A reader asks:
I would like to know… about the veracity that St. Peter was in Rome and was the first pope and how I could tell or demonstrate that this is true to those who question it.
Answer:
Dear:
1. The Primacy of Peter
a) The dogma
Christ constituted the apostle St. Peter as first among the apostles and as the visible head of the entire Church, immediately and personally conferring upon him the primacy of jurisdiction. For Catholics this is a truth of faith.
The First Vatican Council defined it (cf. Dz 1823) and it was forcefully repeated by the Second Vatican Council (Lumen gentium, n.18).
The invisible head of the Church is the glorious Christ. Peter stands in for Christ in the external government of the Church militant, and is, therefore, vicar of Christ on earth.
This dogma is opposed by the Greek Orthodox Church and the Eastern sects, some medieval adversaries of the papacy (Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, Wycleff and Hus), all Protestants, the Gallicans and Febronians, the Old Catholics (Altkatholiken) and the modernists. According to the doctrine of the Gallicans (E. Richer) and the Febronians (N. Hontheim), the fullness of spiritual power was granted by Christ immediately to the entire Church, and through it it passed to St. Peter, so that he was the first minister of the Church, appointed by the Church (“caput ministeriale”). According to modernism, the primacy was not established by Christ, but has been formed by external circumstances in the post-apostolic era (Dz 2055 s).
b) Biblical foundation
From the beginning Christ distinguished the apostle St. Peter among all the other apostles. When he first met him, he announced that he would change his name from Simon to Cephas = rock: “You are Simon, the son of John [according to the Vulgate: of Jonah]; you shall be called Cephas” (Jn 1:42; cf. Mk 3:16). The name Cephas clearly indicates the office for which the Lord had destined him (cf. Mt 16:18). In every list of the apostles, Peter is always mentioned first. In Matthew he is expressly called “the first” (Mt 10:2). Since, according to the order of calling, Andrew preceded Peter, Peter’s appearance in first place indicates his office of primacy. Peter, together with James and John, was able to witness the raising of Jairus’s daughter (Mk 5:37), the transfiguration (Mt 17:1), and the agony in the Garden (Mt 26:37). The Lord preached to the crowd from Peter’s boat (Lk 5:3), paid the temple tax for himself and for him (Mt 17:27), exhorted him, after his own conversion, to strengthen his brothers in the faith (Lk 22:32); after the resurrection he appeared to him alone before the other apostles (Lk 24:34; 1 Cor 15:5).
St. Peter was promised the primacy after he had solemnly confessed, in Caesarea Philippi, the messiahship of Christ. The Lord said to him (Mt 16, 17-19): “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for it is not flesh and blood that has revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to you that you are Peter [= Cephas], and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. 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 released in heaven.”
These words are addressed immediately and exclusively to St. Peter. They set before him, in three images, the idea of supreme power in the new society that Christ is going to found. Peter will give this society the unity and unshakable firmness that a house receives from being built upon living rock; cf. Mt 7:24 and following. Peter is also to be the holder of the keys, that is, the administrator of the kingdom of God on earth; cf. Is 22:22; Rev 1:18; 3:7: the keys are the symbol of power and sovereignty. Finally, it falls to him to bind and loose, that is (according to rabbinic terminology), to impose or lift excommunication, or also to interpret the law in the sense that something is permitted (loosed) or not (bound). In accordance with Mt 18:18, where all the apostles are granted the power to bind and loose in the sense of excommunicating or receiving the faithful into the community, and taking into account the universal expression (“whatever you bind… whatever you loose”), it is not legitimate to understand the full power granted to St. Peter as limited to the power to teach; it must be extended to the whole sphere of the power of jurisdiction. God will confirm in heaven all the obligations that St. Peter imposes or removes on earth.
Against all attempts to declare this passage (which appears only in Saint Matthew) as totally or partially interpolated in a later period, its authenticity stands out in a way that leaves no room for doubt. This is guaranteed, not only by the unanimous tradition with which it appears in all the codices and ancient versions, but also by the Semitic color of the text, which is clearly visible. It is not possible to deny with convincing reasons that these words were spoken by the Lord Himself. It is also not possible to show that they are in contradiction with other teachings and facts referred to in the Gospel.
The Lord granted Peter the primacy when, after the resurrection, he asked him three times if he loved him and gave him the following charge: “Feed my lambs, feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” (Jn 21,15-17). These words, like those of Mt 16:18s, refer immediately and exclusively to St. Peter. The “lambs” and the “sheep” represent the entire flock of Christ, that is, the entire Church; cf. Jn 10. “Shepherd”, referring to men, means the same as governing (cf. Acts 20:28), according to the terminology of secular and biblical antiquity. Peter, by this triple commission from Christ, was not restored to his apostolic office (since he had not lost it through his denial), but rather received supreme governing power over the entire Church.
After the ascension to heaven, Peter exercised his primacy. From the first moment he occupied a preeminent position in the primitive community: He arranged the election of Matthias (Acts 1,15ff); He is the first to announce, on the day of Pentecost, the message of Christ, who is the Messiah who died on the cross and was resurrected (2:14 ff.); bears witness to the message of Christ before the Sanhedrin (4:8 ff.); receives the first Gentile into the Church: the centurion Cornelius (10:1 ff.); he is the first to speak at the council of the apostles (15,17 ff.); St. Paul marches to Jerusalem “to meet Cephas” (Gal 1:18).
c) The testimony of the fathers of the Church.
The Fathers, in accordance with the biblical promise of primacy, testify that the Church is built upon Peter and recognize his primacy over all the other apostles. TERTULLIAN says of the Church: “It was built upon him” (De monog. 8). ST. CYPRIAN says, referring to Mt 16:18s: “Upon one he builds the Church” (De unit. eccl. 4). CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA calls St. Peter “the elect, the chosen one, the first among the disciples, the only one for whom, besides himself, the Lord paid the tribute” (Quis dives salvetur 21,4). ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM calls him “the chief and prince of the apostles” (Cat. 2,19). According to ST. LEO THE GREAT, “Peter alone was chosen from the whole world to be the head of all the called peoples, of all the apostles and of all the Fathers of the Church” (Sermo 4,2).
In their fight against Arianism, many fathers interpret the rock on which the Lord built his Church as the faith in the divinity of Christ, which St. Peter confessed, but without thereby excluding the relationship of that faith with the person of Peter, a relationship that is clearly indicated in the sacred text. Peter’s faith was the reason that Christ destined him to be the foundation on which he would build his Church.
2. Peter, Bishop of Rome and First Pope
An ancient tradition based on the annals of the Church and Roman Archeology tells us that Peter dies in Rome, where he was Bishop. This is the origin of the Preeminence of the Bishop of Rome over the other Bishops who are successors of the Apostles.
It has a scriptural basis in the text of 1 Pet 5:13: “The Church that is in Babylon, chosen together with you, and Mark my son, greet you.”
The expression “Babylon” refers to Rome, as all exegetes note: “almost all the ancient authors and most of the modern ones see the Church of Rome designated in this expression… The name Babylon was in common use among the Christian Jews to designate pagan Rome. This is also called in the Apocalypse (14,8; 16,19; 17,15; 18,2.10), in the apocryphal books and in rabbinic literature. The Babylon of the Euphrates, which in time of St. Peter was a heap of ruins, and the Babylon of Egypt, a small military station, must be excluded.” (José Salguero, O.P., Annotated Bible, volume VII, BAC, Madrid 1965, p. 145).
This is recognized even by serious Protestant authors. For example, Kenneth Scott Latourette, prestigious historian, writes in his book “Church History” (Volume I, p. 112, Ed. Casa Bautista de Publicaciones) says: “Peter was traveling, because we know he was in Antioch, and what seems like a trustworthy tradition, we know that he was in Rome and died there.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica, volume IX, p. 123 gives the reference of all the Bishops of Rome beginning with St. Peter and ending with John Paul II, 264 Bishops in uninterrupted succession.
The “New American Encyclopedia” says in its section on the Popes “When St. Peter left Jerusalem he lived for a time in Antioch before traveling to Rome where he served as Primate.”
Very strong is also the testimony of tradition that shows the enormous importance that the first Bishops of Rome had on the nascent Christianity, precisely because they were successors of Peter. Thus, for example, in the year 96, that is, 63 years after the death of Christ, faced with a serious conflict in the community of Corinthians, the one who took action to restore order was the Bishop of Rome, Pope Clement, and this despite the fact that at that time the Apostle John was still living in the nearby Greek city of Ephesus. However, it was a letter from Clement that solved the problem and even two hundred years after this event this letter was read in that Church. This can only be explained by the authority of Peter’s successor in the early Church.
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, and Father of the Church of the second generation after the Apostles wrote a few years later: “If there had been space I could give you the lists of Bishops of all the Churches, but I choose only the line of succession of the Bishops of Rome founded on Peter and Paul until the twelfth successor today.”
According to the first historian of the Church, Eusebius of Caesarea (312), this succession is a sign and assurance that the Gospel has been preserved and transmitted by the Catholic Church.
Author: Father Miguel Ángel Fuentes
Source: The Theologian Answers
