Primacy of Peter

[9][10] The 4th century Latin Father Jerome, in his epistle to Augustine of Hippo, wrote that "nay more, that Peter was the prime mover in issuing the decree by which this was affirmed," in relation to the Council of Jerusalem, and again, "and to his opinion the Apostle James, and all the elders together, gave consent.

In receiving the keys, Peter takes on the office of prime minister, which was well-known to ancient and contemporary Hebrews, and depicted in the Old Testament, as the one who had authority from God to bind and loose.

[18]The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: 424 Moved by the grace of the Holy Spirit and drawn by the Father, we believe in Jesus and confess: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

For the same faith is held and handed down by the churches established in the German states, the Spains, among the Celtic tribes, in the East, in Libya, and in the central portions of the world.

"[23] Irenaeus asserted the Doctrine of Apostolic Succession to counter the claims of heretics, especially the Gnostics who were attacking the theology and authority of the mainstream church.

He called Peter "the leader of the choir, the mouth of all the apostles, the head of that tribe, the ruler of the whole world, the foundation of the Church, the ardent lover of Christ.

…The succession of the priests keeps me, from the very seat of the apostle Peter (to whom the Lord after his resurrection gave charge to feed his sheep) down to the present episcopate.

Based on his knowledge of the Petrine texts of the Gospel, and his writings which expound upon it, it is easy to see that Leo I identified with the authority bestowed on Peter as bishop of Rome.

Those present employ titles such as "the most holy and beloved of God" and "ecumenical archbishop and patriarch of great Rome" to address Pope Leo.

[44] Seven popes ruled from Avignon in France in the early 14th century, until Gregory XI risked returning to turbulent Italy and the Roman seat.

Germany, Italy, England, and the rest of Northern and Eastern Europe remained loyal to Urban, while France, Spain, Scotland, and Rome followed Clement VII (1378–1394) and his successor, Benedict XIII (1394–1417) who would reside in Avignon.

Controversy has surrounded one particular text that is linked with the Aramaic nickname כפא (Cepha), meaning "rock," that Jesus gave the man previously known as Simon.

[47] While the reasons for disagreement on the nature of the primacy are complex, hinging on matters of doctrine, history and politics, the debate is often reduced to a discussion of the meaning and translation of Matthew 16:18:[citation needed] "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.

"[52] In this traditional Orthodox and Patristic view, the church is the local Eucharistic assembly ("the diocese" in today's terminology) and the one who holds the "Chair of Peter" (Cyprian's expression) is the bishop.

It is also found in the East, among people who certainly never read the De unitate ecclesia of Cyprian, but who share its main idea, thus witnessing to it as part of the catholic tradition of the Church.

A careful analysis of ecclesiastical literature both Eastern and Western, of the first millennium, including such documents as the lives of the saint, would certainly show that this tradition was a persistent one; and indeed it belongs to the essence of Christian ecclesiology to consider any local bishop to be the teacher of his flock and therefore to fulfill sacramentally, through apostolic succession, the office of the first true believer, Peter.

Pope Gregory I states that: Your most sweet Holiness has spoken much in your letter to me about the chair of Saint Peter, Prince of the apostles, saying that he himself now sits on it in the persons of his successors.

This faith is the Father's gift by revelation; even the knowledge that we must not imagine a false Christ, a creature made out of nothing, but must confess Him the Son of God, truly possessed of the Divine nature.

For he who does not believe that his sins can be pardoned, falls into despair, and becomes worse as if no greater good remained for him than to be evil, when he has ceased to have faith in the results of his own repentance.

[61]...Peter, the first of the apostles, received the keys of the kingdom of heaven for the binding and loosing of sins; and for the same congregation of saints, in reference to the perfect repose in the bosom of that mysterious life to come did the evangelist John recline on the breast of Christ.

Come now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you would apply it to the business of your salvation, run over the apostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the apostles are still pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face of each of them severally.

"Canon 28 of Chalcedon was for [the Byzantines] one of the essential texts for the organization of the Church: "'It is for right reasons that accorded privileges to old Rome, for this city was the seat of the Emperor and the Senate.'

"[69] John Meyendorff writes, "[O]ur Byzantine documents authentically reflect the position of the Orthodox Church in regard to Roman ecclesiology, and have, as such, the value of a testimony very little known, often unpublished, and therefore ignored by a great number of contemporary theologians.

"[72] Donald A. Carson III states: Although it is true that petros and petra can mean "stone" and "rock" respectively in earlier Greek, the distinction is largely confined to poetry.

[80] Protestant counter-claims to the Catholic interpretation are largely based on the difference between the Greek words translated "Rock" in the Matthean passage.

The Lutheran theologians[85] state that the dictionaries of Koine Greek, including the authoritative[86] Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich Lexicon, indeed list both words and the passages that give different meanings for each.

[89] Taking a somewhat different approach from Cullman, they point out that the Gospel of Matthew was not written in the classical Attic form of Greek, but in the Hellenistic Koine dialect in which there is no distinction in meaning between petros and petra.

[92][93][94] Modern Lutheran historians even disclose that the Catholic Church did not, at least unanimously, regard Peter as the Rock until the 1870s: Rome's rule for explaining the Scriptures and determining doctrine is the Creed of Pius IV.

[97] However, in contrast to other groups, they believe that the line of succession was at some point broken following the death of the apostles, necessitating a restoration of the priesthood authority.

The LDS Church teaches that this restoration occurred with the appearance of the resurrected Peter, James, and John, who conferred the authority on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in 1829.