POPE
261
POPE
lively with the office of Supreme Head conferred on
St. Peter, the perpetuity of this office in the person of
the Roman pontiff, the pope's jurisdiction over the
faithful, and his supreme authority to define in all
questions of faith and morals. This last point has
been sufficiently discussed in the article Infallibil-
ity, and will be only incidentally touched on here.
The present article is divided as follows: I. Institution
of a Supreme Head by Christ; II. Primacy of the
Roman See; III. Nature and Extent of the Papal
Power; IV. Jurisdictional Rights and Prerogatives of
the Pope; V. Primacy of Honour: Titles and Insignia;
VI. Election of the Popes; VII. Chronological List of
the Popes.
I. Institution of a Supreme Head by Christ. — The proof that Christ constituted St. Peter head of His Church is found in the two famous Petrine texts, Matt., x\n, 17-19, and John, xxi, 15-17. In Matt., xvi, 17-19, the office is solemnly promised to the Apostle. In response to his profession of faith in the Divine Nature of his Master, Christ thus addresses him: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou 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 on earth it shall be bound also in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loo.sed also in heaven." The prerogatives here promised are manifestly per- sonal to Peter. His profession of faith was not made, as has been sometimes asserted, in the name of the other Apostles. This is evident from the words of Christ. He pronounces on the Apostle, distinguish- ing him by his name Simon son of John, a peculiar and personal blessing, declaring that his knowledge regard- ing the Divine Sonship sprang from a special revela- tion granted to Mm by the Father (cf. Matt., xi, 27). He further proceeds to recompense this confession of His Di\'inity by bestowing upon him a reward proper to himself: "Thou art Peter [Cepha, transliterated also Klpha] and upon this rock [Cepha] I will build my Church." The word for Peter and for rock in the original Aramaic is one and the same (XCI); this renders it evident that the various attempts to explain the term "rock" as having reference not to Peter himself but to something else are misinterpretations. It is Peter who is the rock of the Church. The term ecdei-ia {iKKKriala) here emploj'ed is the Greek render- ing of the Hebrew qdhdl {'~T:), the name which denoted the Hebrew nation viewed as God's Church (see Church, The, I).
Here then Christ teaches plainly that in the future the Church will be the society of those who acknowl- edge Him, and that this Church will be built on Peter. The expression presents no difficulty. In both the Old and New Testaments the Church is often spoken of under the metaphor of God's house (Num., xii, 7; Jer., xii, 7; Osee, viii, 1; ix, 1.5; I Cor., iii, 9-17, Eph., ii, 20-2; I Tim., iii, 5; Heb., iii, 5; I Peter, ii, 5). Peter is to be to the Church what the foundation is in re- gard to a house. He is to be the principle of unity, of stability, and of increase. He is the principle of unity, since what is not joined to that foundation is no part of the Church; of stability, since it is the firmness of this foundation in virtue of which the Church remains unshaken by the storms which buffet her; of increase, since, if she grows, it is because new stones are laid on this foundation. It is through her union with Peter, Christ continues, that the Church will prove t'ne victor in her long contest with the Evil One: "The gates of hell shall not jirevail against it." There can be but one explanation of this striking metaphor. The only manner in which a man can stand in such a relation to any corporate body is by possessing authority over it. The supreme head of a
body, in dependence on whom all subordinate author-
ities hold their power, and he alone, can be said to be
the principle of stability, unity, and increase. The
promise acquires additional solemnity when we re-
member that both Old Testament prophecy (Is.,
xxviii, 16) and Christ's own words (Matt., vii, 24)
had attributed this office of foundation of the Church
to Himself. He is therefore assigning to Peter, of
course in a secondary degree, a prerogative which is
His own, and thereby associating the Apostle with
Himself in an altogether singular manner.
In the following verse (Matt., xvi, 19) He promises to bestow on Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The words refer evidently to Is., xxii, 22, where God declares that Eliacim, the son of Helcias, shall be in- vested with office in place of the worthless Sobna: "And 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." In all countries the key is the symbol of authority. Thus, Christ's words are a promise that He will confer on Peter supreme power to govern the Church. Peter is to be His vicegerent, to rule in His place. Further, the character and extent of the power thus bestowed are indicated. It is a power to "bind" and to "loose" — words which, as is shown below, denote the grant of legislative and judicial authority. And this power is granted in its fullest measure. Whatever Peter binds or looses on earth, his act will receive the Divine ratification. The meaning of this passage does not seem to have been challenged by any writer until the rise of the sixteenth-century heresies. Since then a great variety of interpretations have been put forward by Protestant controversialists. These agree in little save in the rejection of the plain sense of Christ's words. Recent Anglican controversy tends to the view that the reward promised to St. Peter consisted in the prominent part taken by him in the initial activities of the Church, but that he was never more than primus inter pares among the Apostles (see Lightfoot, "Apost. Fathers", II, 480; Gore, "Roman Cath. Claims", v; Puller, "Primitive Saints, etc.", lect. 3). It is manifest that this is quite insufficient as an explanation of the terms of Christ's promise. For a more detailed consideration of the passage the following works may be consulted: Knabenbauer, "In Matt.", ad loc; Passaglia, "De Prserog. B. Petri.", II, iii-x; Palmieri "De Rom. Pont.", 225-78.
The promise made by Christ in Matt., xvi, 16-19, received its fulfilment after the Resurrection in the scene described in John, xxi. Here the Lord, when about to leave the earth, places the whole flock — the sheep and the lambs alike — in the charge of the Apostle. The term employed in xxi, 16, "Be the shepherd [irot^ixe] of my sheep", indicates that his task is not merely to feed but to rule. It is the same word as is used in Ps. ii, 9 (Sept.): "Thou shalt rule [iroi^ams] them with a rod of iron". The scene stands in striking parallelism with that of Matt., xvi. As there the reward was given to Peter after a profession of faith which singled him out from the other eleven, so here Christ demands a similar pro- testation, but this time of a yet higher virtue: "Simon, son of John, hvesl thou Me more than these"? Here, too, as there. He bestows on the Apostle an office which in its highest sense is proper to Himself alone. There Christ had promised to make Peter the foundation-stone of the hou.se of God: here He makes him the shepherd of God's flock to take the place of Himself, the Good Shepherd. The passage receives an admirable comment from St. Chry.sostom: "He saith to him, 'Feed my sheep'. Why does He pass over the others and speak of the sheep to Peter? He was the chosen one of the Apostles, the mouth of the disciples, the head of the choir. For this reason Paul went up to see hira rather than the others. And also to show him that he must have confidence now that
