www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Scripture and Patristic Writings Peter, the Rock, the Keys & the Chair

Just watched this lecture by Steve Ray. Peter, the Rock, the Keys & the Chair [https]. He talks about reading the Bible not just from our American perspective, but from Jewish perspective, which was the way much was written and how the apostles would have understood Jesus's message, including Matt. 16:18-19. I've given a few salient points below. I would suggest you listen to the whole explanation.

Rock

Why did Jesus take the disciples to Caesarea Philippi? Before the tetrarch Philip renamed it for himself, Caesarea Philippi was called Paneas. It's located near the border of Lebanon and was a pagan area. Paneas refers to the Greek god Pan, who was the principle god worshipped there. Pan was the patron of shepherds and flocks. Peter was to be deputized as shepherd to Jesus's flock. Protestants talk about the difference between Greek petros and petra (masculine and feminine) - rock and stone. However, in Aramaic, both words are the same - kepa, from which we get Cephus.

Keys

"And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven." The keys are the same as those in Is. 22:20-24 - the keys kept by the steward appointed by the king. "... I will ... gird him with your sash, and give over to him your authority.... I will place the keys of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open." Thus, the keys are not given to just Peter, but to Peter's Office, which has Linus, Cletus, Clement, ... Francis as his successors.

Chair

In Jewish tradition, when Moses came down from Sinai, he brought 3 things: The Written Law 10 (Commandments), the Oral Law (Talmud and Mishnah), and Authority to Judge. The Chair of Peter is the same judgment seat as held by Moses in Ex. 18:15-16 - The people come to me to consult God. Whenever they have a disagreement, they come to me to have me settle the matter between them and make known to them God's decisions and regulations." The judgment seat was another Office, passed down also to minor judges (bishops, priests). Matt. 23:1 - “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat." Seat in Greek is kathedria.

Quote from Cyprian of Carthage

On him [Peter] He builds the Church, and to him He gives the command to feed the sheep; and although He assigned a like power to all the Apostles, yet he founded a single Chair, and He established by His own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was; but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one Chair. So too, all are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the Apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" (Cyprian, The Unity of the Catholic Church [first edition] 4, c. AD 251)

The Talmud (a compilation of both the Mishnah and the Gemara) is a product of Rabbinic Judaism, which developed after the destruction of the 2nd Temple by the Romans in 70 AD. The Mishnah was compiled around 200 AD though the oral tradition upon which it is based is centuries older. The Gemara, which could be described as a commentary of the Mishnah, was compiled around 500 AD.

Strictly speaking the Talmud is not something Moses received at Sinai. While the Talmud could give some insight into Jewish thought around the Apostolic and Subapostolic period of the early Church, some historians liken the Talmud to an apologetic tract to defend Judaism against the teachings of the early Church.

The “chair” is a symbol of authority, and it’s not not just a symbol of Peter and his successors, but of every successor of the Apostles, the bishops, who in their respective churches possess executive, legislative, and judicial power of church governance.

With all of that in mind, I think one has to accept that St Cyprian's words are quite salient, and that the Roman claim is not some 5th century concoction. Cyprian does write that there is also founded a "single Chair" and it belongs to St. Peter who carried it with him, so to speak, to Rome where he was martyred.

Cyprian over emphasized the authority of the “single Chair” of Peter. Reread the Lord’s own words regarding Moses’ seat... He does not say one man sits in Moses’ seat, but “the scribes and Pharisees”- so it’s collegial. Bishops are not some “minor judges” who derive their authority from the “chair of Peter” or Peter’s successor. Episcopal authority is derived from the Lord himself. This authority that Christ bestowed upon the Church is also collegial, in that it is given to the College of Bishops headed by the Bishop of Rome and this College always exercises that authority in communion with its head.

The Fathers of the Second Vatican clarified individual episcopal authority with respect to the Bishop of Rome in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium:

“Bishops, as vicars and ambassadors of Christ, govern the particular churches entrusted to them... The pastoral office or the habitual and daily care of their sheep is entrusted to them completely; nor are they to be regarded as vicars of the Roman Pontiffs, for they exercise an authority that is proper to them, and are quite correctly called "prelates," heads of the people whom they govern,” (LG, n. 27).

Uh huh.....perhaps Brother Ray might want to meditate on this: if this is true and the Chair of Peter had the authority which it claims to have now, i.e., universal jurisdiction over the entire Church, how's come the East failed to promote that, and in fact, it really did not get a head of steam up until Pope Leo IX in the eleventh century?

Pope St. Gregory the Great, when addressed by Patriarch John the Faster as "Universal Bishop" wrote back to John and firmly but in brotherly charity, begged him not to ever use that title again in describing the office of the Bishop of Rome or the Patriarch of Constantinople. Gregory had rather strong words against those who would abrogate such title to themselves.

From the eleventh century onward, beginning with Leo IX and aided by the preaching and support of such men as St. Peter Damian, the papacy lost any semblance of a brotherhood and began to look more like a political kingdom. While the intent - that of reformation of the Latin Church and eradication of clerical and laity corruption - was a desired end, the result has been to establish a Caesaropapist Kingdom in which power rather than charity rules the day. We see the sad outcome of this in things like the Sack of Constantinople, where priests took up the sword and preached that the people inside the walls of Constantinople were to be treated as non-Christians because of their separation from Rome. And it did not stop there. Fast forward to the mess we had in Europe as many Orthodox were attacked by Roman Catholic mobs with the quiet complicity of Rome.

As for the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven - Steve Ray misses this one entirely and completely. The Gospel of Matthew is the Jewish Gospel. It is written for the Jews, is about their Messiah, and has words and phrases that occur nowhere else in the other three Gospels because they are not written for Jews. The Kingdom of Heaven is one of those phrases. It appears nowhere else in the Bible except Matthew, and it means the earthly kingdom which was promised to the Jews. Peter was the Apostle to the Jews, Paul to the Gentiles. We see therefore that Peter was given the keys to open the doors of the Kingdom to the Jews. And Peter would do this through his preaching and witness to Christ. Has nothing to do with the larger Kingdom of God, which is what we have in the combined Jew/Gentile Church. It is a specific duty given to a specific man for a specific reason - and the Jews would understand it in that manner, which is why the Greeks did not!

One other thing - St. Cyprian was dealing with a group of Western schismatics who would not recognize the authority of the Bishop of Rome. His rebuke to them, and the quote that Steve Ray yanks out of context had to do with a rebellion in that century and Cyprian's telling them that they needed to be under the authority ordained over them in Rome.

It is not a call to have a universal primate.

Another accepts (interprets) Cyprian's emphasis on Peter as being applicable to all bishops and as that which unifies the episcopacy:

p 66

p 86

LIVING TRADITION
Orthodox Witness in the Contemporary World
John Meyendorff
ST. VLADIMIR'S SEMINARY PRESS
CRESTWOOD, NY 10707
1978

The authority and veracity of the Gospel (text) is not based on statistical occurrences within.

"Kingdom of Heaven" is a periphrasis for "Kingdom of God" and is not "the earthly kingdom which was promised to the Jews."

St. Cyprian was certainly no Ultramontanist, nor am I. You are correct in quoting the Council Fathers of Vatican II in correcting this extreme notion advanced by some even today. In the context of St. Cyprian's other writings, I do not think he over-emphasized the "single Chair" of Peter, but puts this in the perspective that the Catholic Church today understands. If the "East failed to promote this", it was in the fourth and fifth centuries when Constantinople, wielding Imperial power, sought to and did, usurp the prerogatives of elder Rome. Indeed, the episcopate is one and the Bishop of Rome is no more a bishop than all the others, but as the extent of the jurisdiction of the others differs so does his. As Pope St. Gregory the Great phrased it so well, "Servus Servorum Dei" - just a little bit too humble to be called "ecumenical".

Servus Servorum Dei is a far cry from the pronouncements of Pope Boniface VIII in the Papal Bull Unum Sanctum and the utter arrogance of what he said there. Unfortunately, the Latin Church took off with this, I imagine seeing the power and glory of their worldly kingdom rather than the humility of Christ, and have made life miserable for the East for several centuries.

This is very important and needed to be said and kept in mind. It must be read in conjunction with what was already stated in §22:DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH LUMEN GENTIUM [vatican.va]

This is beautifully stated by the Council Fathers. Papal Primacy, exercised in the humble manner as recent popes have, is a gift to the Church.That some popes have been arrogant, militarists and moral midgets, does not abrogate the office. It has certainly caused misery in the West for centuries, but do we really need to beat dead horses endlessly in our quest for unity?

Actually, according to this source (link [catholicplanet.com]), the Bull Unam Sanctam is headed:The Bull is not long and deserves a reading (link [catholicplanet.com]), as it presents an interesting counterpoint to the often presumed inferiority of the spiritual, and the Church, in our very secular and materialistic age.

9. Moreover, that every human creature is to be subject to the Roman pontiff, we declare, we state, we define, and we pronounce to be entirely from the necessity of salvation.

Nuts on that.

Yah, nuts on that! I tend to agree. On the other hand, Unam Sanctam was written at a time when western Europe was totally Catholic and there was a great deal of struggle between church and state, and they absorbed one another like nothing we know in our times, even in post-Soviet Russia. I also feel that the Latin word, "subesse" (to be under) does not have the same connotations as the English, "subject to" as it is often translated. Subesse is a little bit softer, and almost affectionate. But, you'd probably say "nuts to that", too!