Peter...the rock continued

My premise of these last few emails is to simply show that there is not a universal consensus ( Rome is not a monolithic church ) among the ECFs as to the teaching that Peter was the first Pope. Not to mention ( which I already have, I think ) the exegetical problems of the Matthew 16 passage.

 

In what I sent previous, I think you glossed over some things or read it different. Augustine is speaking against the very thing that the RCC claims are the grounds for their institution of the Pope...Christ -> Peter (Pope) -> his successors. RCC says "On you, Peter, I will build my church" but Augustine is saying it's not on Peter, but on his confession. 

Augustine is not jiving with Rome. Neither was Ambrose or Jerome or Cyprian. Some of those ECFs in the big bloated page ( http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/fathersmt16.html ) were hard to 'interpret' but some were very straightforward. A doctrine like "Supreme Pontiff over the universal Church of God" is HUGE isn't it? But when teaching on Matthew 16, their focus is on Christ, Peter's confession (which was on Christ) and not on Peter and not on a Supreme Pontiff.

If the "reader can decide" ( as Augustine says here http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc3.iii.viii.xiv.html?highlight=peter,confession,augustine#highlight ), is this a doctrine that we shouldn't put much weight on? Augustine felt one way before, he changed his mind. But you reader, decide for yourself. This is not an option in the RCC today. You must believe that the Pope has "primacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church of God". And maybe you do, but Augustine did at one time, and changed his mind. A veritable 5th century "Meh". He would not make it through RCIA with an attitude like that.

Of Jerome it is said speaking of Peter that "He can therefore be cited as a witness, at most, for a primacy of honor, not for a supremacy of jurisdiction." This not is what Rome teaches today.

The RCC says the Bishop of Rome is not merely a Bishop, but supreme pontiff over all Christendom. Augustine says that at most a place of honor, amongst the other apostles I presume, as well as an example to us. And not supremacy of jurisdiction. This is the rub, but much too long to discuss here. If you read the history of the early church...say the first few hundred years or so, very enlightening, but hey, just believe what New Advent and Catholic.com teaches.

More from what I pasted in my previous email "like Cyprian and Jerome, he lays stress upon the essential unity of the episcopate, and insists that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were committed not to a single man, but to the whole church, which Peter was only set to represent." Not to a single man...only representative.

As well the other ECFs in the big long bloated page. The above is not inline with Catholic teaching. Catholic teaching has morphed, evolved, progressed to what it is today. Read Unam Sanctam and Vatican One. What you are *hearing* about who the Pope is may not be inline with official church teaching.

More from previous email "This father, therefore, can at all events be cited only as a witness to the limited authority of the Roman chair. And it should also, in justice, be observed, that in his numerous writings he very rarely speaks of that authority at all, and then for the most part incidentally; showing that he attached far less importance to this matter than the Roman divines."

I've emailed so many things which you have glossed over, or chosen to simply ignore. Purgatory ( which is HUGE ), Rome's universal salvation for those outside the church, as long as their heart is in the right place, progressivism. ECFs being put on equal footing with Scripture.

Re-reading the Chair of Peter post from CtoC, actually seeing some of the same stuff on the big bloated ECFs page I sent disputing the Papacy. But read in full and in their context I can see at most Peter having an important role in the lives of the Apostles. But I clicked through one of their footnotes, and it didn't jive at all with what they were claiming. In fact, it said this "Assuredly the rest of the apostles were also the same as was Peter, endowed with a like partnership both of honour and power".

And this comment from that post echoes what I've discovered. It's like the saying "if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything is a nail". Certainly it's possible that every time chair, or peter, or seat are used by an ECF it doesn't always mean "supreme pontiff"?

+++comment from CtoC Chair of Peter post

"Cyprian seems to define the one chair metaphorically as “one” for the sake of explaining the unity of doctrine, based on Peter’s confession, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God”(Matthew 16:16); that doctrine is the basis and rock and foundation of all else that is supposed to be in all the churches, and that all the bishops of all local areas hold the chair of Peter."

Also recollecting an anti-Luther book I read and Radio Replies...it's all opinion. Bursting statements of emotion and pride. But not much on substance. All philosophical, academic. Sounds good, feels good, I want it to be true sort of thing.

Peter...the rock

...many ECFs show how Peter is more representative of the church and the true Rock is Christ, the Son of the Living God.

+++

Augustine († 430), the greatest theological authority of the Latin church, at first referred the words, “On this rock I will build my church,” to the person of Peter, but afterward expressly retracted this interpretation, and considered the petra to be Christ, on the ground of a distinction between petra (ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ) and Petrus (σὺ εἷ Πέτρος); a distinction which Jerome also makes, though with the intimation that it is not properly applicable to the Hebrew and Syriac Cephas.565 “I have somewhere said of St. Peter” thus Augustine corrects himself in his Retractations at the close of his life566—“that the church is built upon him as the rock; a thought which is sung by many in the verses of St. Ambrose:

’Hoc ipsa petra ecclesiae
Canente, culpam diluit.’567

(The Rock of the church himself In the cock-crowing atones his guilt.)

But I know that I have since frequently said, that the word of the Lord, ’Thou art Petrus, and on this petra I will build my church,’ must be understood of him, whom Peter confessed as Son of the living God; and Peter, so named after this rock, represents the person of the church, which is founded on this rock and has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. For it was not said to him: ’Thou art a rock’ (petra), but, ’Thou art Peter’ (Petrus); and the rock was Christ, through confession of whom Simon received the name of Peter. Yet the reader may decide which of the two interpretations is the more probable.” In the same strain he says, in another place: “Peter, in virtue of the primacy of his apostolate, stands, by a figurative generalization, for the church .... When it was said to him, ’I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ &c., he represented the whole church, which in this world is assailed by various temptations, as if by floods and storms, yet does not fall, because it is founded upon a rock, from which Peter received his name. For the rock is not so named from Peter, but Peter from the rock (non enim a Petro petra, sed Petrus a petra), even as Christ is not so called after the Christian, but the Christian after Christ. For the reason why the Lord says, ’On this rock I will build my church’ is that Peter had said: ’Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ On this rock, which then hast confessed, says he will build my church. For Christ was the rock (petra enim erat Christus), upon which also Peter himself was built; for other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Thus the church, which is built upon Christ, has received from him, in the person of Peter, the keys of heaven; that is, the power of binding and loosing sins.”568 This Augustinian interpretation of the petra has since been revived by some Protestant theologians in the cause of anti-Romanism.569Augustine, it is true, unquestionably understood by the church the visible Catholic church, descended from the apostles, especially from Peter, through the succession of bishops; and according to the usage of his time he called the Roman church by eminence the sedes apostolica.570 But on the other hand, like Cyprian and Jerome, he lays stress upon the essential unity of the episcopate, and insists that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were committed not to a single man, but to the whole church, which Peter was only set to represent.571 With this view agrees the independent position of the North African church in the time of Augustine toward Rome, as we have already observed it in the case of the appeal of Apiarius, and as it appears in the Pelagian controversy, of which Augustine was the leader. This father, therefore, can at all events be cited only as a witness to the limited authority of the Roman chair. And it should also, in justice, be observed, that in his numerous writings he very rarely speaks of that authority at all, and then for the most part incidentally; showing that he attached far less importance to this matter than the Roman divines