Truly it is impossible to conceive how the Popes have been so bold as to set up this passage of St. Luke in order to establish their system. It must be remarked that these words quoted were addressed by Christ to St. Peter the very day that he was to betray him, and that they contain only a prediction of his fall. St. Peter understood this well, since he immediately replied, "Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison, and to death;" but Jesus added, "I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me."
The text of St. Luke's Gospel is a proof against the firmness of St. Peter's faith, rather than in favor of it — à fortiori, then, should no deductions in support of his superiority in the matter of doctrine or government be drawn from it. And the Fathers of the Church and the most learned interpreters of Holy Scripture have never dreamed of giving to it any such meaning. Aside from modern Popes and their partisans, who wish at any price to procure proofs, good or bad, no one has ever seen in the words above quoted more than a warning given to Peter to repair by his faith the scandal of his fall, and to strengthen the other apostles whom this fall must shake in their faith.[1] The obligation to confirm their faith proceeded from the scandal he would thus occasion; the words confirma fratres are only the consequence of the word conversus. Now if one would give to the first a general sense, why should it not be given to the second? It would result then, if the successors of St. Peter have inherited the prerogative of confirming their brethren in the faith, they have also inherited that of the need of conversion, after having denied Jesus Christ. We can not see how the Pontifical authority would gain by that.
- ↑ It was not until the ninth century, that any Father or ecclesiastical writer admitted the Ultramontane interpretation.
