It’s impossible to talk about the Catholic Church without
considering the role of the pope, and for a Roman Catholic it’s impossible to
talk about the pope without talking about Peter.
I’m a big fan of Peter. He was impulsive, often spoke first
before he really thought through the question, and made some mistakes. I am a
fan because I can relate. Peter was also the obvious leader of the apostles. He
was an amazing man and a great leader, and, like most of the apostles, he was
martyred because of his belief in Jesus Christ.
The Catholic Church makes some unique claims regarding Peter,
and one of their foundational beliefs is that the pope is a direct successor of
Peter and, as a result, is the head of the church. Let’s begin this relatively
delicate topic by first examining the Roman Catholic teachings regarding the
pope. These would include:
• Christ made Peter the leader and the first pope.
• Christ made Peter the ultimate authority and leader of the church.
• Peter became the first bishop of Rome, making Rome and the bishop of Rome
the head of the true church.
• This authority, leadership, and infallibility is passed on to Peter’s
successors—the popes.
As we begin to discuss this cardinal doctrine of the Roman
Catholic Church, I want to be upfront that I have no problem with the pope
or his role in leading the largest Christian denomination, the Roman
Catholic Church. Churches still need someone or some group that is in
charge, someone designated as the leader(s). In industry we have had presidents and
chairmen in charge for years and started calling the top guy or gal
in business the chief executive officer about twenty-five years ago.
Almost all organizations have some formalized procedures to provide for
succession (e.g., new CEOs), and large organizations typically have
some accountability group (e.g., a board of directors, board of elders, or
trustees) that provides oversight.
Many Bible scholars will argue that having accountability
through a plurality of elders was the way the church was originally organized. However,
we know from history that soon after the death of the original apostles, a
single elder or bishop who would be the head of a geographical area and a
group of churches replaced the plurality of elders in the church.
Let’s take a look at the unique issues related to the role, the
authority, and the position of the pope.
Peter as the Leader and in Rome
Peter was certainly one of the leaders of the apostles. He,
James, and John are often the three included in the inner circle with
Jesus. In every one of the lists of the apostles in the Gospels, Peter is
named first. He was present on the Mount of Transfiguration with James
and John. Jesus took him along with James and John into the Garden
of Gethsemane.
While Peter denied Christ, as Jesus had predicted, Jesus
restored him with the “do you love me…feed my sheep” dialogue recorded
in John 21:17.
The book of Acts identifies Peter as one of the leaders of the
early church. As an apostle he had influence on and was honored by the
early church. In the catacombs of Rome, there are inscriptions honoring
both Peter and Paul.
However, there are no indications in these inscriptions or in
any other historical writings from the first century that Peter exercised
any authority in the church in general or in Rome in particular.
We do have some clue regarding early church leadership in the
scriptures. Luke, Peter, and Paul all discussed early church leadership.
Luke is the author of both the Gospel attributed to him as well as the
Acts of the Apostles; the apostle Peter wrote both 1 Peter and 2 Peter;
and the apostle Paul wrote nearly one third of the New Testament.
In particular Paul talked about the role of Peter in his letter
to the Galatians:
They recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of
preaching the Gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the
circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the
circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. (Gal.
2:7–8)
Paul’s journey and arrival in Rome are documented in great
detail in the book of Acts, chapter 28. Luke wrote about Paul’s welcome to
Rome, his imprisonment, and his teachings. Paul was in Rome for two
years, and, according to tradition, he was beheaded, which would have
been the appropriate manner of capital punishment for a Roman citizen.
By tradition Peter made it to Rome and was crucified upside
down. However, there is neither biblical record nor early church writings
attesting to Peter’s arrival, ministry, or death in Rome.
Peter is not referenced at all in the Acts of the Apostles after
the Council of Jerusalem in Acts, chapter 15. In this council Paul
and Barnabas traveled to Jerusalem to have the apostles settle the
dispute regarding circumcision. After some discussion Peter addressed the
issue, and then James, Jesus’s brother, provided the final decision.
It is interesting to note that we have extrabiblical evidence
(historical writings regarding this time period) that state it was not
Peter who was chosen to lead the early church, but James, the brother of
the Lord.
Eusebius Pamphilus (AD 263–340) was a bishop and a scholar in
the early church. He is best known for his ecclesiastical history,
including the history of the church to AD 324. His stated intention in
writing the history was to connect the church of which he was part to the
beginnings of Christianity.
Eusebius wrote:
Then there was James who was known as the brother of the
Lord. For he too was called Joseph’s son, and Joseph, Christ’s father,
though in fact the Virgin was his betrothed, and before they came together
she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit, as the
inspired Gospel narrative tells us. This James, whom the
early Christians surnamed the Righteous because of his
outstanding virtue, was the fi rst (as the recorders tell us) to be
elected to the episcopal throne of the Jerusalem church. (19)
Eusebius’s attribution of James rather than Peter as the first
bishop is echoed by another historian of the early church, Clement of
Alexandria (AD 150–215), who preceded Eusebius by fifty years. Clement was
also a scholar, and both the Roman Catholic Church and the
Orthodox Church considered him a church father.
Clement wrote:
Peter, James and John, after the Ascension of the
Savior, did not claim preeminence because the Savior had
especially honored them, but chose James the Righteous as Bishop of
Jerusalem…James the Righteous, John, and Peter were entrusted by the Lord
after his resurrection with the higher knowledge. They imparted it to the
other apostles, and the other apostles to the seventy. (20)
In addition, while we don’t typically try to prove something by
its omission, despite the fact that Luke recorded that Paul was in Rome
for the last years of Paul’s life, Luke did not mention Peter’s being in
Rome. During the time Paul was in Rome, the same two years Luke
recorded, Paul wrote to Timothy from Rome around AD 65 and talked about
a number of Christians who had served with him, including Demas, Crescens,
Luke, and Titus. However, Paul related that he had “fought the good fight”
and that the “time of his death was near.” In his final words from Rome,
he encouraged Timothy to come and visit if possible and that “only Luke is
with me” (2 Tim. 4:11).
It’s a stretch to find early support of a claim that Peter
founded the church in Rome or exercised any authority while there.
However, by the fourth century, the tradition of Peter’s being the first
bishop of Rome was well established, and Pope Leo I used it to request
primacy among all of the other bishops.
The Pope’s Authority in the Church
For one thousand years, and actually to this day, as evidenced
by the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the authority of the church
was in the councils. We saw this earlier, when I referenced the Council
of Jerusalem in Acts, chapter 15 (it is also recorded in Galatians,
chapter 2). According to the account in the Bible, Judas and Silas
delivered the apostles’ (plural) determination by letter to the
churches—not the ruling of one individual. However, had it been one
individual, he would most likely have been James, not Peter.
Constantine called the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, later called
the First Ecumenical Council because it included various known
Christian churches and was presided over by Constantine and the Patriarch
of Alexandria. The bishop of Rome (a.k.a. the pope) did not attend
this council.
The bishop of Rome attended the Council of Constantinople in
AD 381 and the Council of Ephesus in AD 431. The emperors and
empresses of Rome called these councils and later councils together, and
the decisions were made by majority vote of the bishops in attendance.
The bishop of Rome did not have a major role in these councils until
the First Lateran Council of 1123, after the Great Schism, when the
bishop of Rome excommunicated the bishop of Constantinople, and the
other patriarchs of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch sided with the
latter.
Good Popes, Bad Popes
Anyone who has seen the TV series The Borgias has seen some of
the horrible accusations that have been leveled against the popes. As
with most accusations against world leaders, there are both truth and
exaggeration in the charges. History records that there have been some
great popes and some really bad popes. We aren’t going to go through
an exhaustive list, as it would be contrary to the overall theme of
reconciliation and fairness. However, some examples would be
helpful.
Bad popes include Stephen VI (AD 896–897), who had his
predecessor exhumed and put on trial. Pope Benedict IX was a highly
immoral man who may have been made pontiff when he was in his early teens
or possibly as old as twenty. He reportedly sold his papal throne, and
later the church excommunicated him. Great popes outnumber these
bad popes ten to one, and if I were listing them, there would be many,
including the recent John Paul II (now a saint), St. Leo I, and St.
Gregory I.
The Honor Versus the Authority of the Pope
As we look back to the early church, and even as late as the
medieval Church, the bishop of Rome was definitely in a position of honor.
This was recorded specifically in the Edict of Milan in AD 313. There
was, however, a clear distinction between honor and authority in many
historical documents from the same period. Historically bishops (and patriarchs in
particular) had authority over geographical regions. A number of church
councils referenced this authority, and clearly it was part of the Roman
state governance. Bishops and patriarchs who overstepped their geographic
boundaries were often criticized by the others.
Apostolic Succession
The Roman Catholic Church identifies the pope as the successor
of St. Peter. Early church writings indicated that all of the bishops were
the successors of the apostles, but if particular leadership was truly in
the hands of the apostle Peter, there is neither biblical nor historical
indication that this leadership was to be passed on to his particular
successors.
The actual record of successors in the Bible is not so
honorable. After two hundred years of rule by judges, ancient Israel
appealed to the prophet Samuel and demanded a king. The biblical account
makes it very clear that both the prophet as well as Jehovah God were displeased with
the request and predicted Israel would ultimately suffer by having one
leader who had great authority and no accountability.
Samuel appointed Saul as king and typically disappointed both
God and man. Jonathan was his successor and heir, but God had a better
plan and put young David on the throne as the king of Judah and later all
of Israel. King David had a number of sons, and before wise King
Solomon came to the throne, David’s sons Amnon and Daniel were likely
successors. Amnon, however, was best known for the rape of his half
sister, Tamar, and the Bible doesn’t mention Daniel, also called Chileab,
other than telling us that his mother was Abigail.
Man’s plans to name a successor of a successful or even a great
man actually fail much more often than they succeed. I’ve seen this a
number of times in business and industry, as I’ve had many good friends
who were good business leaders, talented entrepreneurs, wise, and very
successful. Their sons and daughters, however, were not as talented.
Many businesses don’t survive when the second or third generation is in
power.
Interestingly (at least to me), the only instance of succession
in the New Testament is recorded in the book of Acts. After Jesus’s
ascension, the apostles traveled back to Jerusalem and returned to the
upper room. There they decided to replace the traitor, Judas. Peter stood
up and used an obscure scripture in the book of Psalms that stated, “May
another take his place of leadership” (Ps.109:8).
The apostles nominated two men to succeed Judas as one of
the twelve apostles. The apostles prayed and decided to cast lots
(equivalent to flipping a coin). Eventually they chose Matthias as the
successor.
This is not the place to discuss the role of the Holy Spirit
(which had not yet indwelled the apostles), biblical inerrancy, and
historical accuracy. However, it is clear that while it was the apostles’
intention to put Matthias in a particular role, the apostle Paul was the
one the Lord picked.
In my church history class, I usually ask my students to name
the books of the Bible written by the apostle Matthias, to wake them up
to the obvious fact that succession, leadership, calling, and even
apostleship are of the Lord’s doing and not something either man or
process can guarantee.
Was
Peter the first Pope? Should Christians pray the Rosary? Should priests
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