Sermon XIII. The Supremacy Of St. Peter. (Feast Of Ss. Peter And Paul.)

St. Matt. xvi. 18. "And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this Rock I will build My Church."

The shortest, most direct, most conclusive, and most intelligible method of proving the truth of any system is to find its principle, its fundamental idea, and to establish the reality and certainty of this idea. When this is done, the whole system which is logically and justly built on this foundation is already proved. In the case of the Christian religion, we have only one thing to establish, in order to convince all pagans, Mohammedans, modern Jews, and unbelievers, who are truly rational, of its divine truth. That one thing is the divine mission of Jesus Christ. When that is established, there is but one question which can be reasonably asked—What is the authentic doctrine and law promulgated by Jesus Christ? In the same manner, in order to convince all rational men that the Catholic religion is entirely true, and the real Christianity established by the Apostles, it is only necessary to prove its fundamental principle, the Supremacy of St. Peter and his successors, the Roman Pontiffs. This doctrine, held and understood in its strict and complete Catholic sense, distinguishes the Catholic religion from every other. This once established in the conviction and belief of the mind, the truth of the whole Catholic religion, in all its parts, follows as a necessary consequence. It follows that the communion of which the Pope is the Supreme Head, is the true Church established by Jesus Christ—One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, incapable of falling away, and infallible in doctrine. The foundation of this great and world-wide Church is the Papal Supremacy of St. Peter and his successors, and its principal portion is the Roman See. If I prove that this foundation was laid by Jesus Christ, it will be evident that the Church founded upon it is the true Catholic Church, and the faith of that Church the true Christian and Catholic faith. I will then endeavor to prove, first, that Jesus Christ appointed St. Peter as Prince of the Apostles, His Vicar, and the Supreme Pastor and Ruler of the Church; and, second, that the Bishop of Rome is St. Peter's successor.

First, Jesus Christ appointed St. Peter as Prince of the Apostles, His Vicar, and the Supreme Pastor and Ruler of the Church. This will be the theme of the present discourse.

The title, Prince of the Apostles, signifies that St. Peter was the chief and head of the Apostolic college, and enjoyed a pre-eminence of honor and authority over the other Apostles. This preeminence of St. Peter is everywhere manifest in the New Testament. He was not the first called, for St. Andrew was before him, yet he is always placed first in the catalogue of Apostles, and is expressly called the "First" by St. Matthew. He generally appears as the leader and spokesman of the other Apostles, and is always mentioned as the first of the three Apostles who enjoyed the peculiar confidence of Jesus Christ, were witnesses of His transfiguration and agony, and in other ways were preferred before the rest, the other two being James and John. He was the first of the apostles who saw the Lord after His resurrection, and the angel at the sepulchre sent him a special message by name, "Go, tell the disciples, and Peter." He was the first who pronounced in the Council of the Apostles his judgment that they must elect another Apostle in the place of Judas—the first who preached Christ to the Jews, and the first who admitted the Gentiles to baptism. He pronounced sentence in the Council of Jerusalem. While the other Apostles confined themselves within a particular circle, he visited the Church everywhere—"pertransivit universos." He approved the writings of St. Paul, and the same St. Paul went expressly to Jerusalem, as he says, "to see Peter," commanded by "a revelation"; that he might submit his gospel to the judgment of the Prince of the Apostles, of St. James the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the other Apostles there, in order to obtain the approbation of St. Peter and his fellow-bishops—"lest perhaps," as he writes to the Galatians, "I should run, or had run in vain." Perhaps the most striking proof that St. Peter had a real oversight over the other Apostles, as the pastor of pastors, is found in the fact that Jesus Christ, immediately before His passion, committed the other Apostles to his care, and offered up a special prayer for him, to obtain the grace necessary for this high trust. He said to all the Apostles, speaking to St. Peter by name as their representative, "Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you [in the plural number, designating the eleven], that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee [in the singular number], that thy faith fail not: and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren"—"Aliquando conversus confirma fratres tuos." A remarkable passage! Our Lord, at this awful moment, disclosed a portion of His divine knowledge, and gave His Apostles a glimpse into futurity. He showed them Satan, exerting his utmost to destroy them as the guardians of the faith, and the custodians of all the hopes of the human race. He intimates very plainly that but for Him they would be inevitably swept away. But He had prayed for them, and, when He prayed with an unconditional will that His prayer should be heard, its effect must be infallible. His prayer was especially for St. Peter, that his faith should not fail, in order that he might confirm his brethren. So that it was by a special grace conferred on St. Peter, by which he was enabled to watch over them, that they were to be confirmed in faith. Who does not see here that pre-eminence of St. Peter over his colleagues which is expressed by the title, Prince of the Apostles? [Footnote 80]

I cannot sum up all this testimony of Scripture better than in the grand, concise language of Bossuet, in his sermon on the Unity of the Church:

"Peter appears in every respect as the first: the first to confess the faith; the first in the manifestation of love; the first of all the Apostles who saw the Saviour raised from the dead, as he was the first witness of the fact before all the people; the first, when it was necessary to fill up the number of the Apostles; the first who confirmed the faith by a miracle; the first to convert the Jews; the first to receive the Gentiles; the first everywhere. It is impossible for me to mention every proof. Everything concurs to establish his primacy; yes, even his very faults. When power is given to several, the exercise of the power by each one is restricted by the fact that others share it with him. But power given to a single individual over all, and without exception, necessarily implies the plenitude of power. … All the apostles receive the same power, but not in the same degree, or with the same extent. Jesus Christ commences by the first, and in this first one He develops the whole, in order that we may learn that the ecclesiastical authority which was originally constituted in the person of one man is not imparted to others, except on the condition of remaining always subordinate to the principle from which its unity is derived, and that all those who shall be charged with its exercise are found to remain inseparably united to the same chair."

This is enough to show what some of the most eminent Protestant writers even have acknowledged, that St. Peter was the first, the chief, the most pre-eminent, the Prince of the Apostles. St. Peter was also the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Supreme Pastor and Ruler of the Church.

The title of Vicar of Christ implies that Jesus Christ delegated to him His own jurisdiction over the Church. A vicar is one who exercises the authority vested in the principal by delegation from him. A viceroy or vice-king governs a subordinate kingdom, vice regis, in place of the king. A vicar-general exercises episcopal jurisdiction, vice episcopi, in place of the bishop, and governs the diocese during his absence. So when St. Peter is said to have been made by our Lord His Vicar, it means that he received jurisdiction to govern in the place of Jesus Christ Himself, Who is by personal and inherent right the High Priest of the Catholic Church, but Who, being absent from the earth, must exercise His functions by a substitute. It is unquestionable that, under the Old Law, the high-priest was the vice gerent of God, and the supreme head of the Jewish Church. It is equally unquestionable that, in establishing the New Law, Christ appointed St. Peter His Vicar and the Supreme Head of the Christian Church. There is nothing clearer in the New Testament than this. Jesus Christ distinctly promised to St. Peter that He would build His Church upon him, and would give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and He actually fulfilled these promises before He ascended into heaven, by committing His universal flock to him alone to feed and rule it. This promise is recorded in the sixteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel:

"Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That them art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven."

In this magnificent promise, Jesus Christ evidently declares His intention to delegate supreme power to St. Peter, and constitute him His Vicar in the Christian Church.

This supreme power is signified by a double metaphor, viz., a foundation and keys. First, He says: "Thou art Peter; and on this rock I will build My Church." In order to understand the force of this declaration, it is necessary to call to mind that the name of Peter, which signifies Rock, was not the proper name of the Apostle. His name was Simon. The Lord gave him the name of Peter when He first called him to the apostleship, as an appellation significant of his character and office in the Church. But it was on the occasion of his noble confession of Christ, made by a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, that He first announced the full import of that mysterious name. St. Peter said, "Thou art Christ"—by this title, which signifies the Anointed One, acknowledging all those divine attributes and prerogatives which are implied in the character of the Messiah of God and Redeemer of the world. The Lord replied in a manner denoting the solemnity of the occasion, and speaking with all the dignity and authority of a Legislator and a Prophet, by conferring on St. Peter, in return for the honor which he had just rendered Him, the highest honor which was in His gift: "Thou art Peter [i.e., a Rock]: and on this Rock I will build My Church." The plain and natural sense of these words of Christ is, that He appoints Peter to occupy a position in the spiritual edifice of the Church corresponding to that occupied by a foundation in a material building. The foundation sustains and, as it were, rules the whole edifice—i.e., by its strength it keeps the whole building in order, and every portion of it in its proper place, thus keeping it from crumbling into ruin—and losing all structural form in a mass of shattered fragments. The foundation is to the building the principle of its unity, repose, order, and durability. Therefore, Peter must be the same to the Church. By him the Church must be sustained, ruled, kept in order, and prevented from falling in pieces, and thus losing its organic form. His authority must be the principle of its unity, strength, and perpetuity. All the force of its laws must be derived from him, and all its authority must ultimately rest on him as its final ground and basis. This is the first portion of our Lord's divine decree concerning St. Peter. Let us now examine the second.

"I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Among the principal nations of antiquity, and particularly among the Hebrews, it was a received usage that the tradition of the keys denoted the transfer or acknowledgment of supreme power over the house, citadel, or city to whose gates they belonged. These keys, when made of precious metal, and, as was often the case, richly ornamented, were a symbol of power and dignity, and carried only by kings, princes, and magistrates. In the Hebrew monarchy, the chief of the royal household, who was a kind of grand chancellor of the kingdom, or vicar of the king, carried a large key on his shoulder as a badge of his office. In the Prophecy of Isaias,[C. xxii.] we read this prediction concerning Eliacim, son of the high-priest Helcias: "I will place upon his shoulder the key of the house of David, and he shall open and there shall be no one who shall shut, and he shall shut and there shall be no one who shall open, and he shall be on the throne of glory of his father's house."

This probably signifies that Eliacim should become high-priest in his father's place; and gives us a plain proof that the keys were an emblem of the sovereign pontificate in the Jewish Church. In the Apocalypse of St. John, the same emblem of the keys is used to designate the sovereign pontificate of Jesus Christ Himself: "These things saith the Holy One and the True One, He that hath the key of David; He that openeth, and no man shutteth; shutteth, and no man openeth." [Footnote 81]

Our Lord, as the lineal descendant of David, was the lawful King of the Jews, and this royal lineage according to earthly and temporal laws, was typical of His inherent royalty as the Son of God. Therefore, the key of David, or the outward and visible sign of David's royalty, is taken as expressive of His supreme dominion as Lord and Redeemer of the world. When Christ promised to give the keys of the kingdom of heaven—the keys of His own kingdom, and the symbols of His own Sovereignty—to St. Peter, He must have intended to delegate that sovereignty to him, and to constitute him His Vicar on the earth: To make it still more plain that He meant this, our Lord made a distinct and express declaration to this effect, in these words: "And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven." These words designate the plenitude of power to be conferred on St. Peter, of making laws, and binding the consciences of all to observe them, punishing transgressors, abrogating these same laws and pardoning offenders, and doing whatever else the good of the Church or its individual members may require, according to the diversity of times and circumstances. Jesus Christ gives before hand the seal and warrant of His divine authority to all these laws. This is what is called, in the language of commerce and politics, giving carte blanche. King Charles V. of Spain, when he sent commissioners to America to inquire into the abuses and cruelties perpetrated by the avaricious Spanish colonists against the Indians, gave them a number of blank sheets already signed and sealed with the royal sign-manual, that they might promulgate royal edicts according to their own judgment. In the same way, Jesus Christ promises that He will give to St. Peter this unlimited power of exercising jurisdiction, in His name, in the Catholic Church, with the sealed sign-manual of heaven. But Jesus Christ not only promised to bestow this power on St. Peter: He made to him, after His resurrection and before His ascension, a formal grant of this power, and solemnly delivered up the care and government of His universal flock into his hands. This fact is recorded by St. John, in the twenty-first chapter of his Gospel. Everything about this chapter is mysterious and sublime in the highest degree, and every word, every circumstance, points to that high office of the Chief Pastor, and, after Christ, principal founder of the Christian religion, which was given to St. Peter.

It was an awful moment; like that mysterious and solemn period of twilight, when the sun has set, but still leaves some lingering gleam of his light behind him, before the dark hour of night draws on, and the milder and fainter radiance of the moon succeeds to the brightness of day—the brief period of transition from day to night—from light to darkness—the holiest hour of the day, when the soul, as it were, naturally withdraws from the world towards God and heaven. Such a moment had now come in the progress of time, the twilight of the world. Jesus Christ, the Light of the world—the Sun of Justice, who had risen in the East with healing in his beams—had gone down to the grave, had closed His earthly career, and the world henceforth, so long illuminated by the presence of the bright Sun of truth and grace, would have no longer any other light to shine upon it except the reflected light of the Catholic Church.

The time of night and of the absence of Jesus Christ from His disciples was approaching. And yet He was not altogether withdrawn. Still, in His spiritual and glorified body, He lingered on the earth, coming and going, approaching and vanishing before His disciples. He was still with them, but no longer as an inhabitant of the earth, but of heaven. At this time it was that St. Peter said to his fellow-disciples, "I go a-fishing." Who can fail to see here, with all the wisest and holiest interpreters of the Scripture, a mysterious foreshadowing of that great fishery for the souls of men, in which the Apostolic net was to draw so many into the Church? It was Peter who was the leader and chief here, and by his orders the nets were cast. Suddenly, Jesus Christ appeared standing on the shore, and commanded them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. They did so, and, although they had before this caught nothing, their net was immediately so filled with large fishes that they could not draw it. It required the assistance of all those who were on board several other boats to draw the net. And yet, when the Lord commanded some of these fishes to be brought, St. Peter, alone, went and drew the net up on the beach. Evidently do these emblematic events indicate St. Peter as the one who should command the ship of the Church, and preside over the grand fishery of souls, and by his supernatural power should pull the net by which the elect of God were drawn from the waves of perdition to the shore of eternal life.

Jesus Christ assembled His disciples around Him on the beach, by the seaside, and they dined together from the fish which they had taken. Then, when this mysterious meal, the parting banquet of Jesus and His disciples, was finished, the Lord exacted from St. Peter three times a profession of his love, and of his peculiar love—a love greater than that of the other Apostles. "Simon Peter, lovest thou Me more than these?" And thrice He gave him the solemn charge: "Feed My lambs. … Feed My lambs. … Feed My sheep." In these words, Jesus Christ evidently committed not one or the other portion of His flock, but His entire flock, all His people, the universal Church throughout the world, to his pastoral care. The expression, "Feed My lambs—feed My sheep," indicates much more than simply to give them their food, namely, by teaching salutary doctrine. Two different words are used in the original Greek, [Greek text]; which is literally in Latin, Pasce in cibo, agnos meos—Feed My lambs. But after using this expression, which indicates the tender and paternal care of the pastoral office, He uses another expressing its authority, [Greek text]; this signifies, as a learned theologian (Perrone) remarks, pascere cum imperio, pascere præsidendo, to feed by ruling, to feed by presiding, or to feed, rule, and preside over at the same time, as a shepherd over his flock. This is in accordance with the usage of ancient writers and the Scriptures.

In Homer and other ancient authors, kings are called shepherds or pastors, and poimaine, feed, signifies to rule or exercise kingly authority. In these words, then, Jesus Christ constituted St. Peter chief pastor and supreme ruler over His universal flock—sheep and lambs together; not merely the lambs, who represent the laity, but the sheep, those to whom the lambs are subject, and by whom they are fed—that is, the bishops and pastors of the Church. It is in vain that the enemies of St. Peter's chair exert all their ingenuity to escape the force of these passages. They are too plain and clear to be evaded, and, after centuries of exertion to heave the Rock of Peter out of the Scriptures, there it stands, an immovable and unquestionable fact that the Rock of Peter is the foundation of the Catholic Church, that the Catholic Church is built on the Rock of Peter, that Peter received the keys of heaven from Jesus Christ, and was constituted by Him chief pastor over His universal flock.

And here allow me to remark how singular it is that Protestants should be ready to build up with out hesitation a vast pyramid of doctrine on the narrow foundation of a few texts of Scripture, and at the same time reject the most clear and unequivocal statements of the New Testament. For example, they will most positively assert the transfer of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, because the word Lord's Day is once used, and the assembling of the faithful on the first day of the week is once casually mentioned, although nothing is said of their being an observance of divine obligation intended to supersede the Sabbath. They will prove the baptism of infants from the circumcision of Jewish children, and from the fact that some entire families were baptized, although there is no evidence that there were any infants in these families. Some will prove Episcopacy, and others Presbyterianism, and others Congregationalism, from the Scriptures. And yet they will reject without hesitation the evidence of the supremacy of Peter, which is so clear that even some Protestants are forced to admit it in a partial sense; and the celebrated Jewish infidel Salvador, a man who perhaps excels all the modern advocates of infidelity in perspicacity of intellect and ingenuity of reasoning, declares with out hesitation that the supremacy of the See of St. Peter is an institution of Jesus Christ, and an essential part of Christianity. It is one among many proofs that those who profess to make the Bible their only rule do not really derive their doctrine from a candid examination of the Scriptures; but that they receive what they have been taught by their parents and religious teachers, and search the Scriptures to find proof and confirmation of these doctrines. Thus, each one, in stead of conforming his belief to the Scripture, bends the Scripture into conformity with his belief. Those parts of the Scripture which are not easily bent into this conformity remain to him a dead letter, they make no impression on his mind, and, no matter how clear and plain they may be, he forgets them if he can, and, if he is forced to pay attention to them, he explains them away. Thus it has been with the passages of the New Testament which prove so clearly the supremacy of St. Peter. There is nothing in the New Testament more clear, more plain, more explicit, more obvious, than this supremacy; when these various passages have been once collated, placed in juxtaposition with each other, carefully examined and reflected on, and confronted with the great fact of the perpetual existence of the supremacy of the Roman Pontiffs as the acknowledged successors of St. Peter. This last topic I have not directly considered in this discourse, but have reserved it for another. Nevertheless, whoever will attentively consider what is involved in the very idea of St. Peter's supremacy will see at once that this supremacy must be, by its very nature, perpetual. It was made the foundation of a perpetual structure; it extended over all bishops and all the faithful, without any limit of time or place; it provided for the exercise of that power of the keys which is necessary in all ages; and it was made the means of keeping the rulers of the Church in unity of faith under the severest assaults of Satan, which are undoubtedly those of the last days of the world.

Our Lord in establishing the supremacy of St. Peter gave to His Church a constitution and a government. He placed His kingdom under one monarchical head. He made the sacerdotal hierarchy subject to one chief. This law must therefore last as long as the Church lasts, that is, through all time. There is no power which can change the divine law of our Lord. The supremacy of St. Peter must therefore be perpetual in his successors. And that these successors are the Roman Pontiffs I shall proceed to show in my next discourse.