THE PRIMACY OF PETER.
The Catholic Church teaches also, that our Lord conferred on St. Peter the
first place of honor and jurisdiction in the government of His whole
Church, and that the same spiritual supremacy has always resided in the
Popes, or Bishops of Rome, as being the successors of St. Peter.
Consequently, to be true followers of Christ all Christians, both among
the clergy and the laity, must be in communion with the See of Rome, where
Peter rules in the person of his successor.
Before coming to any direct proofs on this subject I may state that, in
the Old Law, the High Priest appointed by Almighty God filled an office
analogous to that of Pope in the New Law. In the Jewish Church there were
Priests and Levites ordained to minister at the altar; and there was,
also, a supreme ecclesiastical tribunal, with the High Priest at its head.
All matters of religious controversy were referred to this tribunal and in
the last resort to the High Priest, whose decision was enforced under pain
of death. “If there be a hard matter in judgment between blood and blood,
cause and cause, leprosy and leprosy, ... thou shalt come to the Priests
of the Levitical race and to the judge, ... and they shall show thee true
judgment. And thou shalt do whatever they say who preside in the place
which the Lord shall choose, and thou shalt follow their sentence. And
thou shalt not decline to the right hand, or to the left.... But he that
... will refuse to obey the commandment of the Priest, who ministereth at
the time, ... that man shall die, and thou shalt take away the evil from
Israel.”(153)
From this passage it is evident that in the Hebrew Church the High Priest
had the highest jurisdiction in religious matters. By this means unity of
faith and worship was preserved among the people of God.
Now the Jewish synagogue, as St. Paul testifies, was the type and figure
of the Christian Church; for “all these things happened to them (the Jews)
in figure.”(154) We must, therefore, find in the Church of Christ a
spiritual judge, exercising the same supreme authority as the High Priest
wielded in the Old Law. For if a supreme Pontiff was necessary, in the
Mosaic dispensation, to maintain purity and uniformity of worship, the
same dignitary is equally necessary now to preserve unity of faith.
Every well-regulated civil government has an acknowledged head. The
President is the head of the United States Government. Queen Victoria is
the ruler of Great Britain. The Sultan sways the Turkish Empire. If these
nations had no authorized leader to govern them they would be reduced to
the condition of a mere mob, and anarchy, confusion and civil war would
inevitably follow, as recently happened to France after the fall of
Napoleon III.
Even in every well-ordered family, domestic peace requires that someone
preside.
Now, the Church of Christ is a visible society—that is, a society composed
of human beings. She has, it is true, a spiritual end in view; but having
to deal with men, she must have a government as well as every other
organized society. This government, at least in its essential elements,
our Lord must have established for His Church. For was He not as wise as
human legislators? And shall we suppose that, of all lawgivers, the Wisdom
Incarnate alone left His Kingdom on earth to be governed without a head?
But someone will tell me: “We do not deny that the Church has a head. God
himself is its Ruler.” This is evading the real question. Is not God the
Ruler of all governments? “By Me,” He says, “kings reign, and lawgivers
decree just things.”(155) He is the recognized Head of our Republic, and
of every Christian family in the land; but, nevertheless, there is always
presiding over the country a visible chief, who represents God on earth.
In like manner the Church, besides an invisible Head in heaven, must have
a visible head on earth. The body and members of the Church are visible;
why not also the Head? The Church without a supreme Ruler would be like an
army without a general, a navy without an admiral, a sheep-fold without a
shepherd, or like a human body without a head.
The Christian communities separated from the Catholic Church deny that
Peter received any authority over the other Apostles, and hence they
reject the supremacy of the Pope.
The absence from the Protestant communions of a Divinely appointed,
visible Head is to them an endless source of weakness and dissension. It
is an insuperable barrier against any hope of a permanent reunion among
themselves, because they are left without a common rallying centre or
basis of union and are placed in an unhappy state of schism.
The existence, on the contrary, of a supreme judge of controversy in the
Catholic Church is the secret of her admirable unity. This is the keystone
that binds together and strengthens the imperishable arch of faith.
From the very fact, then, of the existence of a supreme Head in the Jewish
Church; from the fact that a Head is always necessary for civil
government, for families and corporations; from the fact, especially, that
a visible Head is essential to the maintenance of unity in the Church,
while the absence of a Head necessarily leads to anarchy, we are forced to
conclude, even though positive evidence were wanting, that, in the
establishment of His Church, it must have entered into the mind of the
Divine Lawgiver to place over it a primate invested with superior judicial
powers.
But have we any positive proof that Christ did appoint a supreme Ruler
over His Church? To those, indeed, who read the Scriptures with the single
eye of pure intention the most abundant evidence of this fact is
furnished. To my mind the New Testament establishes no doctrine, unless it
satisfies every candid reader that our Lord gave plenipotentiary powers to
Peter to govern the whole Church. In this chapter I shall speak of the
Promise, the Institution, and the exercise of Peter’s Primacy, as recorded
in the New Testament. The next chapter shall be devoted to its perpetuity
in the Popes.
_Promise of the Primacy._ Our Saviour, on a certain occasion, asked His
disciples, saying: “Whom do men say that the Son of Man is? And they said:
Some say that Thou art John the Baptist; and others, Elias; and others,
Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets. Jesus saith to them: But whom do ye say
that I am?” Peter, as usual, is the leader and spokesman. “Simon Peter
answering, said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus
answering said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and
blood hath not 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 to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt
loose on earth shall be loosed also heaven.”(156) Here we find Peter
confessing the Divinity of Christ, and in reward for that confession he is
honored with the promise of the Primacy.
Our Savior, by the words “thou art Peter,” clearly alludes to the new name
which He Himself had conferred upon Simon, when He received him into the
number of His followers (John i. 42); and He now reveals the reason for
the change of name, which was to insinuate the honor He was to confer on
him, by appointing him President of the Christian Republic; just as God,
in the Old Law, changed Abram’s name to Abraham, when He chose him to be
the father of a mighty nation.
The word _Peter_, in the Syro-Chaldaic tongue, which our Savior spoke,
means _a rock_. The sentence runs thus in that language: _“__Thou art a
rock, and on this rock I will build My Church.__”_ Indeed, all respectable
Protestant commentators have now abandoned, and even ridicule, the
absurdity of applying the word _rock_ to anyone but to Peter; as the
sentence can bear no other construction, unless our Lord’s good grammar
and common sense are called in question.
Jesus, our Lord, founded but one Church, which He was pleased to build on
Peter. Therefore, any church that does not recognize Peter as its
foundation stone is not the Church of Christ, and therefore cannot stand,
for it is not the work of God. This is plain. Would to God that all would
see it aright and with eyes free from prejudice.
He continues: “And I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,”
etc. In ancient times, and particularly among the Hebrew people, keys were
an emblem of jurisdiction. To affirm that a man had received the keys of a
city was equivalent to the assertion that he had been appointed its
governor. In the Book of Revelation our Savior says that He has “the keys
of death and of hell,”(157) which means that He is endowed with power over
death and hell. In fact, even to this day does not the presentation of
keys convey among ourselves the idea of authority? If the proprietor of a
house, on leaving it for the summer, says to any friend: “Here are the
keys of my house,” would not this simple declaration, without a word of
explanation, convey the idea, “I give you full control of my house; you
may admit or exclude whom you please; you represent me in my absence?” Let
us now apply this interpretation to our Redeemer’s words. When He says to
Peter: “I will give to thee the keys,” etc., He evidently means: I will
give the supreme authority over My Church, which is the citadel of faith,
My earthly Jerusalem. Thou and thy successors shall be My visible
representatives to the end of time. And be it remembered that to Peter
alone, and to no other Apostle, were these solemn words addressed.
_Fulfillment of the Promise._ The promise which our Redeemer made of
creating Peter the supreme ruler of His Church is fulfilled in the
following passage: “Jesus saith to Simon Peter: Simon, son of John, lovest
thou Me more than these? He saith to Him: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I
love Thee. He saith to him: Feed My lambs. He saith to him again: Simon,
son of John, lovest thou Me? He saith to Him: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that
I love Thee. He saith to him: Feed My lambs. He saith to him the third
time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? Peter was grieved because He had
said to him the third time: Lovest thou Me? And he said to Him: Lord, Thou
knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love Thee. He said to him: Feed My
sheep.”(158)
These words were addressed by our Lord to Peter after His resurrection.
The whole sheep-fold of Christ is confided to him, without any exception
or limitation. Peter has jurisdiction not only over the lambs—the weak and
tender portion of the flock—by which are understood the faithful; but also
over the sheep, _i.e._, the Pastors themselves, who hold the same
relations to their congregations that the sheep hold to the lambs, because
they bring forth unto Jesus Christ, and nourish the spiritual lambs of the
fold. To other Pastors a certain portion of the flock is assigned; to
Peter the entire fold; for, never did Jesus say to any other Apostle or
Bishop what He said to Peter: Feed My whole flock.
Candid reader, do you not profess to be a member of Christ’s flock? Yes,
you answer. Do you take your spiritual food from Peter and his successor,
and do you hear the voice of Peter, or have you wandered into the fold of
strangers who spurn Peter’s voice? Ponder well this momentous question.
For if Peter is authorized to feed the lambs of Christ’s flock, the lambs
should hear Peter’s voice.
_Exercise of the Primacy._ In the Acts of the Apostles, which contain
almost the only Scripture narrative that exists of the Apostles subsequent
to our Lord’s ascension, St. Peter appears before us, like Saul among the
tribes, standing head and shoulders over his brethren by the prominent
part he takes in every ministerial duty.
The first twelve chapters of the Acts are devoted to Peter and to some of
the other Apostles, the remaining chapters being chiefly occupied with the
labors of the Apostles of the Gentiles. In that brief historical fragment,
as well as in the Gospels, the name of Peter is everywhere pre-eminent.
Peter’s name always stands first in the list of the Apostles, while Judas
Iscariot is invariably mentioned last.(159) Peter is even called by St.
Matthew _the first Apostle_. Now Peter was first neither in age nor in
priority of election, his elder brother Andrew having been chosen before
him. The meaning, therefore, of the expression must be that Peter was
first not only in rank and honor, but also in authority.
Peter is the first Apostle who performed a miracle.(160) He is the first
to address the Jews in Jerusalem while his Apostolic brethren stand
respectfully around him, upon which occasion he converts three thousand
souls.(161)
Peter is the first to make converts from the Gentile world in the persons
of Cornelius and his friends.(162)
When there is question of electing a successor to Judas Peter _alone
speaks_. He points out to the Apostles and disciples the duty of choosing
another to succeed the traitor. The Apostles silently acquiesce in the
instructions of their leader.(163)
In the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem Peter is the first whose sentiments
are recorded. Before his discourse “there was much disputing.” But when he
had ceased to speak “all the multitude held their peace.”(164)
St. James and the other Apostles concur in the sentiments of Peter without
a single dissenting voice.
St. James is cast into prison by Herod and afterward beheaded. He was one
of the three most favored Apostles. He was the cousin of our Lord and
brother of St. John. He was most dear to the faithful. Yet no
extraordinary efforts are made by the faithful to rescue him from death.
Peter is imprisoned about the same time. The whole Church is aroused.
Prayers for his deliverance ascend to heaven, not only from Jerusalem but
also from every Christian family in the land.(165)
The army of the Lord can afford to lose a chieftain in the person of
James, but it cannot yet spare the commander-in-chief. The enemies of the
Church had hoped that the destruction of the chief shepherd would involve
the dispersion of the whole flock; therefore they redoubled their fury
against the Prince of the Apostles, just as her modern enemies concentrate
their shafts against the Pope, his successor. Does not this incident
eloquently proclaim Peter’s superior authority? In fact Peter figures so
conspicuously in every page that his Primacy is not only admissible, but
is forced on the judgment of the impartial reader.
What are the principal objections advanced against the Primacy of Peter?
They are chiefly, I may say exclusively, confined to the three following:
First—That our Lord rebuked Peter. Second—That St. Paul criticised his
conduct on a point not affecting doctrine, but discipline. The Apostle of
the Gentiles blames St. Peter because he withdrew for a time from the
society of the Gentile converts, for fear of scandalizing the
newly-converted Jews.(166) Third—That the supremacy of Peter conflicts
with the supreme dominion of Christ.
For my part I cannot see how these objections can invalidate the claims of
Peter. Was not Jesus Peter’s superior? May not a superior rebuke his
servant without infringing on the servant’s prerogatives?
And why could not St. Paul censure the conduct of St. Peter without
questioning that superior’s authority? It is not a very uncommon thing for
ecclesiastics occupying an inferior position in the Church to admonish
even the Pope. St. Bernard, though only a monk, wrote a work in which,
with Apostolic freedom, he administers counsel to Pope Eugenius III., and
cautions him against the dangers to which his eminent position exposes
him. Yet no man had more reverence for any Pope than Bernard had for this
great Pontiff. Cannot our Governor animadvert upon the President’s conduct
without impairing the President’s jurisdiction?
Nay, from this very circumstance, I draw a confirming evidence of Peter’s
supremacy. St. Paul mentions it as a fact worthy of record that he
actually _withstood Peter to his face_. Do you think it would be worth
recording if Paul had rebuked James or John or Barnabas? By no means. If
one brother rebukes another, the matter excites no special attention. But
if a son rebukes his father, or if a Priest rebukes his Bishop to his
face, we understand why he would consider it a fact worth relating. Hence,
when St. Paul goes to the trouble of telling us that he took exception to
Peter’s conduct, he mentions it as an extraordinary exercise of Apostolic
freedom, and leaves on our mind the obvious inference that Peter was his
superior.
In the very same Epistle to the Galatians St. Paul plainly insinuates St.
Peter’s superior rank. “I went,” he says, “to Jerusalem to see Peter, and
I tarried with him fifteen days.”(167) Saints Chrysostom and Ambrose tell
us that this was not an idle visit of ceremony, but that the object of St.
Paul in making the journey was to testify his respect and honor for the
chief of the Apostles. St. Jerome observes in a humorous vein that “Paul
went not to behold Peter’s eyes, his cheeks or his countenance, whether he
was thin or stout, with nose straight or twisted, covered with hair or
bald, not to observe the outward man, _but to show honor to the first
Apostle_.”
There are others who pretend, in spite of our Lord’s declaration to the
contrary, that loyalty to Peter is disloyalty to Christ, and that, by
acknowledging Peter as the rock on which the Church is built, we set our
Savior aside. So far from this being the case, we acknowledge Jesus Christ
as the “chief cornerstone,” as well as the Divine Architect of the
building.
The true test of loyalty to Jesus is not only to worship Him, but to
venerate even the representatives whom He has chosen. Will anyone pretend
to say that my obedience to the Governor’s appointee is a mark of
disrespect to the Governor himself? I think our State Executive would have
little faith in the allegiance of any citizen who would say to him:
“Governor, I honor you personally, but your official’s order I shall
disregard.”
St. Peter is called the first Bishop of Rome because he transferred his
see from Antioch to Rome, where he suffered martyrdom with St. Paul.
We are not surprised that modern skepticism, which rejects the Divinity of
Christ and denies even the existence of God, should call in question the
fact that St. Peter lived and died in Rome.
The reason commonly alleged for disputing this well-attested event is that
the Acts of the Apostles make no mention of Peter’s labors and martyrdom
in Rome. For the same reason we might deny that St. Paul was beheaded in
Rome; that St. John died in Ephesus, and that St. Andrew was crucified.
The Scripture is silent regarding these historical records, and yet they
are denied by no one.
The intrinsic evidence of St. Peter’s first Epistle, the testimony of his
immediate successors in the ministry, as well as the avowal of eminent
Protestant commentators, all concur in fixing the See of Peter in Rome.
“Babylon,” from which Peter addresses his first Epistle, is understood by
learned annotators, Protestant and Catholic, to refer to Rome—the word
Babylon being symbolical of the corruption then prevailing in the city of
the Cæsars.
Clement, the fourth Bishop of Rome, who is mentioned in terms of praise by
St. Paul; St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who died in 105; Irenæus,
Origen, St. Jerome, Eusebius, the great historian, and other eminent
writers testify to St. Peter’s residence in Rome, while no ancient
ecclesiastical writer has ever contradicted the statement.
John Calvin, a witness above suspicion; Cave, an able Anglican critic;
Grotius and other distinguished Protestant writers, do not hesitate to
re-echo the unanimous voice of Catholic tradition.
Indeed, no historical fact will escape the shafts of incredulity, if St.
Peter’s residence and glorious martyrdom in Rome are called in question.