The vast majority of the Jewish people, above all the Pharisees and the Sadducees, dissatisfied with the ideal of a purely spiritual kingdom which Jesus preached, refuse to accept Him as the promised Messias, condemn Him to death as a blasphemer, and deliver Him up to the Romans to be crucified (April 3, 3o A.D.). But even His death bears witness to His divine mission. Miraculous events accompany it. The veil of the Temple is rent in twain from top to bottom, as a sign that the Old Covenant which God had made with theJews is ended, and that a new one is beginning, to which all mankind is called. On the third day He Himself, as He had foretold, arises again from the dead and, after tarrying forty days with His followers on earth, returns to Him who had sent Him.

Since His Ascension into Heaven, Christ dwells no longer visibly amongst His own. But He lives on as the Redeemer o[ the world in His Church, the Kingdom of God on earth. He founded the Church when, a year before His death, He said to Simon, the Son of Jonas: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16, 18). After His Resurrection He confirmed Peter as the visible Supreme Head of this Church when He said to him: "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep" (John 21, I7).

First Christian Community in Jerusalem.--The founding of the Church was completed on Pentecost Day, when the Holy Ghost descended upon the disciples who were assembled in Jerusalem together with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Immediately the Apostles, who had hitherto been weak men, earthly-minded. and distrustful of themselves, became bold and determined. Filled

Jesus Gives The Keys To St. Peter  (Painter--Perugino)

with "power from on high," they issued from the Upper Room and faced the great crowd that had gathered in the city from all parts of the world for the festival. Peter, their spokesman, declared: "Jesus of Nazareth, whom God approved by wonders and signs, whom you have crucified and slain by the hands of wicked men,--this Jesus hath God raised again, whereof all we are witnesses; therefore let all the house of Israel know most certainly that God hath made both Lord and Christ this same Jesus whom you have crucified" (Cf. Acts 2, 22 ff.).

Deeply moved by the words of the Apostle, three thousand men and women asked to be baptized. In a few days their number grew to five thousand. Most of these remained in Jerusalem and formed with the Apostles and disciples of the Lord the first Christian Community; the rest returned to their homes after the festival days were over and became the first missionaries of the Church. The Feast of Pentecost was thus, in the real sense of the word, the Birthday of the Church.

The faithful in Jerusalem were "one heart and one soul." At first they continued to attend the services in the Temple with their neighbors and, following the example of our Lord, also went to the synagogues. But they had their own meetings, too, usually on the first day of the week, where they could worship God according to their belief in Christ. Besides this, they met frequently, if not daily, in private for the "breaking of bread," that is, for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, which was usually preceded by the Agape, or Love-Feast.

Their genuine love for one allother and the great number of poor people in the community gave rise to a species of Communism. "They had all things in common. For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the price of the things they sold and laid it down before the feet of the Apostles, and distribution was made to everyone according as he had need" (Cf. Acts 4). But this community of goods was absolutely voluntary, as we know from the story of Ananias and Saphira (Acts 5).

First Perseeutlon.--As the number of the believers increased, the Pharisees and the priests took alarm. They summoned Peter and John before the Great Council and forbade them, under pain of the severest punishment, to preach in the name of Jesus. But the Apostles replied boldly that they were bound to obey God rather than man (Acts 4, 19). Not long afterwards they were arrested a second time and would no doubt have been put to death if a Pharisee named Gamaliel, "a doctor of the law, respected by all the people,"  had not intervened in their behalf. "If this counsel or this work be of men," he said. "it will come to nought; but if it be of God,  you cannot overthrow it."  The fanatical Pharisees were for the time satisfied with this judgment, and the Apostles were dismissed, but not before they had been ignominiously scourged. Rejoicing that they had been accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus, Peter and John continued to teach and preach as before, in the Temple and from house to house.

******

The following excerpts are from the book:  THE QUESTION BOX by Rev. Bertrand L. Conway, C.S.P., published by The Paulist Press, 1929.

Questions and Answers About the Papacy

Is there any Biblical proof that Christ made Peter the first Pope? Were not all the Apostles equal?

The Catholic Church believes that St. Peter was the chief Apostle, exercising by Christ's appointment the supreme power of governing His Church. The Vatican Council says: "If anyone says that Christ the Lord did not constitute the Blessed Peter prince of all the Apostles and head of the whole church militant; or if he says that this primacy is one of mere honor and not of real jurisdiction received directly and immediately from our Lord Jesus, let him be anathema."

a. The metaphor of the rock is easily understood. Christ the Rock, the Chief Corner Stone of the Church (Eph. ii. 20; Matt. xxi. 42), promises to make Peter the rock, on which His Church (1 Cor. iii. 9) is to be built. He is addressing him alone ("I say to thee")_, not the other Apostles.  Our Lord has in mind the wise man of His own parable (Matt. vii. 24).  The rock foundation of a building gives it unity, strength and stability; it holds all the various parts of the building solidly together. In a society this is effected by the authority of the head, by whom unity is forever preserved.

b. Christ then gives the reason why He intends to build His Church upon the Rock, Peter, viz., "that the gates of hell may never prevail against it."   Whether hell means the hell of the damned or the realm of death, the meaning is obvious. The Church of Christ is to withstand forever the attacks of every foe within or without her fold (Rivington, Authority, xvi., 29).

c. The symbol of the keys, in the East, always implied power and authority, and the giving of the keys the transfer of that authority. Even in our day when we wish to honor a visitor of prominence,  we give him the keys of the city. When we sell a building, we give the keys to the new owner the day the title passes. When Eliacim was appointed over the palace in the place of Sobna, we read: "I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder; and he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open" (Isa. xxii. 22; Cf.  Apoc. i. 18; iii. 7).

"The gift of the keys," writes Lagrange, "is, therefore, an investiture of power over all the house. The owner still keeps the sovereign power, but delegates its exercise to a major, domo .... Christ has the keys of David (Apoc. iii. 7); He gives St. Peter the keys. St. Peter's authority, therefore, is the authority of Jesus, which He ratifies in heaven" (Evangile selon S. Matthieu, 328).

2. The night before He died Jesus said to St. Peter: "Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren" (Luke xxii. 31, 32). Satan had desired to try the Apostle, as once he tried the patriarch Job (i. 11, 12). Christ tells St. Peter that, although He prayed for all the Apostles (John xvii. 9), He prayed especially for him (Luke xxii. 31), that he might strengthen the others. As the Protestant commentator, Bengel, well says: "By preserving Peter, whose ruin would have meant the ruin of the others, Christ preserved them all. This whole speech of our Lord presupposes that Peter is the first of the Apostles, on whose stability or fall the less or greater danger of the others depended" (Gnomon, 302). Christ prophesies that St. Peter will one day say that he did not know Jesus, but not that he would deny Him as the Messias and the Son of God (Matt. xxvi. 72). Just as the "Church, therefore, is the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. iii. 15), so St. Peter is the strengthener of the faith of his brethren. The promise in St. Luke corresponds perfectly with our Lord's promise in Matthew. Simon is the security of the Church against Satan and the powers of hell in both cases; he is the solid rock on which the Church is to be built (Lagrange, Evangile selon S. Luc, 552).

3. After the Resurrection, Christ bestowed upon St. Peter the primacy He had twice promised. His words are: "Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these? He saith to Him: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith to him: Feed My lambs. He saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? He saith to Him: Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith to him: Feed My lambs. He said to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? Peter was grieved because He had said to him the third time: Lovest thou Me? And he said to Him: Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He said to him: Feed My sheep" (John xxi. 15-17).

The Vatican Council defines as an article of faith that by these words Christ "conferred upon Peter alone the jurisdiction of Chief Pastor and Ruler over all the flock."

The three-fold question of our Lord reminds Peter of his former presumption (Matt. xxvi. 33) and his three-fold denial (Matt. xxvi. 75), and tells the other Apostles that Peter's love was indeed greater than theirs. For this reason Christ conferred upon him a higher office. Peter does not. boast of his love this time, but he appeals to our Lord's Omniscience as evidence of its reality.

The symbolism is plain. Christ declared Himself the Good Shepherd (John x. 11-16) frequently foretold by the prophets (Cf. Ezec. xxxiv. 23; xxxvii. 24, 26; Zach. xi. 7; Jer. iii. 14; xxii. 4; Isa. xli. 11). As the divine Ruler of the whole flock, He makes Peter the ruler in His place, now that He is to leave this earth and return to His heavenly Father. Christ's supreme power of teaching, judging, and legislating for the flock is delegated to Peter who is to teach, rule and judge the flock forever with His divine authority (Lagrange, Evangile selon St. Jean, 528).

Indeed the preeminence of St. Peter is suggested in many a passage in the New Testament. His name is changed at his first meeting with Christ (John i. 42), thus indicating the office of rock foundation, which was to be given him later on. He is always named first in the lists of the Apostles (Matt. x. 2; Mark iii. 16; Luke vi. 13, 14), and always regarded as their leader (Matt. xvii. 1, 23-26; xxvi. 37-40; xiv. 22; Mark v. 37; ix. 1; Luke v. 2-10; viii. 45). After the Resurrection he presides at the election of Matthias (Acts i. 22); he is the first to preach the Gospel (Acts ii. 14); he is the first to work miracles (Acts iii. 6); he is the judge of Ananias and Saphira (Acts v. 1-10); he is the first to declare the universality of the Church's mission (Acts x.), and the first to receive a pagan convert (Acts x.); he presides at the Council of jerusalem (Acts xv.).

hell, demons, Pope, Popes, Papacy, Vatican

Does not the rock mean Christ (Matt. xvi. 18)? We read in the Bible  "And that rock was Christ" (1 Cor. x. 4).

In Matt. xvi. 18 the word rock refers to St. Peter as many fair-minded Protestant commentators admit: Alford, Bloomfield, Keil, Mansel, Marsh, Rosemüller, Seifert, Thompson, Weiss and others. Thompson of Glasgow in his Monatesseron, 194, says:   "Peter was the rock on which Christ said His Church should be built. To this the connection and the scope of the passage agree. There seems to be something forced in every other construction .... Protestants have betrayed unnecessary fears, and have, therefore, used all the hardihood of lawless criticism in their attempts to reason away the Catholic interpretation."  The early Fathers frequently speak of Peter as the rock. Tertullian writes: "Peter, who is called the rock whereon the Church was to be built, and who obtained the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (De Pras., 22).   St. Cyprian writes: "Peter, whom the Lord chose as first, and upon whom He built His Church" (Epis. 71, Ad Quintum). We do not claim that Peter is the rock independently of Christ, but as  "the rock and foundation after Christ" (Theophylact,   In Lucam, xxii.).

    With regard to 1 Cor. x. 4, many of the Fathers held that Christ in the form of an angel led the Jews through the wilderness (Exod. xxiii. 20-23). The water that flowed twice from the material rock (Exod. xvii. 6; Num. xx. 11) was provided by the Spiritual Rock, Christ. Another interpretation holds that the rock struck by Moses is called "spiritual," because it typified Christ, whose Blood flowed like the water from the rock for the salvation of men.

    Christ was the Divine Founder of the Church, its Rock primarily; Peter was the rock secondarily, by divine appointment.

Does not St. Paul declare that Christ is the only foundation of the Church?  "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. iii. 11) ?

We may dismiss this text as irrelevant, because St. Paul is speaking of the solidity of the elementary doctrine that he preached to the Corinthians. They were as yet unfit for the more profound truths which he preached to the perfect (1 Cor. ii. 6), but still his foundation doctrine was Jesus Christ: i.e., faith in His Divinity and His Redemption. "For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ and Him Crucified" (1 Cor. fl. 2).

Does not St. Paul teach that all the Apostles were foundations of the Church ? Why do you build it then solely on Peter (Eph. ii. 19, 20) ?

He could have styled them foundations of the Church had he so willed. St. John did so (Apoc. xxi. 14)--for they were the first infallible teachers of Christ's Gospel. Peter was the solid rock upon which they, the foundation stones, were built.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY:   Allies, St. Peter, His Name and Office; Benson, St. Peter in the New Testament; Carson, Some Prerogatives of Peter.

Is not Christ called "the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the Head of the corner" (Acts iv. 11)?

Yes, and rightly so, because He is the Founder of the Church, the Corner Stone of the house of the Kingdom of God. Through His Redemption we are saved, as St. Peter teaches in the very next verse. "Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other Name under heaven, whereby we must be saved" (Cf. Eph. ii. 20, 22; Matt. xxi. 42).   These texts do not exclude St. Peter.  St. Leo (440-461) answered this objection more than one thousand years ago.  He writes:  "Thou art Peter, i. e., whereas I (Christ) am the inviolable Rock; I the Chief Corner Stone ... nevertheless, thou (Peter) art also a rock, because thou art consolidated by My power so that, what belongs to Me by My power, may be common to thee by being made partaker of them with Me" (Sermon IV, In Nat. Ord., ch. 2).

Does not the use of the two words Petros and Petra (Matt. xvi. 18) prove a clear difference in meaning?

   BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Lagrange, Evangile selon S. Matthieu, 325.

Do not the early Fathers speak of Peter's faith as the rock? Does not St. Augustine state that the rock is the confession Peter made? Do not others declare that the rock is Christ?

    BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Rivington, Authority, 29-39.

DISPUTE OF THE APOSTLES

Is it not incredible that the subject Apostles should send their supreme pontiff and one of themselves on a joint mission to Samaria (Acts viii. 14)? (Puller, Primitive Saints, p. 117.)

Allies says on this point: "Luke mentions Peter and John, but he sets Peter first; and in his record of what happened to Simon, John acts the second part, and it is Peter alone who teaches, commands, judges, and condemns with authority, as the head and supreme ruler. Peter alone replies to Simon, and not only so, but condemns his profaneness, enlarges upon his guilt, and solemnly declares that the gifts of God are not purchasable with money" (St. Peter, His Name and Office, 164).

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Did not James preside at the Council of Jerusalem, and give the definite sentence? How then was Peter chief Apostle ?

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Allies, St. Peter, His Name and Office, 178-183; Jacquier, Les Actes des Apôtres, 447-466.

ST. PAUL'S REBUKE OF ST. PETER

BIBLIOGRAPHY: St. Alphonsus Liguori, Verità della Fede, vii., 12; Lagrange, Epître aux Galates, 41-45; Merry del Val, The Truth of the Papal Claims, iii. B. Feb., 1924.

Granted that Peter was the chief Apostle and head of the Church in the beginning, how can you prove that his power was handed down the centuries ?  Was there any exercise of the Papal supremacy during the first three centuries ?

The primacy of St. Peter was not a personal privilege, like the power of working miracles, but an essential part of Christ's Church, the rock on which it was built. As long as the Church was to last--till the end of the world--Peter was to reign in an unbroken succession  of  Bishops of Rome.  The House of God will always need its foundation; the House of God will always need its divinely appointed steward; the faithful will always need a confirmer of the brethren, and a shepherd to guide and rule them.

Some have suggested that the preeminence of the Roman Church came from the fact that Rome was the capital of the Empire. But if we consult the divine tradition which ever recognized the Bishops of Rome as the successors of St. Peter, we will never find, except in  the schismatical East, the slightest allusion to this false theory. It states unanimously that the Popes held their suppreme office for the sole reason that they were St. Peter's successors. That Rome's place in the Empire led to its being chosen by Divine Providence as Peter's see was to be expected.

Many of the documents of early Church history were destroyed during the pagan persecutions of the first three centuries, but ample records remain to show that the Bishops of Rome exercised the supreme power of teaching, ruling and judging. Before St. John died, Pope Clement of Rome (90-99) of his own accord wrote to the Christians of Corinth, urging concord and submission to their ecclesiastical superiors. There is no record of the Apostle John intervening, although Ephesus was easier of access than Rome. The Corinthians accepted Rome's message and legates gladly, and the Pope's letter was placed almost on a level with the Sacred Scriptures for nearly a century (Clement, Ad. Cor., i., 1, 2, 44).

St. Ignatius of Antioch (117) a few years afterwards wrote a letter to the Roman Church, in which he mentions her supremacy. "She presides in the country of the Romans; she presides at the love feasts, or the charities." As Duchesne well says: "Here there is no question of the Bishop, but of the Church. Over what did the Roman Church preside? Was it merely over some other churches, or dioceses, within a limited area?  Ignatius had no idea of a limitation of that kind.  . . .  The most natural meaning of such language is that the Roman Church presides over all the Churches" (The Churches Separated from Rome, 85). She not only ruled, but she taught infallibly the doctrine of Christ, for St. Ignatius adds: "You have never led astray any one; you have taught others" (Ad Rom., iii.).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Batiffol, Etudes d'Histoire, 164; Barnes, The Early Church in the Light of the Monuments, 94-100.   D.L. i. 66.--D.T. i. 58-66. ---r.C. xii. 193.

Pope Victor (189-198) at the close of the second century summoned the Bishops of the time to come together in councils to determine the date of celebrating Easter. The Asiatics accepted the Jewish Pasch for their feast, while Rome observed it on the Sunday after the Jewish Pasch. Although the Council of Asia appealed to St. John and St. Philip as their authorities together with Papias and St. Polycarp, the Pope threatened the Bishops with excommunication, unless they abandoned their custom. Could there be a more striking evidence of his realization of his supreme authority? Who but the supreme Bishop would have dared to separate Bishops from the unity of the whole Church? No other Church ever claimed such power.

St. Ireneus, Bishop of Lyons, Wrote in 180 his well known treatise against the Gnostics of his time. In it we find a clear assertion of the unity of the Church's teaching, and the supremacy of Rome, the guardian of the Apostolic tradition, over all other churches. He says: "It would be too long to enumerate here the series of all the churches; it suffices to point out the Apostolic tradition, the teaching that has come down to us by episcopal succession in the Church of Rome, the greatest and most ancient of all, known everywhere, and founded in Rome by the two glorious Apostles, Paul and Peter Indeed, the superior preeminence of that Church is such that every church--I mean the faithful of any country whatsoever--necessarily agrees with her, that is, every church in any country in which the Apostolic tradition has been preserved  without interruption" (Adv. Har., iii., 3).

When the heretical Bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, refused to leave his residence after his deposition,    the case was brought before the pagan Emperor Aurelian (270-275). He decided it "most equitably, ordering the building to be given to those to whom the Bishops of Italy and the city of Rome should adjudge it" (Eusebius. Hist Eccles., vii., 30).

In the year 256 a conflict arose between Pope Stephen (254-257) and St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, on the question of baptisms conferred by heretics. Rome considered these baptisms valid, while Carthage declared them invalid. Despite the fact that St. Cyprian with his Bishops in Council refused to give up his custom, Pope Stephan (254-257) insisted upon the traditional teaching,  and threatened the opposing Bishops with excommunication, as Pope Victor had done in the Easter controversy.

Did not the same St. Cyprian write to Pope Cornelius: "They dare set sail and carry letters from schismatics and profane persons to the Chair of Peter, the primatial Church, whence the unity of the Church has its rise" (Epis., lix., 14). Again he wrote Pope Stephen to excommunicate Marcian, Bishop of Arles, for heresy, thus fully acknowledging his supreme authority. A liberal critic, harnack, writes:  "Cyprian recognized in the See of Rome a particular importance, because that See was the See of the Apostle on whom Christ conferred especially the Apostolic authority, to manifest thereby with perfect clearness the unity of this authority and the unity of the Church which rested thereon, and because the Church of this See had been the mother and the root of the Catholic Church spread through the world"        (Dogmengeschickte, i., 384).

The Archbishop of Alexandria, Dionysius (195-265), was accused at Rome of heresy with regard to the Blessed Trinity.   Pope Dionysius (259-268) asked him to explain his words, which he did in his reply to the Pope, and in the four books of his Refutation and Apology (Athanasius, De Sent. Dion., 13, 18).  The Pope asked him not to reject the term consubstantial, although the word did not become classical until the following century.  The Archbishop, in modifying his language, showed that he was really orthodox, and thereby recognized the authority of the Bishop of Rome to call him to account.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Allies, The See of Peter; St. Peter, His Name and Office; The Throne of the Fisherman; Allnatt, Cathedra Petri; Batiffol, Catholicism and Papacy; Chapman, Studies in the Early Papacy; Bishop Gore and the Catholic Claims; Dolan, The See of Peter; The Papacy and First Councils; Lattey (ed.), The Papacy; Merry del Val, The Truth of the Papal Claims; Rivington, Authority; Dependence; Vaughan, The Purpose of the Papacy.  A.Q. 1886, 123; 1896, 554.---C.W. xxxv. 105, 216, 359, 495, 613.---D.July, Oct., 1893; Oct., 1894; Oct., 1897; Jan., 1904.

   The following questions and answers(430, 431, 432 and 433) are from the book Radio Replies, Second Volume, by Fathers Rev. Dr. leslie Rumble, M.S.C. and Rev. Charles M. Carty, published by TAN Books and Publishers.

s, Pope, Popes, acy, Vatican, Catholic Church, Rome, Jesus, sats,*****gates of hell, demons, Pope, Popes, Papacy, Vatican, Catholic Church, Rome