Peter's Primacy

[Bernard]

The Epiphany of the Roman Primacy

Modern Eastern ecclesiologists agree with Catholics that the apostles chose successors. But what authority did Jesus give to Peter himself? Catholics and Orthodox Christians are divided over the issue.

Matthew 16:19 tells us that Christ gave Peter both the power of the keys and the power of binding and loosing. The first was given to Peter alone (Matt. 16:19), the second also to the other apostles (Matt. 18:18). Orthodox apologists claim that these two commissions to Peter are in fact identical. Whatever authority Christ gave to Peter, he gave to all the apostles.

If the Orthodox belief is correct, then our study of early Church history should reveal that every bishop, wherever located, exercised the same authority as did the bishop of Rome. Instead, from the first century onward, the successors of Peter exercised authority unlike that of any other bishop.

 In the formative centuries the Roman bishops’ exercise of unique authority as final arbiter of faith and morals was never condemned as unwarranted. Even those who vehemently opposed certain papal rulings did not deny the authority behind those rulings.

In many instances bishops of churches in the Eastern part of the Empire requested—even begged—the bishop of Rome to banish heresies and settle theological disputes which the bishops themselves could not resolve. These facts constitute the early Church’s tradition about the universal jurisdiction of the successor of Peter.

Papal authority, say the Orthodox, was not established by Christ. It was developed by the popes many centuries later. Historical circumstances helped them establish their jurisdiction. Catholics simply read back into the Church’s beginning something which did not then exist. The bishop of Rome, according to the Orthodox, is simply “first among equals” (primus inter pares). They readily concede to him a “primacy of honor,” which they say was acknowledged in early centuries. John Meyendorff explains the “honorary primacy” of Rome in early centuries this way: “[Rome’s] numerical importance, its central [geographical] position, and, above all, the unshakable orthodoxy of its bishops justified its primacy.” 

Other non-Catholic writers have commented on the unwavering fidelity of Rome. In the early centuries, when the woods were full of heretical bishops, the bishops of Rome steadily upheld the true faith. In his attempt to avoid the obvious explanation of this fact, one Protestant author has claimed that the Roman bishops’ prestige was due to their extraordinary good fortune. They just happened to come out on the right side in all the theological disputes!

The terms “honorary primacy” or “primacy of honor” are foreign to the Gospels. They come rather from Byzantine court etiquette. The honor of which Christ spoke is the honor of being servant of all. A Catholic can see in this phrase “primacy of honor” an unintended witness to the pope’s being “servant of the servants of God.” And how does he serve and serve uniquely? Through his exercise of papal jurisdiction.

Here is an example of Orthodox reasoning. Nicolas Afanassieff says the primacy of Peter, as understood by Catholics, would certainly “have become clear and manifest in the course of early Church history” if it were true. The Church’s memory “cannot have failed to preserve what was most important.” He claims that early Church history does not show the bishops of Rome exercising universal jurisdiction. Therefore that authority must not have existed.

A Catholic would assert that the Church’s memory did indeed preserve “what is most important” regarding the Church’s structure. He would add that the primacy of Peter is “clear and manifest” in history. That fact corroborates and illumines the Catholic Church’s interpretation of biblical material bearing on Petrine primacy. Eastern apologists who consistently ignore this history suffer from what has been called a “collective amnesia” with regard to the many exercises of papal primacy in early centuries.

When the Catholic Church teaches that the papacy and its jurisdiction existed from the beginning, what does it mean? Simply this: In its essential features, in its substance, the papacy of the earliest centuries is identical with the papacy of modern times. There are great outward differences between the first-century papacy and the twentieth-century papacy, but those differences are like the differences between the acorn and the oak. They are only differences in stages of normal growth.

Anyone who has attended a class reunion decades after graduation has been embarrassed by failing to recognize old friends. Yet we know those outwardly-changed persons are still the persons they once were. So it is with the papacy.

Never forget that from the middle of the first century until early fourth century, the Church lived under persecution, much of it ferocious. Newman reminds us that “an international bond and a common authority could not be consolidated, were it ever so certainly provided, while persecutions lasted.” 

Difficulties in communication in early centuries further hindered the popes’ involvement in the affairs of the churches throughout the Empire. Many times bishops or emperors or clergy resisted the popes’ rulings. Non-Catholics interpret these events as refutations of papal authority, but authority of whatever kind will always be resisted by some. Resistance does not disprove the legitimacy of authority. In fact, resistance which does not deny the authority itself is a compelling admission of that authority’s legitimacy.

Unquestionably, the popes did struggle to establish and exercise their authority. Anti-papal apologists argue that the struggles themselves negate papal legitimacy. Not so. Paul had to contend and plead for his authority as an apostle. He ordered Timothy to do the same for his authority as successor. Their struggles did not mean their authority was illegitimate.

Non-Catholic critics of papal primacy assert that papal primacy was created by the exaggerated claims the popes made for their office. Those critics insist on ruling out in advance what the popes say about their office. While papal testimony to the office of Peter is not conclusive proof of papal primacy, serious historical research cannot exclude it on principle.

Our Lord necessarily bore witness to himself. In time and space the Catholic Church is the extension of the Incarnation. She also speaks with Christ’s authority. If popes are truly successors to Peter and in charge of the messianic kingdom on earth, they have a duty to proclaim the truth about their office. The popes have fulfilled that duty. By their backgrounds they represent a broad range of ethnic and cultural diversity, yet for nineteen centuries they have borne a single unvarying witness about the papal office. 

The earliest exertions of papal authority occurred under conditions of violent persecution. Those popes wrote and acted “in circumstances which rendered any exhibition of a centralising power a matter of almost certain death.” Most of the popes of the third century, for example, were martyrs. In that century “no pope sat on the throne with any fair prospect of dying the common death of ordinary men.” 

Non-Catholics misunderstand the Church’s teaching about papal infallibility. Here is an Eastern example: “The dogmatic struggles and doctrinal controversies of the early Church would simply have been unthinkable if the infallible Church had possessed an automatic, visible organ of infallibility.” 

Note the logic. If the pope had received the charism of infallibility, he would have exercised it in a certain way. But he did not exercise it that way. Therefore, it must not have existed.

There is nothing “automatic” about papal infallibility. The Church has never intimated that the pope can settle any question immediately. The pope “does not bear definitions with his head at all times, ready to flash out at a moment’s notice; their possibility and their materials lie in the circumstances of the Church.” The charism of infallibility guarantees only that the pope will be preserved from error when and if he is led to make a definition.

Eastern Orthodox apologists’ case against Petrine primacy is based almost entirely on their reading of early Church history. For many of the leading Orthodox theologians of this century, that reading is controlled by the theory which they call “Eucharistic ecclesiology” or “local-church ecclesiology.” (In Orthodox usage, as in Catholic usage, “local church” designates a diocese, not a local congregation.)

Some Orthodox ecclesiologists repeatedly invoke one sentence from the letter of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans: “Where the bishop appears, there let the people be, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” This, they say, means that the fullness of the Church is found in each local church. No local church can exercise authority over any other local church. 

This Orthodox axiom consistently was contradicted by events in early Church history. About A.D. 96, for example, in the pontificate of Clement I, a faction in the Church in Corinth created a schism by ousting some bishops and presbyters. Clement wrote a strongly worded letter to that Church. He begins his letter apologizing for his delay “in giving our attention to the subjects of dispute in your community.” Vigorous persecution of the Church, especially at Rome, under Nero and Domitian, had prevented the Church of Rome from intervening earlier.

Clement immediately addresses the perpetrators of the schism, calling their action “that execrable and godless schism so utterly foreign to the elect of God.” He reproves them for presuming to assert authority over successors of the apostles. Their action, he says, is “no small sin.” He does not ask for more details in order to make his judgment. He simply passes judgment on the schismatics and orders them to submit to their pastors.

In what one author has called “the epiphany of the Roman primacy,” Clement commands the schismatics to be “obedient to what we have written through the Holy Spirit.” He warns them, “But should any disobey what has been said by him [Christ] through us, let them understand that they will entangle themselves in transgression and no small danger.”

Clement hardly could assert more strongly his assurance that the Holy Spirit is speaking through him and therefore that he, Clement, speaks with the voice of Christ. He concludes by saying he has sent three legates to Corinth to investigate the situation. From other sources we know the schism was healed by Clement’s action.

Had the Church at Corinth appealed to Clement to settle the schism? That Clement apologizes for delay in intervening suggests it had. The Corinthians were not simply seeking help from some authoritative person. Were that true, they could have appealed to the apostle John. According to early testimony, at that time he was still living and in a city (Ephesus) much closer to Corinth than was Rome. No, they appealed to the successor of Peter. At the end of the first century, Rome’s authority and responsibility for settling such matters was already recognized. 

No local church could exercise authority over another local church? The Corinthians never heard of this notion. How did they respond to Clement’s intervention? They held Clement’s letter in almost as high esteem as they did sacred Scripture. Eusebius tells us that seventy years after Clement sent his letter, the Church at Corinth was still reading aloud from it every Sunday during the liturgy. 

Petrine authority was not, as Easterners claim, a papal invention to impose a theological straitjacket on the unsuspecting East. No, that authority was always a lifeline to the truth. Again and again by that lifeline Easterners were rescued from the Frankensteinian heresies they so readily created but could not overcome.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-epiphany-of-the-roman-primacy

[Bokisd]

Jednostavno bratko Bernard treba da razumes i shvatis da ma koliko se razne pape (ne sve) u prvom milenijumu pre raskola,..... ma koliko se trudile da nekako izmisle i opravdaju tu neku zamisljenu papsko - Petrovsku vlast u crkvi.... na celom Istoku i Aleksandriji, Jerusalimu, Kartagini i u ostalim crkvama (cak i na Zapadu nisu sve crkve u pocetku prihvatale papsku vlast) nikada  nije uzimano to kao neka legitimna i kao kanonsko i teolosko opravdana stvar i to jasno svedoci istorija Crkve prvog milenijuma.

[Bernard]

Dragi bratko Boki drago mi je da si napisao svoje mišljenje sa kojim se ja ne slažem. Imao sam priliku prošle i ove godine da pogledam malo program dvojice studenata, (jedan od njih je cistercijan iz Stične) predmet crkvena istorija šta se uče studenti  u Francuskoj i Engleskoj. Sledio bi se kad bi ti profesori došli u Beograd za koju godinu da vam malo predavaju...... Budi mi zdrav i svako dobro!

[Bokisd]

5.      .....Matthew 6:12 So does the Church act in blessed hope through this troublous life; and this Church symbolized in its generality, was personified in the Apostle Peter, on account of the primacy of his apostleship. For, as regards his proper personality, he was by nature one man, by grace one Christian, by still more abounding grace one, and yet also, the first apostle; but when it was said to him, I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven, he represented the universal Church, which in this world is shaken by various temptations, that come upon it like torrents of rain, floods and tempests, and falls not, because it is founded upon a rock (petra), from which Peter received his name. For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, On this rock will I build my Church, because Peter had said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Matthew 16:16-19 On this rock, therefore, He said, which you have confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; 1 Corinthians 10:4 and on this foundation was Peter himself also built. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 3:11 The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church. This Church, accordingly, which Peter represented, so long as it lives amidst evil, by loving and following Christ is delivered from evil. But its following is the closer in those who contend even unto death for the truth. But to the universality [of the Church] is it said, Follow me, even as it was for the same universality that Christ suffered: of whom this same Peter says, Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His footsteps. 1 Peter 2:21 This, then, you see is why it was said to him, Follow me. But there is another, an immortal life, that is not in the midst of evil: there we shall see face to face what is seen here through a glass and in a riddle, 1 Corinthians 13:12 even when much progress is made in the beholding of the truth. "

Sta mislis my Bernard ko je ovo reko' ?  .... 

Onaj mozda najveci autoritet na Zapadu, naravno sv.Avgustin u Tractate 124,5 (John 21:19-25). Kao i ovo Tractate 118,4 (John 19:23-24) :

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701124.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701118.htm

" 4.... Just as in the case of the apostles, who formed the exact number of twelve, in other words, were divisible into four parts of three each, when the question was put to all of them, Peter was the only one that answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God; and to whom it was said, I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, as if he alone received the power of binding and loosing: seeing, then, that one so spoke in behalf of all, and received the latter along with all, as if personifying the unity itself; therefore one stands for all, because there is unity in all. Whence, also, after here saying, woven from the top, he added, throughout. And this also, if referred to its meaning, implies that no one is excluded from a share thereof, who is discovered to belong to the whole: from which whole, as the Greek language indicates, the Church derives her name of Catholic. And by the casting of lots, what else is commended but the grace of God? For in this way in the person of one it reached to all, since the lot satisfied them all, because the grace of God also in its unity reaches unto all; and when the lot is cast, the award is decided, not by the merits of each individual, but by the secret judgment of God. "

To je to....