The Apostle Peter and the Papacy

The Apostle Peter possesses the primacy of power; but why should the Pope of Rome succeed to this primacy? We must confess our entire inability to understand how such a question can be taken seriously. Once it is admitted that there is in the Universal Church a fundamental supreme authority established by Christ in the person of St. Peter, then it must follow that this authority is in existence somewhere. And it seems to us that the obvious impossibility of discovering it anywhere else but at Rome is at once a sufficient reason for supporting the Catholic contention.

Since neither the patriarch of Constantinople nor the Synod of St. Petersburg claims or can possibly claim to represent the rock of the Universal Church, that is to say the real and fundamental unity of ecclesiastical authority, there is no choice but either to abandon all idea of such a unity and accept a state of division, confusion and bondage as the normal condition of the Church, or else to acknowledge the claims and actual validity of the one and only existing authority which has always shown itself to be the center of ecclesiastical unity.

No amount of argument can overcome the evidence for the fact that apart from Rome there only exist national churches such as the Armenian or the Greek church, State churches such as the Russian or Anglican, or else sects founded by individuals, such as the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Irvingites, and so forth.

The Roman Catholic Church is the only church that is neither a national church, nor a State church, nor a sect founded by a man; it is the only church in the world which maintains and asserts the principle of universal social unity against individual egoism and national particularism; it is the only church which maintains and asserts the freedom of the spiritual power against the absolutism of the State; in a word, it is the only church against which the gates of hell have not prevailed.

'By their fruits ye shall know them.' in the sphere of religious fellowship the fruit of Catholicism (for those who have remained Catholics) is the unity and freedom of the Church; the fruit of Protestantism for its adherents both in the East and in the West is division and bondage: division chiefly in the West and bondage in the East.

Think and say what you will of the Roman Church or of the Papacy; we ourselves are very far from seeing or expecting to find in either the achievement of perfection or the realization of the ideal. We are aware that the rock of the Church is not the Church itself, that the foundation is not the same as the building, nor the way the same as the goal.

All that we are maintaining is that the Papacy is the sole international and independent ecclesiastical authority, the only real and permanent basis for the Church's universal activity. That is an indisputable fact and in itself compels us to acknowledge the Pope to be the sole trustee of those powers and privileges which St. Peter received from Christ.

And since the universal monarchy of the Church was not to eliminate the universal monarchy of the political world but to transubstantiate it, was it not natural that the visible seat of the two corresponding monarchies should remain the same? If, as has already been said, the dynasty of Julius Caesar was in a certain sense to give place to the dynasty of Simon Peter, if Caesarism was to yield to Papacy, it was surely to be expected that the Papacy should take up its abode in the existing center of the universal Empire.

The transference to Rome of the supreme ecclesiastical authority established by Christ in the person of St. Peter is a patent fact attested by the tradition of the Church and justified by the logic of circumstances.

As regards the question of the formal manner in which the authority of Peter was transmitted to the bishop of Rome, that is a historical problem which for lack of documentary evidence can hardly be scientifically solved. We believe the Orthodox tradition which is recorded in our liturgical books to the effect that St. Peter on his arrival at Rome definitely fixed his see there and before his death personally nominated his successor. Later times saw the Popes elected by the Christian community of the city of Rome until the present mode of election by the college of Cardinals was definitely established.

Furthermore, as early as the second century we have in the writings of St. Irenaeus unimpeachable evidence that the Church of Rome was already regarded by the whole Christian world as the center of unity, and that the bishop of Rome enjoyed a permanent position of supreme authority, though the forms in which this authority found expression were bound to vary with the times, becoming more definite and imposing in proportion as the development of the whole social structure of the Church became more intricate and diversified.

'In fact' (to quote a historian of the critical rationalist school) 'in 196 the chosen heads of the churches were attempting to create ecclesiastical unity; one of them, the head of the Roman Church, seemed to claim the role of executive authority within the community and to assume the position of sovereign pontiff.' (B. Aube, Les chretiens dans I'Empire Romani, de l afin des Antonitis au milieu du troisieme siecle, p. 69).

But it was not merely a question of executive authority, for a little further on the same author makes the following admission: 'Tertullian and Cyprian appear to hail the Church of Rome as the principal church and in a certain degree the guardian and keeper of the faith and of genuine tradition'.

In the early days of Christianity the monarchical authority of the Universal Church was but a seed scarcely visible but nevertheless pregnant with life; by the second century this seed has visibly developed, as the acts of Pope Victor testify; in the third century the same witness is borne by the acts of Pope Stephen and Pope Dionysius, and in the fourth by those of Pope Julius I.

In the following century we already see the supreme authority and monarchical power of the Roman Church growing like a vigorous sapling under Pope St. Leo I; and finally by the ninth century the Papacy is already the mighty and majestic tree which covers the Christian world with the shadow of its branches.

That is the great fact, the main fact, the manifestation and fulfillment in history of the divine utterance: Thou art Peter. This broad fact is the outcome of divine law, while particular facts regarding the transmission of the sovereign power, the papal elections and so forth concern the purely human side of the Church and have no more than a secondary interest from the religious point of view.

Here again the Roman Empire, foreshadowing as it does in a certain sense the Roman Church, may provide us with an analogy. Since Rome was the undisputed center of the Empire, the individual who was proclaimed Emperor at Rome was immediately recognized as such by the whole world without any question as to whether it was the Senate or the proctorians or the votes of the people which had raised him to the purple.

In exceptional cases, when the Emperor was elected by the legions outside Rome, his first concern was to hasten to the imperial city, without whose support his election would be regarded by everyone as only provisional. The Rome of the Popes became for universal Christendom what the Rome of the Caesars had been for the pagan world. The bishop of Rome was by his very office the supreme pastor and doctor of the whole Church. There was no need to trouble about the method of his election; that depended on circumstances and conditions of the moment. There was usually no more reason for doubting the legality of the election of the bishop of Rome than that of the election of any other bishop.

And once his election to the episcopate was recognized, the head of the central church and the occupant of the Chair of St. Peter was ipso facto in possession of all the rights and powers which Christ conferred upon the rock of the Church. There were exceptional instances where doubt might be felt about the election; antipopes are not unknown to history. But just as the usurpers Demetrius and Peter III in no way robbed the Russian monarchy of its lawful authority, so the antipopes provide no argument against the Papacy.

Any apparent abnormality in the history of the Church belongs to the human 'species' rather than to the divine 'substance' of the religious society. If by some chance adulterated or even poisoned wine were used in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, would this sacrilege have the slightest effect on the validity of the Sacrament itself?

In maintaining that the bishop of Rome is the true successor of St. Peter and therefore the impregnable rock of the Church and the steward of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are putting on one side the question whether the prince of the Apostles was ever personally in Rome. This fact is attested by the tradition of the Church both in the East and in the West and we ourselves feel no doubt in the matter.

But if there are Christians in good faith who are more susceptible than ourselves to the specious arguments of Protestant scholars, we have no wish to dispute the matter with them. We might even admit that St. Peter never went personally to Rome, and yet at the same time from the religious point o fview maintain a spiritual and mystical transmission of his sovereign authority to the bishop of the Eternal City.

The history of early Christianity supplies us with a striking instance of an analogous relationship. St. Paul had no natural link whatever with Jesus Christ; he was not a witness of our Lord's life on earth nor did he receive his commission in any visible or public fashion; nevertheless he is recognized by all Christians as one of the greatest Apostles. His apostolate was a public ministry in the Church and yet its origin, in his relation to Jesus Christ, is a mystical and miraculous fact.

Now if a phenomenon of a supernatural order formed the original link between Jesus Christ and St. Paul and made the latter a chosen vessel and the Apostle of the Gentiles, though at the same time this miraculous commission did not prevent his further activity from being subject to the natural conditions of human life and historic circumstances, then similarly that original relationship between St. Peter and the See of Rome which created the Papacy might well depend upon a mystical and transcendental act, which would in no way deprive the Papacy itself once constituted of the character of a normal social institution acting under the ordinary conditions of earthly life. The mighty spirit of St. Peter, guided by his Master's Almighty Will, might well seek to perpetuate the center of ecclesiastical unity by taking up his abode in the center of political unity already formed by Providence and thus making the bishop of Rome heir to his primacy.

According to this theory (which, let us remember, would become necessary only if it were conclusively shown that St. Peter did not go to Rome) the Pope would be regarded as the successor of St. Peter in the same spiritual and yet absolutely real sense in which, mutatis mutandis, St. Paul must be recognised as a true apostle chosen and sent by Jesus Christ though he had no knowledge of Him except in a miraculous vision. St. Paul's apostleship is attested by the Acts of the Apostles and by the Epistles of St. Paul himself, the succession of the Roman primacy from St. Peter is attested by the unbroken tradition of the Universal Church.

For an Orthodox Christian the latter evidence is intrinsically of no less value than the former. Of the manner in which the foundation rock of the Church was removed from Palestine to Italy we may well be ignorant; but that it was actually so removed and established at Rome is an incontrovertible fact, the rejection of which would involve the denial not only of sacred tradition but of the very history of Christianity.

The point of view which ranks fact lower than principle and lays greater emphasis on a general truth than on the external certainty of material phenomena is by no means peculiar to ourselves; it is the opinion of the Orthodox Church herself.

Let us quote an example in order to make our meaning clear. It is absolutely certain that the first ecumenical council of Nicea was summoned by the Emperor Constantine and not by Pope St. Silvester. Nevertheless the Greco-Russian Church in the office of January 2, in which she celebrates the memory of St. Silvester, has accorded to him special praise for having summoned the 318 Fathers to Nicea and promulgated the orthodox dogma against the blasphemy of Arius. This is no mere historical error -- the history of the first council was well known in the Eastern Church -- but rather the expression of a general truth far more important for the religious conscience of the Church than material accuracy.

Once the primacy of the Popes was recognized in principle, it was natural to ascribe to each Pope all the ecclesiastical acts that took place during his pontificate. Thus with the general fundamental rule of the life of the Church in mind rather than the historical details of a particular event, the Easterns assigned to St. Silvester the privileges and duties which were his according to the spirit, if not the letter, of Christian history. And if it is true that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life, they were right.

Thanks for your nice response. Most of my protestant friends also argue that peter was not picked by Christ to head his church, and I make my case to them by citing another soloviev piece. It is linked here on the thread, but I am going to post it anyway so I can give a rebuttal to your post because his explanations are the best I have ever read on the subject.

This is from part 1 of Soloviev on the Papacy:

It would take too long to investigate here or even to enumerate all the existing doctrines and theories about the Church and its constitution. But anyone who is concerned to discover the plain truth about this fundamental problem of positive religion must be struck by the ease with which Providence has ordained that the truth may be learned. All Christians are in complete agreement on one point, namely that the Church was founded by Christ; the question is how and in what terms He founded it.

Now there is in the Gospels only one solitary text which mentions the founding of the Church in a direct, explicit and formal manner. This fundamental text becomes more and more clear as the Church itself grows and develops the permanent features of its organic structure; and nowadays the opponents of the truth can generally find no other way out but that of mutilating Christ's creative word in order to adapt it to their own sectarian standpoints (thus the text in question is mutilated even in the Orthodox Catechism of Mgr Philaret of Moscow).

"Jesus Christ, having come into the district of Caesarea Philippi, asked His disciples: Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?, And they answered Him: Some say, John the Baptist; others, Elijah; others again, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them: And who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art the Christ, Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for it is not flesh and blood which have revealed it to thee, but My Father Who is in heaven. And I say to thee 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 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: 13-I9).

The union of the Divine and the human, which is the goal of creation, was accomplished individually (or hypostatically) in the unique person of Jesus Christ, 'perfect God and perfect Man uniting the two natures in a perfect manner without confusion and without division (formula of Pope St Leo and the Council of Chalcedon). The historic work of God enters henceforward upon a new stage. It is no longer a matter of a physical and individual unity but of a moral and social union.

The God-Man desires to unite humanity with Himself in a perfect union. The human race is steeped in error and sin. How shall He set about it? Is He to approach each human soul separately and unite it to Himself by a purely interior and subjective bond? He answers, No: Oikodomhsw thn ekklhsia mou. 'I will build My Church.' It is a real objective work of which we are here told. But will He allow this work to be subject to all the divisions natural to the human race? Will He unite Himself to individual nations as such by giving them independent national Churches? No, He does not say: I will build My Churches, but: My Church.

Mankind united to God must form a single social structure and for this unity a solid basis must be found. Any genuine union is based on the mutual interaction of those who are united. The act of absolute truth which is revealed in the God-Man (or the perfect Man) must meet with the response of imperfect humanity in an act of irrevocable adherence which links us to the divine principle. God incarnate does not desire that His truth should be accepted in a passive and servile spirit.

In His new dispensation He asks of mankind a free act of recognition. But at the same time this free act must be absolutely true and infallible. Therefore there must be established in the midst of fallen humanity a single fixed and impregnable point on which the constructive activity of God may be directly based, a point at which human freedom shall coincide with divine Truth in a composite act absolutely human in its outward form but divinely infallible in its fundamental character.

In the creation of the individual physical humanity of Christ the act of the divine Omnipotence required for its realization only the supremely passive and receptive self surrender of feminine nature in the person of the Immaculate Virgin. The building up of the social or collective humanity of Christ, of His universal body, the Church, demands less and at the same time more than that: less, because the human foundation of the Church need not be represented by an absolutely pure and sinless individual, since there is no question in this case of creating a substantial and individual relation, or a hypo static and complete union, between two natures, but simply of forging a living moral bond.

If, however, this new link (the link between Christ and the Church) is less intimate and fundamental than the previous link (that between the Word of God and human nature in the womb of the Immaculate Virgin), it is humanly speaking more positive, and of more far-reaching influence: more positive, because this new bond between the Spirit and the Truth demands a virile will to respond to God's revelation and a virile intelligence to give a definite form to the truth which it accepts; moreover, this new link is of wider scope because, forming as it does the creative foundation of a collective entity, it cannot be confided to a personal relationship but must be extended through time as a permanent function of the society so formed.

It was necessary therefore to find in mankind as it is such a center of active coherence between the Divine and the human, which might form the base or rock foundation of the Christian Church. Jesus in His super-natural foreknowledge had already pointed out this rock. But in order to show us that His choice was free from all suspicion of arbitrariness, He begins by seeking elsewhere the human response to revealed truth.

He turns first of all to general public opinion; He wishes to see whether He cannot be recognized, accepted and acclaimed by the opinion of the mob, the voice of the people: For whom do men take Me? But Truth is ever one and the same, whereas the opinions of men are many and conflicting.

The voice of the people, which some claim to be the voice of God, only answered the question of the God-Man with its own erroneous and discordant opinions. There is no bond possible between Truth and such errors; mankind cannot enter into relation with God by the way of popular opinion; the Church of Christ cannot be founded on democracy.

Having questioned popular opinion and failed to find there man's response to divine truth, Jesus Christ turns to His chosen, the college of the Apostles, that first of all ecumenical councils: "Vos autem quem me esse dicitis? And for whom do you take Me?"

But the Apostles are silent. The moment before, when asked for the opinions of men, the twelve all spoke together: why do they leave the word to one of their number when it is a question of asserting divine truth? Possibly they are not quite agreed among themselves; possibly Philip does not perceive the essential relation of Jesus to the heavenly Father; possibly Thomas is doubtful of the Messianic power of his Master. The last chapter of St. Matthew tells us that even on the Galilean mountain, whither they were summoned by Jesus after His resurrection, the Apostles did not show themselves unanimous and firm in their faith: quidam autem dubitaverunt (Matt. 28: 17).

If it is to bear unanimous witness to the pure and simple truth, the council must be in absolute agreement. The decisive act must be an entirely individual act, the act of a single person. It is neither the multitude of the faithful nor the apostolic council but Simon Bar-Jona alone who answers Jesus. "Respondens Simon Petrus dixit: Tu es Filius Dei vivi." (Peter replied: Thou art the Son of the Living God)

He replies for all the Apostles, but he speaks on his own responsibility without consulting them or waiting for their consent.

When the Apostles had repeated a moment before the opinions of the crowd which followed Jesus they had only repeated what were errors; if Simon had only wished to voice the opinions of the Apostles, he would possibly not have reached the pure and simple truth.

But he followed his own spiritual impulse, the voice of his own conscience; and Jesus in pronouncing His solemn approval declared that this impulse for all its individual character came nevertheless from His heavenly Father, that it was an act both divine and human, a real co-operation between the absolute Being and the relative subject.

The fixed point, the impregnable rock has been discovered whereon to base the divine-human activity. The organic foundation of the universal Church is found in a single man who, with the divine assistance, answers for the whole world. It is fixed neither upon the impossible unanimity of all believers nor upon the inevitably hazardous agreement of a council, but upon the real and living unity of the prince of the Apostles.

And henceforward every time that the question of truth is put to Christian humanity, it will not be from the voice of the masses nor from the opinion of the elect that the fixed and final answer will come. The arbitrary opinions of men will only give rise to heresies; and the hierarchy separated from its center and abandoned to the mercy of the secular power will refrain from speaking or will speak through such councils as the robber-council of Ephesus. Only in union with the rock on which it is founded will the Church be able to assemble true councils and define the truth by authoritative formulas.

This is no mere opinion; it is a historic fact of such impressiveness that on the most solemn occasions it has been averred by the Eastern bishops themselves for all their jealousy of the successors of St. Peter. Not only was the wonderful dogmatic treatise of Pope St. Leo the Great recognized by the Greek Fathers of the fourth ecumenical Council as a work of Peter, but it was also to Peter that the sixth Council attributed the letter of Pope Agatho, who was far from having the same personal authority that Leo had. 'The head and prince of the Apostles,' declared the Eastern Fathers, 'fought with us ... The ink (of the letter) was plain to see and Peter spoke through Agatho.' (Kai melan efaineto, kai di agaqwnov o Petrov efqeggeto) (Mansi, Concil. xi. 658)

Otherwise, if apart from Peter the universal Church can expressly declare the truth, how are we to explain the remarkable silence of the Eastern episcopate (notwithstanding that they have kept the apostolic succession) since their separation from the Chair of St. Peter? Can it be merely an accident? An accident lasting for a thousand years!

To anti-Catholics who will not see that their particularism cuts them off from the life of the universal Church we have only one suggestion to make: Let them summon, without the concurrence of the successor of St. Peter, a council which they themselves can recognize as ecumenical! Then only will there be an opportunity of discovering whether they are right.

Wherever Peter does not speak, it is only the opinions of men that find utterance--and the Apostles are silent. But Jesus Christ did not commend the vague and contradictory opinions of the mob nor the silence of His chosen disciples; it was the unwavering, decisive and authoritative utterance of Simon Bar-Jona upon which He set the seal of His approval. Clearly this utterance which satisfied our Lord needed no human ratification; it possessed absolute validity "etiam sine consensu Ecclesiae" ("even without the consent of the Church," the formula of the last Council of the Vatican).

It was not by means of a general consultation but (as Jesus Christ Himself bore witness) with the direct assistance of the heavenly Father that Peter formulated the fundamental dogma of our religion; and his word defined the faith of Christians by its own inherent power, not by the consent of others--"ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae" ("of itself, and not from the consent of the Church" from Vatican I definition).

In contrast to the uncertain opinions of men, the word of Peter represents the stability and unity of the true faith; in contrast to the narrow national ideas of the Messiah to which the Apostles gave utterance, his word expresses the Messianic idea in its absolute and universal form. The idea of the Messiah which had sprung from the soil of Jewish national consciousness is already in the visions of the post-exilic prophets growing too large for these limits.

But the true meaning of these mysterious and enigmatic visions was hardly divined by the inspired writers themselves, while Jewish public opinion remained exclusively nationalistic and could see no more in Christ than a great national prophet such as Elijah, Jeremiah or John the Baptist or at the most an all-powerful dictator, liberator and leader of the chosen people such as Moses or David.

This was the highest idea which the mob which followed Jesus held of Him; and we know that even His chosen disciples shared these popular notions up to the end of His earthly life (Luke 24:19-21). Only in Peter's confession does the Messianic idea emerge freed from all its nationalistic trappings and invested for the first time in its final and universal form. "Thou art the Christ, Son of the living God." Here is no question of a national king or prophet; the Messiah is not a second Moses or David. Henceforward he bears the unique name of Him Who, though He is the God of Israel, is none the less the God of all the nations.

Peter's confession transcended Jewish nationalism and inaugurated the Universal Church of the New Covenant.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.