The Myth of Petrine Papacy

Yet all three suggestions are demonstrably false.

• There are two passages showing Peter's commissioning by Jesus-both are unhistorical:
  • The passage in Matthew is not supported by similar passages in Mark and Luke and contains internal contradictions and anachronisms
  • The passage in John is placed in a fictional (post-resurrection) setting and is a late addition to the gospel.
• Peter could not have been the first pope (or first bishop of Rome) because:
  • Some New Testament passages and early church tradition point to James as the leader of the early church
  • The tradition of Peter being the first Bishop of Rome only surfaced in the fourth century
  • The hierarchy of the early church could not have produced a first pope
• The supremacy of the Roman church was not recognized from the earliest of times and it achieved it's prominent position mainly through skilful political maneuvering and forgery.
  • Other major centers of Christianity never accepted the supremacy of Rome
  • The supremacy of Rome arose due to some skilful political maneuvering of the later popes and some contingent historical circumstances.
  • Some of the popes never hesitated to use of forged documents whenever they can to further their cause.

In summary the Catholic teaching that Peter was the first bishop of Rome or pope cannot be accepted on the following grounds: the passage in Matthew 16:13-20 is not historical; some New Testament passages, especially Acts and Galatians show Peter to be subordinate to James, the brother of Jesus; the tradition that teaches Peter as the first bishop of Rome was a late one; what we know of the development of the church hierarchy showed that there was no special posts of bishop before the end of the first century, or around thirty years after the death of Peter; and finally, the other major churches of Christendom never accepted the supremacy of Rome. Indeed Rome's ascension to the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy arose due to contingent and non-theological reasons. In some cases even forgeries were used to further the cause of Roman ecclesiastical supremacy.

The Appointment of Peter Given in Matthew is Not Historical

Matthew 16:13-20 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you Simon bar Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will built my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

The meaning of the passage can be , made clearer when the reader understands that the Greek for Peter, Petra and the Hebrew for the same, Cephas; both mean rock. Obviously Jesus, according to this passage, Jesus was appointing Peter to a very important post.

Our main question at this point is whether the passage in Matthew, as it stands, is historical. There are, in fact, a number of considerations that makes a compelling case for rejecting its historical authenticity.

• The passage does not appear in a parallel passage in Mark and Luke
  The most important case against it is that in parallel passages in Mark (which Matthew used for this episode) and Luke, this important saying of Jesus which seem to appoint Peter as the leader of the church is missing. We give below the same episode as given in Mark:

  Mark 8:27-30 (Luke 9:18-21) Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Christ." Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

  The omission of such an important statement (for the early Church) in Mark and Luke is disquieting. The passage in Mark and Luke actually makes more sense. Jesus is represented as being surprised by Peter's statement and warned the apostles not to tell anyone about it. This same warning is given in Matthew but does not fit in well with Jesus accolade of Peter's recognition of his messiahship. [1] The italicized portion in Matthew (16:17-19) is beginning to look more and more like an inauthentic insertion.

• The presence of the anachronism "my church"
  Another point about the passage in Matthew that point towards its lack of authenticity is the presence of the word "my church" (Greek:ekklesia)[a] in Jesus' reply to Peter. We know today what "church" mean, for it is visible and tangible to us. The word already had meaning during the time Matthew was penned, around the end of the first century. But during the time of Jesus and disciples, 30 CE, the church did not exist. The word would not then have the meaning it had for us or the Christians at the turn of the first century. Had Jesus actually used this word, he would have had to clarify it for Peter. Yet we do not find this clarification anywhere in the gospels. Although the word "church" did appear again in Matthew 18:17, its authenticity is also doubtful because the word is not present in a parallel passage in Luke 17:3. [2]

• Subsequent events depicted in the gospels contradict the passage in Matthew
  The description of events subsequent to this passage also does not support the insertion. Immediately in the verses that follow, Mark (copied by Matthew!) had Jesus scolding Peter and calling him "Satan" and accusing him of having no understanding:

  Mark 8:33 [Matthew 17:23] But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Out of my sight, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

  This passage, while it does not contradict anything in Mark, cannot be reconciled with the passage in Matthew (16:17-19). [3]

  The confession of Peter and Jesus' reply seems to have taken place in the presence of all the twelve apostles. Now, if Jesus had already appointed Peter as their leader, the subsequent episode in Mark (10:35-41), and a slightly altered version in Matthew (20:20-26), which showed James and John vying for the top post at the right and left hand of Jesus, becomes incomprehensible. [4] In fact a closer look at this passage is most revealing:

  Mark 10:35-41 (Matthew 20:20-26) Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask." "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said "... but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared." When the ten heard about this they became indignant. Jesus called them together and said, "... whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all."

  Note that in the above passage, James and John were vying for supremacy. This is incomprehensible if Jesus had already given the top post to Peter. Furthermore, verse 41, italicized above, tells us that the other ten (minus James and John and thus included Peter) were angry when they found out about the attempts of the Zebedee brothers. This again point to the fact that up to that point all the apostles were considered equal. Finally, Jesus' last statement showed that he wanted the twelve to remain as equals. [5]

  Thus, the events subsequent to Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi does not support the insertion in Matthew but actively contradict it.

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The Investiture of Peter by Jesus in the Gospel of John is fictional

John 21:15-19 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep," He said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else with fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."

Yet this passage too is unhistorical, for a few reasons:

• It's setting is post-resurrection, and the resurrection, as we have shown, is not historical.

• Chapter 21 of John is a later addition by anonymous redactor(s). There are many reasons to believe so. [6]
  • John 20:30-31 reads like an exlicit conclusion passage: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."
  • John 20:29 [" Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe!"] excludes any further appearances of Jesus.
  • In 21:24 the presence of a "we" passage, instead of "the beloved disciple", is explicitly different from the rest of the gospel
  • Chapter 21 differs from the first 20 chapters in language and style.

• The whole idea of the disciples returning back to their lives as professional fisherman (John 21:3) is absurd if they had already seen the risen Jesus. This also expressly contradicts the new role given to them by Jesus (John 20:21-23)

• The passage looks like it had been constructed out of earlier passages in John [1:42, 10:1-18; 13:36-38 and 18:17, 25-27] [7]

• The passage of Peter's appointment stands in uneasy contrast to John 20:21-23 where the authority is transferred to all the disciples. [8]

To summarise, the passage in John is set in the resurrection-thus the setting is fictional. Secondly the passage is a later addition to the gospel of John by another (unknown) author. Thirdly the passage reads very much like it was concocted based on earlier passages in the gospel. In finally it contradicts a passage in the original body of the gospel where authority is transferred to all the apostles. Thus we can safety conclude that the commissioning of Peter in John 21:15-19 is a fictional addition to the gospel.

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Some New Testament Passages Point to James the Just as the Leader of the Early Followers

• In the account of the council in Jerusalem given in Acts 15:1-29 it was James (in the presence of Peter, among others) who passed a ruling on the issue using the words "It is my judgement..." or "I rule..." (Acts 15:19).
• In Paul's epistle to the Galatians (in 2:11-12), he told his reader that Peter stopped mixing with the Gentiles when "certain men from James" came to the city of Antioch.
• Perhaps significantly, in describing the pillars (the chief apostles), in Galatians 2:9, Paul placed James' name first, before Peter and John.

• Eusebius (c.260-c340), quoting Clement of Alexandria (c150-215), Ecclesiastical History (EH 2:1), mentioned that James the Just was elected by Peter, James and John to the leadership of the Jerusalem church. [b]
• Eusebius, again quoting from Clement, also mentioned that James the Just, John and Peter as being entrusted, after the resurrection, by Jesus himself, with a "higher knowledge". (EH 2:1) Putting the name of James before John and Peter could mean that either James was the first to have a resurrection experience of Jesus (in contrast to I Corinthians 15:5-which mentioned Peter as the first) or that James was the most important or probably both.
• Later on in EH 7:19, Eusebius reiterates this fact but mentioned that James was appointed to his position as leader of the Jerusalem church by Jesus himself. There was no qualification of this being a resurrected Jesus and no mention of the other apostles having anything to do with this appointment.
• Jerome (348-420) quoted Hegesippus (c90-180) {whom Eusebius had described as "flourishing closest to the days of the apostles") as saying "After the Apostles, James the brother of the Lord, surnamed the Just, was made head of the Church at Jerusalem."

We can thus summarise that despite later attempts in the gospels and other new testament writings to place Peter in the pre-eminent position, the Pauline epistles, the source of Luke's Acts and the testimony of some of the earliest church fathers point towards James as being the leader of the Nazarenes and Peter's subordinate position to him. [9]

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The Tradition of Peter Being the First Bishop of Rome only Surfaced in the Fourth Century

The assertion that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome was first made only in the fourth century - by St. Jerome (c342-420). Jerome said, without citing any supporting evidence, that Peter was the Bishop of Rome for twenty five years. Before Jerome, there was no tradition to support this. [11] It is also well known that the bishops of Rome were vying with the bishops of the other major churches for the position as leader of Christendom. Had they known about Peter being the first pope, which they should have known if it was true, they would undoubtedly have used it in their polemics against the other churches.

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The Hierarchy of the Early Church Could Not Have Produced a First Pope

Acts 20:17,28 From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders (presbeteros) of the church ... [Paul, speaking to these elders said] "Guard yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (episkopos)"

There was thus no one bishop that acts as the head of a particular city in early Christianity. During Paul's (and Peter's) time bishops were simply priests.

The development of the hierarchical structure which included bishop, in the familiar sense, only happen around the end of the first century, long after Peter's death. As the congregation grew larger, more presbyters were needed and there eventually was develop a leader who tended to oversee the whole city. These people took the title bishops from the presbyters. This evolution of the church hierarchy was started around the end of the first century and became entrenched only towards the middle or end of the second century. [13]

Most of the early "bishops" of Rome listed by tradition are no more than names. The one that is certainly historical was Clement I. Tradition has it that he was bishop of Rome from 91 to 101. [14] The Roman Catholic Church lists him as the fourth bishop of Rome, with Peter being the first. Who then, were the second and third "bishops" of Rome? All we know of them is their names: Linus (bishop from c67-79) and Anacletus (c79-92). History know nothing about these two bishops. For Anacletus, the correct Greek form for this name is Anencletus, which means "blameless". The fact that the pseudo-Pauline epistle of Titus (1:7) required a bishop to be blameless, throws doubt on the existence of this third bishop. [15] Linus' existence is on no more certain grounds than Anencletus'.

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Other Major Centers of Christianity Never Accepted the Supremacy of Rome

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The Supremacy of Rome Arose Due to Contingent Historical Circumstances

Following in his footsteps was Pope Gregory I (c540-604). Gregory took advantage of the lack of political leadership in central Italy during the Lombards' attacks on the country. He negotiated with them and, upon securing the peace, became the effective ruler of Central Italy. [22] Thus the church in Rome grew politically powerful as well. From then on the position of the see of Rome grew from strength to strength.

This growth was helped by the triumph of Islam in the east which weaken the eastern churches of Alexandria, Constantinople, Antioch and Jerusalem. Added to this, the emerging barbarism in the west created a political vacuum that was fortuitously filled by the bishop of Rome. [23]

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The Use of Forgery to Enforce Claims of Papal Supremacy

• The Donation of Constantine was a known forgery that was used by Pope Stephen III (in office 752-757) against the Franks which successfully increase the powers and influence of the Roman Church. Let us look at the details of this.

  The year of 753. Rome was threatened by the Lombards, a barbarian tribe from the Baltic. Stephen approached Pepin (714-768), the king of the Franks. The Roman bishop showed the Frankish king a document that purports to be dated 30th March 315; a document that came to be called �The Donation of Constantine�. The reason for this title will be made clear here. The document tells the story of how Emperor Constantine (d.337), after being miraculously healed of leprosy, gave Pope Sylvester I (in office: 314-335), the regions of Italy surrounding Rome and pronounced Rome supreme over the other main centers of the church, namely, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem.

  The document all purports to give the reason why Constantine moved the capital of his empire from Rome to Constantinople: he wished that the pope should have no rival on earth! In a stroke, the document showed that the Roman Church was, from the days of Constantine, pronounced as the supreme church, had a right to the regions around Rome and was superior to the emperor. The document made the right impression on Pepin. Upon defeating the Lombards, he duly handed to Stephen the regions mentioned in the Donation. Thus was how the papal states came into being.

  The Donation of Constantine, however, is a fraudulent document; and one which was most probably concocted just before Stephen met Pepin. The document was finally shown to be a fraud in the fifteenth century by the Italian humanist, Lorenzo Valla (c1406-57). Lorenzo showed that, among other things, the time of the donation as stipulated by the document was before the reign of Pope Sylvester I; thus the pope that should have received the donation was Pope Miltiades (in office: 311-314) He also showed that the name Constantinople was not conferred on the new capital-which was called Byzantium-until 330; so it would not have been possible for a document that was supposed to have been written in 315 to know that the name of the new capital was going to be changed to Constantinople fifteen years later. Valla also showed that the language of the document was a later form of Latin than that used in the fourth century. With the help of these and other arguments he conclusively proved that the Donation of Constantine was a papal fraud. While Valla�s argument convinced the impartial scholars, Rome continued to deny for many centuries that the Donation was a fraud. Thus one of the most significant triumph in the history of the Roman Church was achieved by fraud. [24]

• The Pseudo Isidorian Decretals was perhaps the most important forgery in the steps towards papal supremacy. The documents were supposedly collected by St. Isidore of Seville (d.636). Part of the collection contained letters purportedly written by the ante-Nicene popes (i.e pre-325 CE), beginning with Clement (in office:88-97). These letters collection was supposed to prove that from the earliest days the Church of Rome had the right to issue laws, validate council decisions and depose bishops. These documents are known today to be forgeries. They were actually deceitfully composed by the Frankish Court around the year 850.

  The documents first surfaced when Pope Nicholas I (in office 858-867), who was an ardent campaigner for papal supremacy, clashed with Hincmar (c806-882), archbishop of Rheims, on the isue of the right of the Roman church to depose and install bishops. Nicholas I, in his arguments with Hincmar, cited the Decretals, claiming to have ancient copies of them. It was obvious that Nicholas lied, for the forgery was only less than two decades old then!

  Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) used the Decretals as the source of his claim, in the Dictatus papae (1075), of the right to depose princes, emperors and kings. He deposed the Polish King and the Greek emperor, sowing trouble and unrest everywhere. More than any other pope before him, Gregory virtually invented the Roman Catholic ideal: with the pope having control over all things, temporal and spiritual. The popes following Gregory became emboldened by his claims. In a few centuries following him no less than eight emperors were excommunicated (and some deposed) by the Roman bishops. It was also Gregory who changed the title of the Roman see from Vicar of St. Peter to Vicar of Christ. Thus the title which the pope today claims came, not from Peter, but from Gregory VII and based ultimately on fraudulent documents.[25]

  It is important to add that Gregory not only used fake documents, he had a whole school set up to manufacture still more fraudulent documents:

  The leaders of the school were Anselm of Lucca, nephew of the previous pontiff, cardinal Deusdedit and after them Cardinal Gregory of Pavia...Many earlier documents were touched up to make them say the opposite of what they were saying originally. Some of these earlier documents were themselves forgeries...This instant method of inventing history was marvelously successful, especially as the forgeries were at once inserted into canon law. By innumerable subtle changes they made Catholicism seem changeless. They turned "today" into "always was and always will be", which even now, contrary to the findings of history, is the peculiar stamp of Catholicism.[26]

  This user (and maker!)of fraudulent documents was canonized as a saint by the Roman Church in the sixteenth century.

Thus was how the papacy became the supreme head of the church in the west.

It almost goes without saying that supremacy gained from such methods could not have been done by men who had divine guarantee of infallibility. As in a saying of Jesus (Matthew 7:15-20), you shall know them by the fruits; it is perhaps no accident that many popes throughout history were scoundrels and that the Roman church has been responsible for countless atrocities such as the crusades, the inquisition and the witch hunts.

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Notes

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References

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