St. Peter, His Name and His Office, as Set Forth in Holy Scripture

But, 4, what does our Lord censure and reject from His Church? It is plain that He compares kingdom with kingdom, and the kingdom of heaven, which is the Church, with human kingdoms, and, moreover, that the negative quality as to which, in the clause, "But you not so," the two are compared, is, not the fact that there is pre-eminence and rule in both, but a certain mode of exercising them. This is, the pomp and ambition expressed in the words, "lording it," "exercising authority," "are called benificent." As again is shewn in the repeated declaration that what had been most alien from the spirit of His own ministry, should not appear in the ministry that He would establish after Him. Now He had shown no pomp and pride of dominion, but yet He had shown the dominion itself in the fullest sense, the power of passing laws, enjoining precepts, defining rites, threatening punishments, governing, in fine, His Church, so that He had been pre-eminently "the Lord." Lastly, this is shown in the words recorded by S. John, as said shortly after on this same occasion. "You call Me Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet: for I have given you an example, that as I have done unto you, so you also may do."99

Now nothing can show more strongly than this discourse the pre-eminence and authority which our Lord was going to establish in one of His Apostles over the rest. For here we have His intention disclosed that in His kingdom, which is the Church's, some one there should be "the Great," "the First," and "the Ruler," who should discharge, in due proportion and analogy, the office which He Himself, before He returned to the Father, had held. But before we consider further who this one was, let us look at the subject from a somewhat different point of view.

And 100here we must lay down three points, the first of which is, that our Lord, during His life on earth, had acted in two capacities, the one, as the Author and Founder, the other, as the Head and Supreme Ruler of His Church. His functions in the former capacity are too plain to need enlarging upon. He disclosed the objects of our faith: He instituted rites and sacraments: He provided by the establishment of a ministry for the perpetual growth and duration of the Church. It was in this sense that He spoke of Himself to His apostles, as "the Master," who could share His prerogatives with no one: "But be not you called Rabbi, for one is your Master, and all you are brethren."101 Thus is He, "the Teacher," "the Master," throughout the Gospel.

But He likewise acted as the Head of His Church, with the dignity and authority of the chief visible Ruler. He was the living bond of His disciples: the person around whom they grouped: whose presence wrought harmony: whose voice terminated contention among them: who was ever at hand to solve emergent difficulties. Thus it is that prophecy distinguished Him as "the Lord," "the King," "the Shepherd;" "on whose shoulders is the government," "who should rule His people, Israel." And His Church answers to Him in this capacity, as the family, the house, the city, the fold, and the kingdom.

Thus His relation to the Church was twofold, as Founder, and as Supreme Pastor.

Secondly, the Church shares her Lord's prerogative of unchangeableness, and as He is "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," so She, His mystical Body, in her proportion, remains like herself from the beginning to the end. The Church and Christianity are bound to each other in a mutual relation; the Church is Christianity embodied; Christianity is the Church in conception: the consistency and identity which belong to Christianity belong likewise to her; neither can change their nature, nor put on another form.

But, thirdly, the Church would be unlike herself, if, having been from her very cradle visibly administered by the rule of One, she fell subsequently, either under no rule at all, according to the doctrine of the Independents, or under the rule of the multitude, according to the Calvinists, or under the rule of an aristocracy, as Episcopalians imagine. A change of government superinduces a change of that substantial form which constitutes a society. But this holds in her case especially, above all other societies, as she came forth from the creative hand of her Lord, her whole organization instinct with inward life, her government directly instituted by God Himself, in which lies her point of distinction from all temporal polities.

For imagine, that upon our Lord's departure, no one had been deputed to take the visible headship and rule over the Church. How, without ever fresh revelations, and an abiding miraculous power, could that complex unity of faith, of worship, and of polity, have been maintained, which the102 Lord has set forth as the very sign and token of His Church? A multitude scattered throughout the most distant regions, and naturally differing in race, in habits, in temperament, how could it possibly be joined in one, and remain one, without a powerful bond of unity? Hence, in the fourth century, S. Jerome103 observed, "The safety of the Church depends on the dignity of the supreme Priest, in whom, if all do not recognise a peculiar and supereminent power, there will arise as many schisms in the Church as there are priests." And the repentant confessors out of Novatian's schism, in the middle of the third century, "We know that Cornelius (the Pope) has been elected Bishop of the most holy Catholic Church, by Almighty God, and Christ our Lord. – We are not ignorant that there is one God, one Christ the Lord, whom we confessed, one Holy Spirit, and that there ought to be one bishop in the Catholic Church."104 And these words, both of S. Jerome, and of the confessors, if they primarily apply to the diocesan bishop among his priests and people, so do they with far greater force apply to the chief bishop among his brethren in the whole Church. Now, as our Lord willed that His Church should do without fresh revelations, and new miracles, such as at first accredited it, and that it should preserve unity; and as, when it was a little flock, which could be assembled in a single room, it had yet one visible Ruler, how can we doubt that He willed this form of government to remain, and that there should be one perpetually to rule it in His name, and preserve it in unity, since it was to become co-extensive with the earth?

Again, we may ask, was the condition of fold, house, family, city, and kingdom, so repeatedly set forth in Holy Scripture, to belong to the Church only while Christ was yet on earth, or to be the visible evidence of its truth for ever? Do these terms exhibit a temporary, or a perpetual state? Each one of these symbols by itself, and all together, involve one visible Ruler: therefore, so long as the Church can be called with truth, the one house, the one family, the one city, the one fold, the one kingdom, so long must it have one visible and supreme Ruler.

But once grant that such a one there was after our Lord's departure, and no one can doubt that one to have been Peter. It is easier to deny the supreme Ruler altogether, than to make him any one but Peter. The whole course of the Gospels shows none other marked out by so many distinctions. Thus, even those who wish to refuse a real power to his Primacy, are compelled by the force of evidence to allow him a Primacy of order and honour.

But nothing did our Lord more pointedly reject than the vain pomp of titles and honours. In nothing is His own example more marked than in that He exercised real power and supreme authority without pomp or show. Nothing did He enjoin more emphatically on the disciple who should be the "Great one," and "the Ruler," among his brethren, than that he must follow his Master in being the servant of all. A Primacy, then, consisting in titles and mere precedency, is of all things most opposed to the spirit and the precepts of our Lord. And so the Primacy which He designated must be one of real power and pre-eminent authority.

And this brings us back to the passage of S. Luke which we were considering, where four things prove that Christ had such a headship in view. First, the occasion, for the Apostles were contending for a place of real authority. The sons of Zebedy expressed it by sitting on His right hand and on His left, that is, holding the second and the third place of dignity in the kingdom.

Secondly, the double comparison which our Lord used, the one negative, the other affirmative: in the former, contrasting the Church's ruler with the kings of the Gentiles, He excluded pomp and splendour, lordship and ambition; in the latter, referring him to His own example, who had the most real and true power and superiority, He taught him to unite these with a meekness and an attention to the wants of his brethren, of which His own life had been the model.

Thirdly, the words "the First," "the Greater," and "the Ruler," indicate the pre-eminence of the future head, for as they appear in the context, and according to their Scriptural force, they indicate not a vain and honorary, but a real authority, one of them being even the very title given to our Lord.

And, fourthly, this is proved by the object in view, which is, maintaining the identity of the Church, and the form which it had from the beginning, and preserving its manifold unity. As to its identity, and original form, it is needless to observe that Christ exercised in it not an honorary but a real supremacy, so that under Him its government was really in the hands of one, the Ruler. As to the preservation of its unity – and especially a unity so complex – the very analogy of human society will sufficiently teach us that it is impossible to be preserved without a strong central authority. Contentions can neither be checked as they arise, nor terminated when they come to a head, without the interference of a power to which all yield obedience. And the living example of those religious societies which have not this power is an argument whose force none can resist. Where Peter is not, there is neither unity of faith, nor of charity, nor of external regimen.

No sooner 105then had our Lord in this manner pointed out that there should be one hereafter to take His place on earth and to be the Ruler of his brethren, expressing at the same time the toilsome nature of the trust, and the duty of exercising it with the spirit which He, the great model, had shown, than turning His discourse from the Apostles, whom hitherto He had addressed in common, to Peter singly, He proceeded to designate Peter as that one, to assure him of a singular privilege, and to enforce upon him a proportionate duty.

And first a break in the hitherto continuous discourse is ushered in by the words, "And the Lord said," and what follows is fixed to Peter specially, by the reiteration of his name, "Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat: " to have you, that is not Peter alone, but all the Apostles, the same you, whom in the preceding verses He had so often repeated, "you not so," "but I am in the midst of you," "but you are they that have continued with Me," "and I dispose to you a kingdom," "that you may eat and drink with Me;" and what follows? What was the resource provided by the Lord against this attack of the great enemy on all His fold? "But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou being once converted confirm thy brethren." Not "I have prayed for you," where all were assaulted, "that your faith fail not," but I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not! Nothing can be more emphatic than this change of number, when our Lord throughout all His previous discourse had used the plural, and now continuing the plural to designate the persons attacked, uses the singular to specify the person for whom He has prayed, and to whom He assures a singular privilege, the fruit of that prayer. Nothing could more strongly prove that this address was special to Peter.

Nor less evident is the singular dignity of what is here promised to him. First of all, it is the fruit of the prayer of Christ. Of what importance must that be which was solicited by our Lord of His Father, and at a moment when the redemption of the world was being accomplished, and when His passion may be said to have begun? Of what importance that which was to be the defence of not Peter only, but all the disciples, against the most formidable assault of the great enemy, who had106 demanded them as it were to deliver them over to punishment? And this was "that thy faith fail not." How is it possible to draw any other conclusion here than what S. Leo in the fifth century expressed so clearly before all the bishops of Italy? "The danger from the temptation of fear was common to all the Apostles, and all equally needed the help of the divine protection, since the devil desired to dismay all, to crush all; and yet a special care of Peter is undertaken by our Lord, and He prays peculiarly for the faith of Peter, as if the state of the rest would be more sure, if the mind of their chief were not conquered. In Peter, therefore, the fortitude of all is protected, and the help of divine grace is so ordered, that the firmness which through Christ is given to Peter, through Peter is conferred on the Apostles."107 And if such is the importance of the help secured, no less is the charge following: "And thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren." To confirm others, is to be put in an office of dignity and authority over them. And his brethren were those whom our Lord till now had been addressing in common with him; to whom He had just disclosed "a Greater" and "a Ruler" "among" them; that is, the Apostles themselves. Among these, then, when our Lord's visible presence was withdrawn, Peter was to be the principle of stability, binding and moulding them into one building. For one cannot fail to see how this great promise and prophecy answer to those in Matthew. There our Lord, as Architect, promised to lay Peter as the foundation of the Church, against which the gates of hell should not prevail: here, being about to leave the world, when His own work was finished, to ascend unto His Father, and to assume His great power and reign, He makes Peter as it were the Architect to carry on the work which was to be completed by His grace and authority, but by human co-operation. So exact is the resemblance that we may put the two promises in parallel columns to illustrate each other:

But light is thrown on the greatness of this pre-eminence thus bestowed on Peter of confirming his brethren, if we consider that the term is applied to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as bestowing by inherent power what is here granted by participation. Of the Father it is said, "To Him that is able to establish you according to my Gospel – the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be honour and glory." And again, "Now He that confirmeth us with you in Christ, and that hath anointed us, is God;" and again, "The God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will Himself perfect you, confirm, establish you."108 Of Christ likewise: "As therefore you have received Jesus Christ the Lord, walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and confirmed in the faith." And "waiting for the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who also will confirm you unto the end without crime." And again: "Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself exhort your hearts, and confirm you in every good word and work."109 And the Holy Spirit is continually mentioned as the author of this gift, when, for instance, to Him is ascribed "the teaching all truth," "the leading into all truth," "the bringing to mind" all things which Christ had said. And S. Paul prays "that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened by His Spirit with might unto the inward man."110

What, therefore, is proper to the most Holy Trinity, and given in the highest sense by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, it was the will of Christ should be shared by Peter, according as man is capable of it. That is, it was His pleasure that the same man, whom He had intimately associated with Himself by communicating to him His prerogative to be the Rock, should be closely joined with the Blessed Trinity by participating in that privilege, whereby, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, He is the confirmation and stability of the faithful. But if any rule there can be whereby to measure pre-eminence and dignity, it is surely that which is derived from participation of divine properties and offices. And the closer that by these Peter is shown to have approached to God, the higher his exaltation above the rest of his brethren, who, as it has been observed, are the Apostles. To them he is the Rock, and them he is to confirm. Thus Theophylact, in the eleventh century, commenting on this text, says: "The plain meaning of this is, that, since I hold thee as the ruler of My disciples, after thou shalt have wept over thy denial and repented, confirm the rest. For this belongs to thee as being after Me the rock and support" (literally, confirmation) "of the Church. Now one may see that this is said not only of the apostles, that they are confirmed by Peter, but also concerning all the faithful until the consummation of the world."

But looking more closely into the nature of this dignity, since Christ, by the bestowal of heavenly gifts, caused Peter to be conspicuous through the firmness of his own faith, and through the charge of confirming the faith of his brethren, we can call it by no fitter name than a Primacy of faith. For it has these two qualities: it cannot fail itself; and it confirms others. And for the authority which it carries, such a Primacy of faith cannot even be imagined without at the same time imagining the office by which Peter was bound to watch over the firmness and integrity of the common faith. In this office two things are involved; first, the right to, and therefore the possession of, all things necessary for its fulfilment; and secondly, the duty by which all were bound to agree in the profession of one faith with Peter. So that Peter's dignity, rightly termed the Primacy of faith, mainly consists in the supreme right of demanding from all an agreement in faith with him.

It111 remains to explain the proper force of the word confirm. Now this is a term of architecture, and as such is joined with other terms relating to that art, as by S. Peter, "the God of all grace – Himself fit you together" (as living spiritual stones,) "confirm, strengthen, ground you."112 It means, to make anything fit so firmly that it cannot be shaken. Thus in Holy Writ it frequently bears metaphorically a moral signification, such as encouraging, supporting, as we say, confirming the resolution, as in the passage just quoted; and again, "Be watchful, and confirm the things that remain, which are ready to die."113 Now it cannot be doubted that the phrase "confirm thy brethren," carries a moral sense very like that in which the word confirm, when applied to the spiritual building of the Church, is used of God and of Christ,114 from whom the Church has both its being and its perseverance to the end, and again of the Apostles, who strengthen the flock entrusted to them by the imparting spiritual gifts, as S. Paul says, "I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual grace to strengthen you;"115 or, again, of Bishops, who, as sent by the Apostles, and charged by the Holy Spirit with the government of the Church, are bid to be watchful, and see that those who stand do not fall, and those who are in danger do not perish.116 Accordingly, when it is said to Peter, "And thou in thy turn one day confirm thy brethren," the charge and office are laid upon him, as an architect divinely chosen, of holding together, strengthening, and keeping in their place, the several parts of the ecclesiastical structure.

But what are these parts to be confirmed, and what is the nature of the confirmation?

As to the first question there can be no controversy, it being determined by the words, "confirm thy brethren:" and it is plain from what is said above, that, by brethren, are meant the Apostles. He had, therefore, the Apostles committed to his charge immediately: but likewise, the rest of all the faithful, mediately. When a person has been named by Christ to confirm the Apostles expressly, the nature of the case does not allow that the whole congregation of believers be not in their persons committed to him. The care of the flock is manifestly involved in the care of the shepherds: and no one in his senses can doubt that the man who is charged to support the pillars, is charged to keep in their place the inferior stones.

And as to the nature of the confirmation, it is for protection against the fraud of the great enemy. And the danger lay in losing the faith. Peter, then, is charged to confirm, in such sense that neither the pillars of the Church, nor its inferior parts, may, by the loss of faith, be moved from their place, and so severed from the Church's structure. No charge can be higher than such an office of confirmation; nor for any thing need we to be more thankful to our Saviour; but, particularly, nothing can more distinctly shew the divinely-appointed relation between Peter on the one hand, and on the other, the rest of the Apostles, and the whole company of the faithful; nothing define more clearly the special authority of Peter; that is, to protect and strengthen the unity of the faith, and to possess all powers needed for such protection.

This charge was given after that by the prayer of Christ the privilege had been gained for Peter's faith, that it should never fail. Hence, that faith is become, in virtue of such prayer, the infallible standard of evangelical truth: as S. Cyprian expressed it of old, "that faith of the Romans, which perfidy cannot approach."117 It follows that all the faithful owe to it obedience. And Peter's authority rests on a double title, external of mission, internal of spiritual gift: the former contained in the words of Christ the legislator, "And thou,118 in thy turn, one day confirm thy brethren: " the latter, in the words of Christ, the bestower of all gifts, "But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."

More than a thousand years ago two Easterns seem to have expressed all this, one the Bishop Stephen, suppliantly approaching Pope Martin I., in the Lateran Synod of a. d. 649, and speaking of "the blessed Peter, in a manner special and peculiar to himself, having above all a firm and immutable faith in our Lord God, to consider with compassion, and confirm his spiritual partners and brethren when tossed by doubt: inasmuch as he has received power and sacerdotal authority, according to the dispensation, over all, from the very God for our sakes incarnate."119 And Theodore, Abbot of the Studium, at Constantinople, addressing Pope Paschal I., a. d. 817, in the midst of persecution from the state, as if he were Peter himself: "Hear, O Apostolic Head, O shepherd of the sheep of Christ, set over them by God, O door-keeper of the kingdom of heaven, O rock of the faith, upon which the Catholic Church is built. For Peter art thou, who adornest and governest the See of Peter. To thee, said Christ our God, 'and thou, in thy turn, one day confirm thy brethren.' Behold the time, behold the place, help us, thou who art ordained by God for this. Stretch forth thy hand as far as may be: power thou hast from God, because thou art the chief of all."120

Now let us121 view in its connexion the whole scope of our Lord's discourse. We shall see how naturally the contest of the Apostles arose out of what He had told them, and how well the former and the latter part of His answer harmonize together, and terminate that contest. We learn from S. John's record of this divine conversation, that our Lord besought His Father, saying: "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name – but now I come to Thee: " that is, so long as I was with them visibly in the world, (for invisibly I will always be with them, and nurture them with the spiritual influx of the Vine,) I kept them united in Thy name: "but now I come to Thee," I leave the world, I relinquish the office of visible head. It remains, that by the appointment of another visible head, Thou shouldst entrust him with My office, provide for the conspicuous unity of all, and preserve them joined to each other and to Us. So S. Luke tells us, that no sooner had our Lord declared to the Apostles, "the Son of man indeed goeth according to that which is determined," than they began to have a strife among them, "which of them should seem to be the greater." For they had heard that Christ would withdraw His visible presence, and they had heard Him also earnestly entreating of the Father to provide for their visible unity. Accordingly, the time seemed at hand when another was to take this office of visible head; hence their questioning, who should be the greater among them. Now our Lord does not reprove this inference of theirs, but He does reprove the temper in which they were coveting pre-eminence. For, engaged as they were in this strife, He warned them that the person who should be "the Greater and the Ruler" among them, must follow in the discharge of his office the rule and the standard which He had set up in His own conduct, and not that which the kings of the Gentiles follow. Thus, setting these in sharp contrast, He proceeds. "The kings, indeed, of the nations, lord it over their subjects, and love high titles, and to be called benefactors: but I, though Lord and Master amongst you, have dealt otherwise, as you know. For I have exercised, not a lordship, but a servitude: I have not sat at table, but waited: I have not cared for titles, but called you friends and brethren. Let this example then be before you all, but specially before him who is to be the greater and the ruler among you. For I appoint unto you, and dispose of you, as My Father hath disposed of Me; of Me He hath disposed that through humiliation, emptying of Myself, ignominy, and manifold temptations, I should gain the kingdom, reach the joys of heaven, and obtain all power in heaven and on earth. So likewise dispose I of you, that, through humility, sufferings, reproaches, hunger, thirst, and all manner of temptations, you may reach whither I have come, being worthy, after your hunger and your thirst, to eat and drink at My table in My kingdom; after being despised and dishonoured, to sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Now, hitherto you have trodden with Me this royal way full of sorrows, and have continued with Me in My temptations. But little will it profit to begin, if you persevere not to the end. None shall be crowned, save he who has contended lawfully; none be saved, but he who perseveres to the end. Will you remain with Me still in your temptations to come, and when I am no longer present with you visibly, to protect and exhort, will you preserve your steadfastness? Simon, Simon, behold! I see Satan exerting all his force to overcome your purpose, and to destroy the fidelity which you have hitherto shewn Me. I see the danger to your faith and your salvation approaching. But I, who, when visibly present with you, left nothing undone to guard, protect, and strengthen you visibly, so, too, when separated from your bodily sight, will yet not leave you without a visible support. Wherefore, Peter, I have prayed for thee, that thou fail not, and thou, in thy turn, one day confirm thy brethren. Remember that thou hast to discharge that part visibly towards thy brethren, which I, while yet mortal, and visible, discharged: remember, that I therefore had special care of thee, because it was My will, that thou, confirmed by My prayers, shouldst confirm thy brethren, My disciples, and My friends."122