Pope John Paul II kisses a Koran
The Argument against absolute Papal Primacy
If there's any one doctrine that makes or breaks the Roman Catholic Church's claims to authority, that doctrine is the papacy. All of the Catholic Church's claims to authority rest on its interpretations of a few passages of scripture, primarily Matthew 16:18-19, in which Christ tells Peter that the Christian church will be built on a rock. The Roman Catholic Church claims that the rock is Peter, and that Jesus was therefore establishing Peter, and future bishops of Rome as the successors to Peter, as the leader of a worldwide denomination. Not only does the Catholic Church claim that Matthew 16 establishes the papacy, but it also claims that the early church fathers believed the same. Obviously, if one man and his successors had been set up as leader of a worldwide denomination, and Matthew 16 established that leadership role, every church father should have acknowledged such a fundamental doctrine. Was this interpretation of scripture, on which all of the Catholic Church's claims to authority rest, held by the early church fathers?
The answer is "no". Many of the church fathers interpreted the rock in Matthew 16:18 as Christ Himself, Peter's confession of Christ, or something else other than Peter and a succession of Roman bishops. Even the fathers who interpreted the rock as Peter generally saw Peter fulfilling that role by playing an influential historical role in establishing the church, not by having universal jurisdiction as a Pope who then passed that authority on to a succession of Roman bishops. They didn't apply Matthew 16:18 to the bishops of Rome as exclusive papal successors to Peter, but rather to Peter himself, to all Christians, or to more than one bishop, for example. The Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18, which has Jesus establishing a papacy through Peter and the bishops of Rome, didn't even become a consistent minority interpretation until hundreds of years after the time of Christ and the apostles.
Some church fathers, such as Jerome and Augustine, even changed their interpretation of Matthew 16:18 from time to time. This was a passage considered to be open to multiple interpretations, with the interpretation of "rock" not considered a matter of much importance. Obviously, the early church didn't see this passage as the foundation for a papal office. Origen, commenting on Matthew 16 early in the third century, reflects the early church's ignorance of the papal interpretation of the passage:
And if we too have said like Peter, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," not as if flesh and blood had revealed it unto us, but by light from the Father in heaven having shone in our heart, we become a Peter, and to us there might be said by the Word, "Thou art Peter," etc. For a rock is every disciple of Christ of whom those drank who drank of the spiritual rock which followed them, and upon every such rock is built every word of the church, add the polity in accordance with it; for in each of the perfect, who have the combination of words and deeds and thoughts which fill up the blessedness, is the church built by God. But if you suppose that upon that one Peter only the whole church is built by God, what would you say about John the son of thunder or each one of the Apostles? Shall we otherwise dare to say, that against Peter in particular the gates of Hades shall not prevail, but that they shall prevail against the other Apostles and the perfect? Does not the saying previously made, "The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it," hold in regard to all and in the case of each of them? And also the saying, "Upon this rock I will build My church"? Are the keys of the kingdom of heaven given by the Lord to Peter only, and will no other of the blessed receive them? But if this promise, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," be common to the others, how shall not all the things previously spoken of, and the things which are subjoined as having been addressed to Peter, be common to them? For in this place these words seem to be addressed as to Peter only, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven," etc; but in the Gospel of John the Savior having given the Holy Spirit unto the disciples by breathing upon them said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit," etc....And if any one says this to Him, not by flesh and blood revealing it unto Him but through the Father in heaven, he will obtain the things that were spoken according to the letter of the Gospel to that Peter, but, as the spirit of the Gospel teaches, to every one who becomes such as that Peter was. (Commentary on Matthew, 12:10-11)
Augustine, it is true, unquestionably understood by the church the visible Catholic Church, descended from the apostles, especially from Peter, through the succession of bishops; and according to the usage of his time he called the Roman church by eminence the sedes apostolica. But on the other hand, like Cyprian and Jerome, he lays stress upon the essential unity of the episcopate, and insists that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were committed not to a single man, but to the whole church, which Peter was only set to represent. With this view agrees the independent position of the North African church in the time of Augustine toward Rome, as we have already observed it in the case of the appeal of Apiarius, and as it appears in the Pelagian controversy, of which Augustine was the leader. This father, therefore, can at all events be cited only as a witness to the limited authority of the Roman chair. And it should also, in justice, be observed, that in his numerous writings he very rarely speaks of that authority at all, and then for the most part incidentally; showing that he attached far less importance to this matter than the Roman divines. (The Master Christian Library [Albany, Oregon: AGES Software, 1998], History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, p. 246)
The Catholic historian Robert Eno confirms that Augustine held a non-papal view of church government:
“Elsewhere I have argued in detail Augustine's views of authority in the Church and that, in my opinion, the council [not the Pope] was the primary instrument for settling controversies....”
I believe that Augustine had great respect for the Roman church whose antiquity and apostolic origins made it outshine by far other churches in the West. But as with Cyprian, the African collegial and conciliar tradition was to be preferred most of the time. (The Rise of the Papacy [Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1990], p. 79)
Augustine's conviction that councils have more authority than the Roman church and its bishops is reflected in passages such as the following:
Well, let us suppose that those bishops who decided the case at Rome were not good judges; there still remained a plenary Council of the universal Church, in which these judges themselves might be put on their defense; so that, if they were convicted of mistake, their decisions might be reversed. (Letter 43:19)
Augustine considered the bishop of Rome a successor of Peter, but also considered other bishops successors of Peter. He comments on John 21:15-17:
So the Lord entrusted His sheep to us bishops [plural], because he entrusted them to Peter; if, that is, we are worthy with any part of us, even with the tips of our toes, to tread the dust of Peter's footsteps, the Lord entrusted his sheep to us [plural]. You are his sheep, we are sheep along with you, because we are Christians. I have already said, we are fed and we feed. (Sermon 296:13)
The Catholic historian Klaus Schatz explains that the Roman church's earliest attempts to broaden its influence among other churches failed. Regarding a Eucharistic controversy of the second century and a baptismal controversy of the third century, Schatz writes:
Rome did not succeed in maintaining its position against the contrary opinion and praxis of a significant portion of the Church. The two most important controversies of this type were the disputes over the feast of Easter and heretical baptism. Each marks a stage in Rome’s sense of authority and at the same time reveals the initial resistance of other churches to the Roman claim. (Papal Primacy [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996], p. 11)