bishops of Rome. The bishop of Rome holds a primacy of honor but he does not have universal jurisdiction over the entire Church for Cyprian expressly states that all the apostles received the same authority and status as Peter and the Church is built upon all the bishops and not just Peter alone. Some object to these conclusions about Cyprian citing his statements about the chair of Peter. Roman Catholic apologists would lead us to believe that Cyprian’s comments refer exclusively to the bishops of Rome and that they therefore possess special authority as the successors of Peter.
I have to stop here because this post is already too long.
Suffice it to say that upon closer inspection of the quotes, THEY DO NOT ARGUE FOR PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. NEITHER DO THEY ARGUE FOR ROME’s UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION OF ALL CHURCHES.
If you are going to quote William Webster and cut and paste from Christiantruth.com you should cite them as your sources.
No pope, even St. Peter, is impeccable or can declare that 2 + 2 = 5 and make it so. That Paul rebuked Peter is not in question or that it somehow detracts from Peter's primacy or infallibility is purely a product of Protestant desires. St. Peter, like any pope was only infallible when speaking ex cathedra, because when doing so it is the Holy Spirit speaking through them.
It will probably be best stated if I can allow the most recent pope to speak for the first pope.
In recounting Jesus' first meeting with Simon, the brother of Andrew, John the Evangelist records a unique event: Jesus "looked at him and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas (which means Peter)'" (Jn 1: 42).
It was not Jesus' practice to change his disciples' names: apart from the nickname "sons of thunder", which in specific circumstances he attributed to the sons of Zebedee (cf. Mk 3: 17) and never used again. He never gave any of his disciples a new name.
Yet, he gave one to Simon, calling him "Cephas". This name was later translated into Greek as Petros and into Latin as Petrus. And it was translated precisely because it was not only a name; it was a "mandate" that Petrus received in that way from the Lord. The new name Petrus was to recur frequently in the Gospels and ended by replacing "Simon", his original name.
This fact acquires special importance if one bears in mind that in the Old Testament, a change of name usually preceded the entrustment of a mission (cf. Gn 17: 5; 32: 28ff., etc.).
Indeed, many signs indicate Christ's desire to give Peter special prominence within the Apostolic College: in Capernaum the Teacher enters Peter's house (cf. Mk 1: 29); when the crowd becomes pressed on the shore of Lake Genesaret, seeing two boats moored there, Jesus chooses Simon's (cf. Lk 5: 3); when, on certain occasions, Jesus takes only three disciples with him, Peter is always recorded as the first of the group: as in the raising of Jairus' daughter (cf. Mk 5: 37; Lk 8: 51), in the Transfiguration (cf. Mk 9: 2; Mt 17: 1; Lk 9: 28) and during the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (cf. Mk 14: 33; Mt 26: 37). And again: the Temple tax collectors address Peter and the Teacher pays only for himself and Peter (cf. Mt 17: 24-27); it is Peter's feet that he washes first at the Last Supper (cf. Jn 13: 6), and for Peter alone he prays that his faith will not fail so that he will be able to strengthen the other disciples in faith (cf. Lk 22: 30-31).
Moreover, Peter himself was aware of his special position: he often also spoke on behalf of the others, asking for the explanation of a difficult parable (cf. Mt 15: 15), the exact meaning of a precept (cf. Mt 18: 21) or the formal promise of a reward (cf. Mt 19: 27).
It is Peter in particular who resolves certain embarrassing situations by intervening on behalf of all. Thus, when Jesus, saddened by the misunderstanding of the crowd after the Bread of Life discourse, asks: "Will you also go away?", Peter's answer is peremptory in tone: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (cf. Jn 6: 67-69).
Equally decisive is the profession of faith which, again on behalf of the Twelve, he makes near Caesarea Philippi. To Jesus' question: "But who do you say that I am?", Peter answers: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt 16: 15-16). Jesus responded by pronouncing the solemn declaration that defines Peter's role in the Church once and for all: "And I tell you: you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.... I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" (Mt 16: 18-19).
In themselves, the three metaphors that Jesus uses are crystal clear: Peter will be the rocky foundation on which he will build the edifice of the Church; he will have the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to open or close it to people as he sees fit; lastly, he will be able to bind or to loose, in the sense of establishing or prohibiting whatever he deems necessary for the life of the Church. It is always Christ's Church, not Peter's.
Thus, vivid images portray what the subsequent reflection will describe by the term: "primacy of jurisdiction".
This pre-eminent position that Jesus wanted to bestow upon Peter is also encountered after the Resurrection: Jesus charges the women to announce it especially to Peter, as distinct from the other Apostles (cf. Mk 16: 7); it is to Peter and John that Mary Magdalene runs to tell them that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb (cf. Jn 20: 2), and John was to stand back to let Peter enter first when they arrived at the empty tomb (cf. Jn 20: 4-6).
Then, Peter was to be the first witness of an appearance of the Risen One (cf. Lk 24: 34; I Cor 15: 5). His role, decisively emphasized (cf. Jn 20: 3-10), marks the continuity between the pre-eminence he had in the group of the Apostles and the pre-eminence he would continue to have in the community born with the paschal events, as the Book of Acts testifies (cf. 1: 15-26; 2: 14-40; 3: 12-26; 4: 8-12; 5: 1-11, 29; 8: 14-17; 10; etc.).
His behaviour was considered so decisive that it prompted remarks as well as criticism (cf. Acts 11: 1-18; Gal 2: 11-14).
At the so-called Council of Jerusalem Peter played a directive role (cf. Acts 15; Gal 2: 1-10), and precisely because he was a witness of authentic faith, Paul himself recognized that he had a certain quality of "leadership" (cf. I Cor 15: 5; Gal 1: 18; 2: 7ff., etc.).
Moreover, the fact that several of the key texts that refer to Peter can be traced back to the context of the Last Supper, during which Christ conferred upon Peter the ministry of strengthening his brethren (cf. Lk 22: 31ff.), shows that the ministry entrusted to Peter was one of the constitutive elements of the Church, which was born from the commemoration of the Pasch celebrated in the Eucharist.
This contextualization of the Primacy of Peter at the Last Supper, at the moment of the Institution of the Eucharist, the Lord's Pasch, also points to the ultimate meaning of this Primacy: Peter must be the custodian of communion with Christ for all time. He must guide people to communion with Christ; he must ensure that the net does not break, and consequently that universal communion endures. Only together can we be with Christ, who is Lord of all.
Thus, Peter is responsible for guaranteeing communion with Christ with the love of Christ, guiding people to fulfil this love in everyday life. Let us pray that the Primacy of Peter, entrusted to poor human beings, will always be exercised in this original sense as the Lord desired, and that its true meaning will therefore always be recognized by the brethren who are not yet in full communion with us.