By RAYMOND DE SOUZA
There have been baptized Christians, especially from the Anglican Confession, who believe that Jesus made Peter the “Head” of the Apostolic College — but “head” only between quotation marks. He was the head as the first among equals (primo inter pares), pretty much as the archbishop of Canterbury is first among the Anglican bishops: It is a position of honor, not jurisdiction.
This may well be the case in the church founded by King Henry VIII, but it is demonstrably not the case in the Church founded by Jesus Christ.
That St. Peter was the visible head of the Church after Pentecost, there is no doubt whatsoever. There is not one single instance of any of the eleven apostles disputing his role. Neither biblically, nor historically. It was always taken for granted, as we can easily verify by reading the Acts of the Apostles.
St. Kepha, the Rock, more widely known as St. Peter, is always mentioned first in the lists of the apostles, although he was not the first whom Christ called. His brother Andrew was. He preached the first apostolic sermon on the Feast of Pentecost, converting thousands, and worked the first apostolic miracle in the name of Jesus.
He exercised the supreme legislative power in Jerusalem when he proposed the election of the successor to Judas. He exercised the supreme judiciary power in the case of Ananias and Sapphira. He exercised the supreme executive power when he received the first Jewish converts and the first Gentile converts into the Church, declaring that salvation is for all men alike.
At the Council of Jerusalem, “after there had been much debate,” he gave the discussion a decisive turn and drew the others with him. All this points clearly to the conclusion that St. Peter was recognized as the head of the apostles (Luke 6:14; Acts 1:15; 2:14, 41; 3:6; 10:1-48; 15:6ff.). If Judas had been alive at that time, he might have been the one to introduce the primo inter pares idea, but understandably enough, he missed the Feast of Pentecost, and for a very good reason.
I have heard from some enthusiastic followers of sola Scriptura, who interpret the Bible according to their private preferences and whims, who say that, “Yes, Peter was the head of the Apostolic College but only of the Apostolic College. When the apostles died, the Apostolic College came to an end and the Christian communities organized themselves like the Protestant churches do today.”
After smiling at this preposterous claim, I reminded my zealous Bible-interpreters that Jesus promised the apostles to be with them until the end of time, not until the end of their lives!
He did not say that His followers had to wait for nearly 1,500 years until He sent a defrocked monk who would marry a runaway nun to proclaim sola Scriptura! Not at all, folks: St. Peter’s office in the Church is perpetual, until the end of times. Period.
Jesus told St. Peter to feed his lambs, feed his sheep. He did not tell the other apostles to do so. The “lambs” and “sheep,” i.e., the members of the Church, big and small, clergy and laity, shall always need the shepherd’s care to shield them from the wolf and lead them to wholesome pastures. Their shepherd, therefore, St. Peter, through his Successors, shall always be with them, “Till the end of time,” as Jesus said.
The primacy of St. Peter and of his Successors over the bishops, the successors of the apostles, and the whole Church is also confirmed by the apostolic tradition and history. Let us see some examples:
In the first century, when St. John the Apostle was still alive, the Bishop of Rome was St. Clement I. About the year 96 — only 29 years after the death of St. Peter — he wrote a letter to the Church in Corinth (Greece) to resolve certain internal disputes. The Pope exercised his authority over the faithful and concluded by saying: “If any disobey what He [Christ] says through us, let them know that they will be involved in no small offense and danger; but we shall be innocent of this sin” (I Clem. ad Cor. 59, 1). The text is still extant to this day.
In the second century, the famous martyr, St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107), in his Epistle to the Romans, spoke of the Church which “presides in the land of the Romans . . . presiding over love” — “love” being his name for the Church (Ad Rom., salut. cf. Trall. xiii, 1). He also refers to Peter’s authority in Rome, by saying, in the same letter, “I am not commanding you as did Peter and Paul” (Ad Rom., 4, 3).
Pope Victor I of Rome (189-199) had considered excommunicating the Quartodecimans in Asia for what he regarded as dissident behavior. But St. Irenaeus and other bishops urged him not to, without ever calling into question his power to do so (Ad Rom., salut. cf. Trall. xiii, 1).
The no less famous apologist, St. Irenaeus (died 202), wrote about “the greatest and oldest Church known to all, founded and established by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, at Rome” (Adv. Haer. III, 3, 2).
At the Council of Ephesus in 431, Philip, the legate of Pope Celestine (422-432), said, and no voice was raised in protest: “No one doubts, nay but all ages know, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the Apostles, the pillar of faith and the foundation of the Church, received from Our Lord, Jesus Christ, the keys of the Kingdom. . . . His successor in order, and the holder of his place, our holy and most blessed Pope, Celestine . . . has sent me” (Mansi, IV, 1294).
St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), pre-eminent among the Eastern patriarchs, said that Pope Celestine was “the chief Bishop of the whole world” (PG 77, 1040).
At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when the letter of Pope Leo I (440-461) had been read, the assembled bishops cried out: “Peter has spoken through Leo” (Act. II: Harduin, II, 306).
In the fourth century, the evidence is equally decisive. At the Synod of Aquileia in 381, St. Ambrose told the emperors, “The Roman Church is the head of the whole Roman world” (Ep. xi, 4).
Early Christian Art
Carvings and ornamentations in the catacombs dating from this century represent St. Peter as the Moses of the New Testament receiving the New Law from Christ; and Moses as the Peter of the Old Testament. Peter was the leader of the Christians, as Moses was the leader of the Jews (L. Hertling, SJ, & E. Kirschbaum, SJ, The Roman Catacombs and Their Martyrs, DLT, London 1960, p. 243. Cf. photo in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, preceding Part Three).
It has been calculated that there are more than 300 representations of St. Peter in the early Christian art of the catacombs — a number surpassed only by depictions of Christ Himself (Hertling & Kirschbaum, op. cit., p. 243).
To finish, there is a very interesting book, published as recently as 1982, on the discovery of St. Peter’s tomb and bones, under the basilica of the same name, after the archeological investigations which began there under Pope Pius XII (cf. J.E. Walsh, The Bones of St. Peter, Doubleday, New York, 1982).
On the basis of this overwhelming evidence, we may appreciate the dictum of John Henry Cardinal Newman: “To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant” (An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1845, revised edition, 1878, intro., 5, p. 8).
Next article: How can the Pope be infallible?
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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