When did St Peter become the Pope? It might not be when you think
A common argument about 'recognising and resisting' the modern papal claimants is contrary to divine revelation, as taught by Vatican I, Sacred Scripture and the Church's tradition.
A common argument about 'recognising and resisting' the modern papal claimants is contrary to divine revelation, as taught by Vatican I, Sacred Scripture and the Church's tradition.
The primacy promised
(WM Review)—Everyone is familiar with the beautiful text of Matthew 16, in which Our Lord Jesus Christ promised to build His Church upon St Peter, as upon a rock:
Simon Peter answered and 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 upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. (Mt 16: 16-19)
However, just two verses later we read:
From that time Jesus began to shew to his disciples, that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the ancients and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death, and the third day rise again.
And Peter taking him, began to rebuke him, saying: Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee.
Who turning, said to Peter: Go behind me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto me: because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men. (Mt 16: 21-23)
It is very common today to hear this passage interpreted as a warning from Our Lord about how popes might act, and how we might need to approach them.
We are told that after St Peter’s confession of faith, Our Lord made him pope, but that very shortly afterwards the first pope’s conduct was such that Our Lord had to denounce him as “Satan” and a “scandal”. This argument is then used to justify the “recognise and resist” approach to putative “heretical popes”.
But this argument has a fundamental flaw: St Peter was not the pope when Our Lord addressed these words to him.
And there is more: it is directly contrary to the teaching of Vatican I—as well as Scripture and Tradition—to state to Peter was pope at the time when this rebuke was given.
The same applies, for the same reasons, to arguments based on St Peter's threefold denial of Christ in the Passion.
When did St Peter become pope?
The Catholic Church teaches infallibly that the event recorded in Matthew 16 was the moment at which the papal office was promised to St Peter, but not the moment at which the office was conferred.
The papacy was conferred on St Peter by Our Lord after His Resurrection, and before His Ascension. The moment is described as follows in the Gospel of St John:
When therefore they had dined, 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 said 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. (Jn 21: 16-17)
The teaching of the Vatican Council
The doctrine outlined above was infallibly proposed by the Vatican Council (1870) in the first chapter of the decree Pastor Aeternus, entitled “On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter”. The Council taught:
We teach and declare that, according to the gospel evidence, a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole church of God was immediately and directly promised to the blessed apostle Peter and conferred on him by Christ the lord.
It was to Simon alone, to whom he had already said:
You shall be called Cephas, that the Lord, after his confession, You are the Christ, the son of the living God, spoke these words: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the underworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
And it was to Peter alone that Jesus, after his resurrection, confided the jurisdiction of supreme pastor and ruler of his whole fold, saying:
Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.
The same doctrine was taught by Pope Leo XIII in Satis Cognitum:
The promise is carried out when Christ the Lord after His Resurrection, having thrice asked Peter whether he loved Him more than the rest, lays on him the injunction: "Feed my lambs - feed my sheep." That is He confides to him, without exception, all those who were to belong to His fold. […]
These, then, are the duties of a shepherd: to place himself as leader at the head of his flock, to provide proper food for it, to ward off dangers, to guard against insidious foes, to defend it against violence: in a word to rule and govern it. Since therefore Peter has been placed as shepherd of the Christian flock he has received the power of governing all men for whose salvation Jesus Christ shed His blood.1
And, in Mystici Corporis, Pius XII taught:
You know, Venerable Brethren, that after He had ruled the "little flock" Himself during His mortal pilgrimage, Christ our Lord, when about to leave this world and return to the Father, entrusted to the Chief of the Apostles the visible government of the entire community He had founded.2
The witness of the Fathers
The Fathers of the Church witness to the same doctrine as the constant teaching of the Church’s Magisterium.
St Ambrose taught:
The Lord does not hesitate. He interrogates, not to learn but to teach. When He was about to ascend into Heaven He left us, as it were, a vice-gerent of His love... and so because Peter alone of all others professes his love he is preferred to all-that being the most perfect he should govern the more perfect.3
And St. Augustine stated that:
The triple confession replaces the triple denial, so that the conversation would manifest more love than fear. Let it be an office of love to feed the Lord’s flock, if it was a sign of fear to deny the Shepherd. The threefold repetition also signifies the solemnity of the conferral of the right.4
In Origen we read:
When the supreme power of feeding the sheep was given to Peter, and the Church was founded on him as upon solid ground, the confession of no other virtue was demanded of him except that of charity.5
And Aphraates, a fourth century Syrian bishop, wrote:
To Simon the leader of the disciples, when he said in denial: ‘I do not know the man’; he did penance and he poured out an abundance of tears; and the Lord took him, and made him the foundation and called him the Rock, for the building of the Church.6
A divinely revealed dogma
That the papal jurisdiction was conferred on St Peter by Our Lord Jesus Christ after the resurrection is a divinely revealed dogma. Joachim Salaverri S.J. states that:
After his resurrection from the dead Christ the Lord conferred the Primacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church directly and immediately on St. Peter.7
This dogma, he states, “defined divine faith in Vatican Council I where it was expressly defined that the conferral of the Primacy to St. Peter was made by the Lord with the words in John 21:15-17.”8
At the moment when Our Lord said to St Peter, “Get behind me, Satan”, he was speaking to a man to whom the papal office had been promised but not yet conferred.
To deny this is directly contrary to divine revelation.
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Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, No. 12.
Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, No. 40.
S. Ambrosius, Exposit. in Evang. secundum Lucam, lib. x., nn. 175-176. Quoted by Pope Leo XIII in Satis Cognitum, No.12.
St Augustine of Hippo, Serm. 285. Quoted in Joachim Salaverri S.J., Sacrae Theologiae Summa IB, (1956; translated by Kenneth Baker S.J., 2015), p 87.
Origen, In Romanos. Salaverri, p 93.
Aphraates, Demonstrationes 7,15. Salaverri, p 93.
Salaverri p 84.
Salaverri, p 84.
Excellent Point, Mr. McC. I love St. Peter and your brief for him and the Petrine Office. Great essay.
Good article.
I am curious about your thoughts on way of reading Matthew 16 that I have not read elsewhere but that strikes me as plausible and perhaps just overlooked.
In Matthew 16:18, Jesus says to Peter, "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." In Greek, the word for "Peter" is "Πέτρος" (Petros), which means "rock," and the word for "rock" in "upon this rock" is "πέτρα" (petra). Both words are related and signify a rock or stone, indicating a solid foundation. But I am struck by the possibility that our Lord’s reference to “this rock (petra)” might not be an alternative way of describing “Peter (Petros)” but instead might be a forward looking reference to the divine powers granted to the office that Peter will occupy; i.e. petra is not merely a strange outcome of the fact that the Aramaic and Greek for rock don’t align in terms of gender, but is an intended reference by Jesus to the divine powers he is giving to the office in verse 19 and it is that divine office that is the rock upon which He will build his church. The divinely protected office that Peter will eventually occupy is what will preserve the church, not Peter’s confession or Peter himself. It is rather the office that he will be the first to occupy.
19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,* and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."