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Pope St Leo the Great and the development of the Papacy

11 Thursday May 2017

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13 May is the centenary of the first appearance of Our Lady at Fatima, and we shall have a post on that. After that there will be a short series on the Council of Chalcedon, but as some background to the latter might be in order, especially around the claims made for the powers of the Pope, it seemed appropriate to deal with those wider questions in a short post, before proceeding to deal with Chalcedon,

It is easy (which is no doubt why it is done so often) to assume that from the beginning the Papacy based itself on the Petrine verses in St. Matthew’s Gospel. The Eastern Orthodox like to point out that those claims were cast in terms of ‘primacy’; they are correct. But what did that much-disputed word mean to those who used it in the early Church? If we are to understand this, we need to understand something about Roman ideas of inheritance and authority – ideas which were shared across the whole Empire – including Constantinople.

St. Leo the Great made two main contributions to the developing understanding of what ‘primacy’ mean. The first amounts to an assertion that the past existed in the present, not just because he was Peter’s successor, but in the form of a direct and present link between the Apostle and the Pope. As he put it in his sermon on 19 September 443 (Sermon 3.4)

Regard him [Peter] as present in the lowliness of my person. Honour him. In him continues to reside the responsibility for all shepherds, along with the protection of the sheep entrusted to them. His dignity does not fade even in an unworthy heir.’

This is what Leo understood by the saying of the Chalcedonian Fathers: ‘Peter has spoken through Leo. (See here also W. Ullmann, ‘Leo I and the Theme of Papal Primacy’, Journal of Theological Studies 1960, pp. 26-28).

Under Roman jurisprudence, a person was supposed to be present in his legal representative, even as the deceased was in his heir. The same jurisprudence was present in the eastern empire, so to argue that anyone in Constantinople would have been ignorant of this conception of what it meant for Leo to have said what he had said seems to strain credulity. Indeed, as K. Shatz puts it in Papal Primacy From Its Origins to the Present (1996), Leo made ‘the “church of tradition … into the church of the capital city that extends its laws to the whole world.’ (pp. 33-36 for the argument).

On this understanding the Pope was not simply Peter’s representative but his living successor – Peter spoke through him. Thus, Rome’s judgments and decrees were rendered universal because the Holy Apostle was understood to be present in Leo and in the system of justice he administered. As Leo put in in that same sermon on 19 September 443 (3.3):
Persevering in the fortitude he received, blessed Peter does not relinquish his government of the Church. He was ordained before the others so that, when he is called rock, declared foundation, installed as doorkeeper for the kingdom of heaven, appointed arbiter of binding and loosing (with his definitive judgments retaining forces even in heaven), we might know through the very mysteries of these appellations what sort of fellowship he had with Christ. He now manages the things entrusted to him more completely and effectively. He carries out every aspect of his duties and responsibilities in him and through him whom he has been glorified.

So, if we do anything correctly or judge anything correctly, if we obtain anything at all from the mercy of God through daily supplications, it comes about as the result of his works and merits. In this see his power lives on and his authority reigns supreme. This, dearly beloved, is what the confession has obtained [Matthew 16:18]. Since it was inspired by God the Father in the apostle’s heart, it has risen above all the uncertainties of human thinking and has received the strength of a rock that cannot be shaken by any pounding.

It is Peter’s presence that brings about the Christian universalism that Leo envisoned himself exercising. If we look at his letter to the bishops of Illyricium, 12 January 444, placing them under Anastasius, the bishop of Thessalonica, and telling them that serious disputes must be referred to Rome, we see him exercising that power of which his sermons spoke.

The primacy of Rome was not simply the result of Apostolic succession, or of inhertance from St. Peter, but of this very special relationship which ensured that Peter spoke through the Pope. As Leo says in a sermon given on 29 September: [Sermons 5.4]
our solemnity is not merely the apostolic dignity of the most blessed Peter. He does not cease to preside over his see but unfailingly maintains that fellowship which he has with the eternal Priest. That stability which he received from Christ the rock (by having himself been made ‘rock’) has poured over onto his heirs as well. Whenever there is any show of firmness, it is undoubtedly the shepherd’s fortitude that appears.
Leo’s views are set out in fuller form in a sermon preached on 29 June 443 (Sermon 83.1) in which he makes it clear that since Peter exercises the Lord’s power on His behalf, so too does the Pope exercise the powers of Christ Himself, as Peter speaks through him.

This is not a claim made by any other Bishop. It was made in public by Leo in his sermons and letters, and it was based firmly upon Scripture, patristic testimony and the common law of the Empire. How this impacted upon the background to Chalcedon will be the subject of tomorrow’s post.

Leo the Great

10 Tuesday Nov 2020

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Today is the feast day of St Pope Leo the Great. As we have had some excellent posts recently on the themes of authority and catholicity, this might be an opportunity to say something about the role of Leo the Great in the process of establishing the place of the Papacy in these matters.

It is easy (which is why it is ao often done) to assume that from the beginning the Papacy based itself on the Petrine verses in St. Matthew’s Gospel. The Eastern Orthodox like to point out that those claims were cast in terms of ‘primacy’; they are correct. But what did that much-disputed word mean to those who used it in the early Church? If we are to understand this, we need to understand something about Roman ideas of inheritance and authority – ideas which were shared across the whole Empire – including Constantinople.

St. Leo the Great made two main contributions to the developing understanding of what ‘primacy’ mean. The first amounts to an assertion that the past existed in the present, not just because he was Peter’s successor, but in the form of a direct and present link between the Apostle and the Pope. As he put it in his sermon on 19 September 443 (Sermon 3.4)

Regard him [Peter] as present in the lowliness of my person. Honour him. In him continues to reside the responsibility for all shepherds, along with the protection of the sheep entrusted to them. His dignity does not fade even in an unworthy heir.’

This is what Leo understood by the saying of the Chalcedonian Fathers: ‘Peter has spoken through Leo. (See here also W. Ullmann, ‘Leo I and the Theme of Papal Primacy’, Journal of Theological Studies 1960, pp. 26-28).

Under Roman jurisprudence, a person was supposed to be present in his legal representative, even as the deceased was in his heir. The same jurisprudence was present in the eastern empire, so to argue that anyone in Constantinople would have been ignorant of this conception of what it meant for Leo to have said what he had said seems to strain credulity. Indeed, as K. Shatz puts it in Papal Primacy From Its Origins to the Present (1996), Leo made ‘the “church of tradition … into the church of the capital city that extends its laws to the whole world.’ (pp. 33-36 for the argument).

On this understanding the Pope was not simply Peter’s representative but his living successor – Peter spoke through him. Thus, Rome’s judgments and decrees were rendered universal because the Holy Apostle was understood to be present in Leo and in the system of justice he administered. As Leo put in in that same sermon on 19 September 443 (3.3):


Persevering in the fortitude he received, blessed Peter does not relinquish his government of the Church. He was ordained before the others so that, when he is called rock, declared foundation, installed as doorkeeper for the kingdom of heaven, appointed arbiter of binding and loosing (with his definitive judgments retaining forces even in heaven), we might know through the very mysteries of these appellations what sort of fellowship he had with Christ. He now manages the things entrusted to him more completely and effectively. He carries out every aspect of his duties and responsibilities in him and through him whom he has been glorified.

So, if we do anything correctly or judge anything correctly, if we obtain anything at all from the mercy of God through daily supplications, it comes about as the result of his works and merits. In this see his power lives on and his authority reigns supreme. This, dearly beloved, is what the confession has obtained [Matthew 16:18]. Since it was inspired by God the Father in the apostle’s heart, it has risen above all the uncertainties of human thinking and has received the strength of a rock that cannot be shaken by any pounding.

It is Peter’s presence that brings about the Christian universalism that Leo envisoned himself exercising. If we look at his letter to the bishops of Illyricium, 12 January 444, placing them under Anastasius, the bishop of Thessalonica, and telling them that serious disputes must be referred to Rome, we see him exercising that power of which his sermons spoke.

The primacy of Rome was not simply the result of Apostolic succession, or of inhertance from St. Peter, but of this very special relationship which ensured that Peter spoke through the Pope. As Leo says in a sermon given on 29 September: [Sermons 5.4]


our solemnity is not merely the apostolic dignity of the most blessed Peter. He does not cease to preside over his see but unfailingly maintains that fellowship which he has with the eternal Priest. That stability which he received from Christ the rock (by having himself been made ‘rock’) has poured over onto his heirs as well. Whenever there is any show of firmness, it is undoubtedly the shepherd’s fortitude that appears.


Leo’s views are set out in fuller form in a sermon preached on 29 June 443 (Sermon 83.1) in which he makes it clear that since Peter exercises the Lord’s power on His behalf, so too does the Pope exercise the powers of Christ Himself, as Peter speaks through him.

This is not a claim made by any other Bishop. It was made in public by Leo in his sermons and letters, and it was based firmly upon Scripture, patristic testimony and the common law of the Empire. Leo deserves to be called ‘the Great’, not only for what he did in his time as Pope, but also for the rich legacy he left us. His sermons are well worth acquainting yourselves with.

The Papacy: an historical perspective

30 Friday Jun 2017

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The idea that the papal claims stem from the time of Constantine can be held only by those wishing to remain in ignorance. One can find, on Catholic websites florilegia (collections of quotations) which show us that from the earliest times there was an acknowledgement of Rome’s special place. But in fairness, one ought to acknowledge that, as with everything run by humans, the Papacy has developed over time; in passing, one might note that no other Institution has lasted as long as the Papacy.

In Leo the Great’s day it could take months, even years, for information to feed through to parts of the Church, and the notion that the Pope could control the appointment of every bishop would have been an absurdity. It was only when medieval monarch such as Henry II tried to assert their right to control appointments to bishoprics that it became necessary for the Popes to protect the autonomy of the Church. However one parses Matthew 22:1, it is impossible to read it as meaning that Caesar has the right to appoint the successors to the Apostles.

In the very early Church, Rome had a primacy of honour because it was universally acknowledged as the site of the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul; those closer to those events in time lacked the doubts proclaimed so loudly by modern American Evangelicals. The ancients Sees of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were also recognised as having special jurisdiction over their regions, something the new Imperial capital, Constantinople, sought to claim from 381 onwards. The rise of Ialm left only Rome and Constantinople. The Great Schism of 1054 was simply a way of expressing something that was already a reality before that date, which is that the Church at Constantinople did not wish to acknowledge what it had back in 451, namely that Peter spoke through the Pope.

One of the delights of theological discussion in this area is that it reveals something which some Orthodox are reluctant to acknowledge – namely that their claim never to have changed anything is untrue; one of the others is that it forces Catholics into acrobatics over the filioque clause where the plain truth is that the Orthodox are correct, it was added to the Creed. Anyone wishing for sense of this can read Aidan Nichols’ Rome and the Eastern Churches. A Study in Schism (Edinburgh 1991) – living proof that it is possible to write about this topic from a confessional point of view and not sound like you are carrying on the old feud. If anyone knows a work of equal sensitivity from the Orthodox side, I’d be grateful and glad to read it.

The question boils down to whether a primacy of honour leaves the Pope in a position analogous to that of a constitutional monarch – a position of great honour but no real power.  However attractive the idea of applying the sort of developmental model which we see in the secular world to the Papacy, it will not quite wash.  On points of doctrine and dogma someone needs to decide.

That is not, however, to say there is no room for progress. There is often too great a delay in appointing to bishoprics – in my own diocese it took nearly two years to get a new bishop (and excellent he is and well worth the wait). If, as some hold, this is so the Pope can find a bishop who suits him, one can only wonder how long that process takes?  We didn’t have vacancies this long before the Reformation (except during the interdict of King John’s reign), and to have them in this era seems unnecessary. A return to the earlier practice of allowing local churches to take such decisions would be the act of a self-confident successor of St Peter who did as Peter did. If Peter’s successor wants to exercise Peter’s charism, he could do worse than to study how Peter used it.

The office develops, and it guides the Church founded by Christ on its long journey through time. It has survived Attilla the Hun, Mohammed, bad popes, the Reformation, Napoleon, the French Revolution and Stalin. “How many divisions has the Pope?” was Stalin’s famous question to Churchill; the answer is given by history. Where now is Stalinism and what did all his earthly power avail against the spiritual warfare of Pope St John Paul II?

The Fathers on the Papacy: Tertullian

04 Sunday Jun 2017

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An examination of the name lists in the NT will reveal that Peter is most often at the head of them; another sign that he was considered the leader. But we should take care here; leader does not mean supreme autocrat. Language which sees him as the ‘prince’ of the Apostles can seriously mislead. We see from Acts that St James presided over the Council of Jerusalem, and we can see from Paul that whilst Peter was ‘one of the pillars’ he was not the sole one. The other Apostles had also been given the power to bind and loose, and whilst it seems that Peter’s pre-eminence was acknowledged, it would be a mistake to see him as in any sense of the word ‘a prince’.

Was Peter ever in Rome? Well, the tradition is that he was crucified there in Nero’s time, and it would have been difficult for that to have happened had he not set foot in the place. Let us turn to see what the Fathers say. I will add here that I am no fan of florilegia which simply cherry-pick quotations, and I shall, even at the risk of a couple of more posts, try not to do that.

Tertullian (150-220), writing in his Prescription Against Heretics: “Was anything withheld from the knowledge of Peter, who is called ‘the rock on which the church should be built’ … ?” Tertullian wrote the Prescription c. A.D. 199, during the orthodox period of his life. Here, he equates the “rock” in question to the Apostle Peter. Like other Fathers he believes in Apostolic succession and in the authority of Rome. But one might easily say that what concerns Tertullian is the preservation of the truth of the gospel, not the establishment of a permanent Roman see with all the authority of an apostolic office. For example, according to Tertullian, Peter ordained Clement to succeed him as bishop of Rome and the teachings of Clement may be trusted because he received his teaching from the Apostle Peter himself. But does that mean that Clement inherited Peter’s apostolic office, or his position as “rock”? If it doesn’t, then it is hard to see why Tertullian attaches such importance to Clement receiving his teaching from Peter; if he did not succeed Peter, why bother to mention it?

In his On Modesty, which was written when he had become a Montanist, Tertullian rejects the claims of the Pope, Callistus in terms which show us what those claims were as early as the second century:

‘But,’ you say ‘the Church has the power of forgiving sins.’ This I acknowledge and adjure more (than you; I) who have the Paraclete Himself in the persons of the new prophets… . I now inquire into your opinion, (to see) from what source you usurp this right to ‘the Church.’ If, because the Lord has said to Peter, ‘Upon this rock will I build My Church,’ ‘to thee have I given the keys of the heavenly kingdom;’ or, ‘Whatsoever thou shall have bound or loosed in earth, shall be bound or loosed in the heavens,’ you therefore presume that the power of binding and loosing has derived to you, that is, to every Church akin to Peter, what sort of man are you, subverting and wholly changing the manifest intention of the Lord, conferring (as that intention did) this (gift) personally upon Peter? ‘On thee,’ He says, ‘will I build My Church; ‘and I will give to thee the keys,’ not to the Church; and, ‘Whatsoever thou shall have loosed or bound,’ not what they shall have loosed or bound. For so withal the result teaches. In (Peter) himself the Church was reared; that is, through (Peter) himself; (Peter) himself essayed the key… . For in accordance with the person of Peter, it is to spiritual men that this power will certainly appertain, either to an apostle or else to a prophet… . and thus from that time forward, every number (of persons) who may have combined together into this faith is accounted ‘a Church’ from the Author and Consecrator (of the Church). And accordingly ‘the Church,’ it is true, will forgive sins: but (it will be) the Church of the Spirit, by means of a spiritual man; not the Church which consists of a number of bishops.

So, we see that when he was orthodox, Tertullian supported the claims of the Pope; when he was not, he quibbled. It was an early example of a pattern with a long history. But it ought to put an end to the idea that the Petrine claims in any way arose with Leo the Great.

St Leo the Great and the background to Chalcedon

12 Friday May 2017

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St. Leo the Great deserves his title; he has a claim to be the greatest Pope since St. Peter. There is an argument to be made for his being the Pope who definitively established the Petrine claims. This short series cannot hope to do justice to the man, or even his Papacy, but it tries to illuminate these wider issues by focussing on the most controversial part of his career – the part he played at the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451.

The Council was called by the Emperor Marcian to sort out the mess left by the second Council of Ephesus, held in 449 which had ended in chaos. The successor of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Patriarch Dioscorus, had there secured the declaration that the monk Eutyches, who had been condemned for Christological heresy, was in fact orthodox. The decision was over-turned at Chalcedon, something the Egyptian Church and other Eastern Churches have never accepted. It was the first great schism. Central to it was the definition of the two natures of Christ offered by Pope Leo.

When the Fathers at Chalcedon declared ‘Peter has spoken through Leo’ what did this mean? Since 1054 Orthodox Christians from Greece and Russia have contested the plain meaning of the words; since they also contest the plain meaning of Matthew 16:18, this occasions no surprise.

At the heart of much of the dispute is the question of the jurisdiction held by the early Popes. Canon 3 of the Council of Sardica (343)  allowed appeals to Rome from the decision of a local bishop (See H. Hess, The early development of Canon law and the Council of Sardica (2002), esp. pp. 212-214.) This was a codification of Rome’s response to the case presented by St. Athanasius in 341. In his Apologia ad Constantium Athanasius tells us that after he was expelled from Alexandria by the Arian-inclined authorities he went to Rome to appeal against the judgement of the Eusebian bishops at Tyre who had deposed him and other orthodox bishops, including Paul of Constantinople. Pope Julius (337-352) presided over a council of 50 bishops in 341 and overturned the Tyrian verdict; Athanasius, Paul and their fellows returned to their Sees and were reinstated.

It might be noted here that his opponents were just as interested in being in Rome’s favour as two of them, Ursacius of Singiduum and Valens of Muras wrote to beg forgiveness. (See Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos 58 for the texts).

That such a view, that is that Rome had appellate jurisdiction from other bishoprices, was not confined to the West is shown not only by the appeal to it from Athanasius and Paul of Constantinople, it is present in St. Jerome’s writings. Its most recent manifestation was one with which the young Leo was personally familiar as he had been involved with it. After the Council of Ephesus (the ‘robber council’) Flavian, Theodoret and Eusebius had written to Pope Celestine to protest against their deposition and to seek his approval to their restoration. They did so in view of the fact that before that Council the Pope’s legates had declared that: ‘Peter, the prince and leader of the apostles [who] was given the power of loosing and binding sins’ continued to live and judge in his successors. This was read into the record at Chalcedon.

The circumstances which made that necessary will be the subject of a short series of posts on Chalcedon which will appear after one celebrating the centenary of Fatima. This is a ‘trigger warning’ to Bosco.

Leo the Great and the Papal claims

20 Thursday Apr 2017

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In our search for authority we have seen that the Scriptures neither define nor interpret themselves The obvious place to go is the Pope. There is a good analysis of the claims made by the Church for Matthew 16:18 at the ‘Lonely Pilgrim’ blog (follow the link). Now either we believe Jesus meant what he said, or we need to explain it away. The Protestant view has been to find ingenious reasons why it doesn’t mean what the Catholic Church says it does, but before Catholics get too triumphalist, they might want to note that the Orthodox do not accept the Catholic view, even whilst fully acknowledging that the Bishop of Rome has an honoured historic position. Those with a taste for esoteric controversy might follow up this argument on various Catholic and Orthodox fora.

I probably ought to say up front that to me both the Catholic and the Orthodox views of the Papacy smack of special pleading: both selectively report Church history to justify their existing position. That does not mean that I don’t think they both have something in them, but it does mean that there is a good amount of tares in with the wheat.

The Orthodox are happy to accept a primacy of honour. That phrase would do a politician proud, since it can mean whatever its users want it to mean. It is said that that is what the early Church gave to the Bishop of Rome, but what does that mean?

Of course we can go back to Clement’s letters, and we can argue about who Clement was, and whether he was Pope, but let us not forget that the last person sending letters to advice and admonition to Corinth was St. Paul, and no one said he was Pope. But before we get carried away in the other direction, let us not try to make great claims for the so-called Pentarchy either. Jerusalem lost its important very early and never recovered its authority; Antioch’s first bishop was St. Peter, but no one there ever based any claims to general authority on it; Alexandria, which housed a famous theological school, never claimed authority outside of North Africa; and Constantinople was a late-comer which owed its authority solely to the Emperor.

If our understanding of anything has developed, it is the understanding of the position of the Pope. A recent scholarly book by Susan Wessel shows how Leo the Great (Pope 440-41) was the first Pope to make systematic use of the Petrine verses to show that Rome did, indeed, have authority over other Sees. St. Leo the Great made two main contributions to the developing understanding of what ‘primacy’ mean. The first amounts to an assertion that the past existed in the present, not just because he was Peter’s successor, but in the form of a direct and present link between the Apostle and the Pope. As he put it in his sermon on 19 September 443 (Sermon 3.4)

Regard him [Peter] as present in the lowliness of my person. Honour him. In him continues to reside the responsibility for all shepherds, along with the protection of the sheep entrusted to them. His dignity does not fade even in an unworthy heir.’

This is what Leo understood by the saying of the Chalcedonian Fathers: ‘Peter has spoken through Leo. (See here also W. Ullmann, ‘Leo I and the Theme of Papal Primacy’, Journal of Theological Studies 1960, pp. 26-28).

Under Roman jurisprudence, a person was supposed to be present in his legal representative, even as the deceased was in his heir. The same jurisprudence was present in the eastern empire, so to argue that anyone in Constantinople would have been ignorant of this conception of what it meant for Leo to have said what he had said seems to strain credulity. Indeed, as K. Shatz puts it in Papal Primacy From Its Origins to the Present (1996), Leo made ‘the “church of tradition … into the church of the capital city that extends its laws to the whole world.’ (pp. 33-36 for the argument).

On this understanding the Pope was not simply Peter’s representative but his living successor – Peter spoke through him. Thus, Rome’s judgments and decrees were rendered universal because the Holy Apostle was understood to be present in Leo and in the system of justice he administered. As Leo put in in that same sermon on 19 September 443 (3.3):
Persevering in the fortitude he received, blessed Peter does not relinquish his government of the Church. He was ordained before the others so that, when he is called rock, declared foundation, installed as doorkeeper for the kingdom of heaven, appointed arbiter of binding and loosing (with his definitive judgments retaining forces even in heaven), we might know through the very mysteries of these appellations what sort of fellowship he had with Christ. He now manages the things entrusted to him more completely and effectively. He carries out every aspect of his duties and responsibilities in him and through him whom he has been glorified.

So, if we do anything correctly or judge anything correctly, if we obtain anything at all from the mercy of God through daily supplications, it comes about as the result of his works and merits. In this see his power lives on and his authority reigns supreme. This, dearly beloved, is what the confession has obtained [Matthew 16:18]. Since it was inspired by God the Father in the apostle’s heart, it has risen above all the uncertainties of human thinking and has received the strength of a rock that cannot be shaken by any pounding.

It is Peter’s presence that brings about the Christian universalism that Leo envisoned himself exercising. If we look at his letter to the bishops of Illyricium, 12 January 444, placing them under Anastasius, the bishop of Thessalonica, and telling them that serious disputes must be referred to Rome, we see him exercising that power of which his sermons spoke.

The primacy of Rome was not simply the result of Apostolic succession, or of inhertance from St. Peter, but of this very special relationship which ensured that Peter spoke through the Pope. As Leo says in a sermon given on 29 September: [Sermons 5.4]
our solemnity is not merely the apostolic dignity of the most blessed Peter. He does not cease to preside over his see but unfailingly maintains that fellowship which he has with the eternal Priest. That stability which he received from Christ the rock (by having himself been made ‘rock’) has poured over onto his heirs as well. Whenever there is any show of firmness, it is undoubtedly the shepherd’s fortitude that appears.
Leo’s views are set out in fuller form in a sermon preached on 29 June 443 (Sermon 83.1) in which he makes it clear that since Peter exercises the Lord’s power on His behalf, so too does the Pope exercise the powers of Christ Himself, as Peter speaks through him.

This is not a claim made by any other Bishop. It was made in public by Leo in his sermons and letters, and it was based firmly upon Scripture, patristic testimony and the common law of the Empire. Before examining how it was exercised in a situation where there was a dispute, we must turn to Leo’s second contribution to the delineation of the Petrine primacy.

Peter speaks through Leo

15 Sunday Jul 2012

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It is easy (and so often done) to assume that from the beginning the Papacy based itself on the Petrine verses in St. Matthew’s Gospel. The Eastern Orthodox like to point out that those claims were cast in terms of ‘primacy’; they are correct. But what did that much-disputed word mean to those who used it in the early Church? If we are to understand this, we need to understand something about Roman ideas of inheritance and authority – ideas which were shared across the whole Empire – including Constantinople.

St. Leo the Great made two main contributions to the developing understanding of what ‘primacy’ mean. The first amounts to an assertion that the past existed in the present, not just because he was Peter’s successor, but in the form of a direct and present link between the Apostle and the Pope. As he put it in his sermon on 19 September 443 (Sermon 3.4)

Regard him [Peter] as present in the lowliness of my person. Honour him. In him continues to reside the responsibility for all shepherds, along with the protection of the sheep entrusted to them. His dignity does not fade even in an unworthy heir.’

This is what Leo understood by the saying of the Chalcedonian Fathers: ‘Peter has spoken through Leo. (See here also W. Ullmann, ‘Leo I and the Theme of Papal Primacy’, Journal of Theological Studies 1960, pp. 26-28).

Under Roman jurisprudence, a person was supposed to be present in his legal representative, even as the deceased was in his heir. The same jurisprudence was present in the eastern empire, so to argue that anyone in Constantinople would have been ignorant of this conception of what it meant for Leo to have said what he had said seems to strain credulity. Indeed, as K. Shatz puts it in Papal Primacy From Its Origins to the Present (1996), Leo made ‘the “church of tradition … into the church of the capital city that extends its laws to the whole world.’ (pp. 33-36 for the argument).

On this understanding the Pope was not simply Peter’s representative but his living successor – Peter spoke through him. Thus, Rome’s judgments and decrees were rendered universal because the Holy Apostle was understood to be present in Leo and in the system of justice he administered. As Leo put in in that same sermon on 19 September 443 (3.3):
Persevering in the fortitude he received, blessed Peter does not relinquish his government of the Church. He was ordained before the others so that, when he is called rock, declared foundation, installed as doorkeeper for the kingdom of heaven, appointed arbiter of binding and loosing (with his definitive judgments retaining forces even in heaven), we might know through the very mysteries of these appellations what sort of fellowship he had with Christ. He now manages the things entrusted to him more completely and effectively. He carries out every aspect of his duties and responsibilities in him and through him whom he has been glorified.

So, if we do anything correctly or judge anything correctly, if we obtain anything at all from the mercy of God through daily supplications, it comes about as the result of his works and merits. In this see his power lives on and his authority reigns supreme. This, dearly beloved, is what the confession has obtained [Matthew 16:18]. Since it was inspired by God the Father in the apostle’s heart, it has risen above all the uncertainties of human thinking and has received the strength of a rock that cannot be shaken by any pounding.

It is Peter’s presence that brings about the Christian universalism that Leo envisoned himself exercising. If we look at his letter to the bishops of Illyricium, 12 January 444, placing them under Anastasius, the bishop of Thessalonica, and telling them that serious disputes must be referred to Rome, we see him exercising that power of which his sermons spoke.

The primacy of Rome was not simply the result of Apostolic succession, or of inhertance from St. Peter, but of this very special relationship which ensured that Peter spoke through the Pope. As Leo says in a sermon given on 29 September: [Sermons 5.4]


our solemnity is not merely the apostolic dignity of the most blessed Peter. He does not cease to preside over his see but unfailingly maintains that fellowship which he has with the eternal Priest. That stability which he received from Christ the rock (by having himself been made ‘rock’) has poured over onto his heirs as well. Whenever there is any show of firmness, it is undoubtedly the shepherd’s fortitude that appears.


Leo’s views are set out in fuller form in a sermon preached on 29 June 443 (Sermon 83.1) in which he makes it clear that since Peter exercises the Lord’s power on His behalf, so too does the Pope exercise the powers of Christ Himself, as Peter speaks through him.

This is not a claim made by any other Bishop. It was made in public by Leo in his sermons and letters, and it was based firmly upon Scripture, patristic testimony and the common law of the Empire. Before examining how it was exercised in a situation where there was a dispute, we must turn to Leo’s second contribution to the delineation of the Petrine primacy.

St. Leo the Great: background to Chalcedon

14 Saturday Jul 2012

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St. Leo the Great deserves his title; he has a claim to be the greatest Pope since St. Peter. There is an argument to be made for his being the Pope who definitively established the Petrine claims. This short series cannot hope to do justice to the man, or even his Papacy, but it tries to illuminate these wider issues by focussing on the most controversial part of his career – the part he played at the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451.

The Council was called by the Emperor Marcian to sort out the mess left by the second Council of Ephesus, held in 449 which had ended in chaos. The successor of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Patriarch Dioscorus, had there secured the declaration that the monk Eutyches, who had been condemned for Christological heresy, was in fact orthodox. The decision was over-turned at Chalcedon, something the Egyptian Church and other Eastern Churches have never accepted. It was the first great schism. Central to it was the definition of the two natures of Christ offered by Pope Leo.

When the Fathers at Chalcedon declared ‘Peter has spoken through Leo’ what did this mean? Since 1054 Orthodox Christians from Greece and Russia have contested the plain meaning of the words; since they also contest the plain meaning of Matthew 16:18, this occasions no surprise.

At the heart of much of the dispute is the question of the jurisdiction held by the early Popes. Canon 3 of the Council of Sardica (343)  allowed appeals to Rome from the decision of a local bishop (See H. Hess, The early development of Canon law and the Council of Sardica (2002), esp. pp. 212-214.) This was a codification of Rome’s response to the case presented by St. Athanasius in 341. In his Apologia ad Constantium Athanasius tells us that after he was expelled from Alexandria by the Arian-inclined authorities he went to Rome to appeal against the judgement of the Eusebian bishops at Tyre who had deposed him and other orthodox bishops, including Paul of Constantinople. Pope Julius (337-352) presided over a council of 50 bishops in 341 and overturned the Tyrian verdict; Athanasius, Paul and their fellows returned to their Sees and were reinstated.

It might be noted here that his opponents were just as interested in being in Rome’s favour as two of them, Ursacius of Singiduum and Valens of Muras wrote to beg forgiveness. (See Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos 58 for the texts).

That such a view, that is that Rome had appellate jurisdiction from other bishoprices, was not confined to the West is shown not only by the appeal to it from Athanasius and Paul of Constantinople, it is present in St. Jerome’s writings. Its most recent manifestation was one with which the young Leo was personally familiar as he had been involved with it. After the Council of Ephesus (the ‘robber council’) Flavian, Theodoret and Eusebius had written to Pope Celestine to protest against their deposition and to seek his approval to their restoration. They did so in view of the fact that before that Council the Pope’s legates had declared that: ‘Peter, the prince and leader of the apostles [who] was given the power of loosing and binding sins’ continued to live and judge in his successors. This was read into the record at Chalcedon.

So what did Leo understand by the words that ‘Peter’ spoke through him? To this we shall turn next.

‘Peter speaks through Leo’

09 Monday Jul 2012

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In our search for authority we have seen that the Scriptures do not interpret themselves, and that Church Councils don’t define themselves. The obvious place to go is the Pope. The Lonely Pilgrim offers a compelling analysis of Matthew 16:18, and I have never had any problem accepting that the verse means what it says; the efforts to explain it away start very later in Church history, and really only when Luther and co. started to need an argument for rejecting the Pope. OK, so why not just stop there? Well there’s the little matter of the Orthodox tradition.

I probably ought to say up front that to me both the Catholic and the Orthodox views of the Papacy smack of special pleading: both selectively report Church history to justify their existing position. That does not mean that I don’t think they both have something in them, but it does mean that there is a good amount of tares in with the wheat.

The Orthodox are happy to accept a primacy of honour. That phrase would do a politician proud, since it can mean whatever its users want it to mean. It is said that that is what the early Church gave to the Bishop of Rome, but what does that mean?

Of course we can go back to Clement’s letters, and we can argue about who Clement was, and whether he was Pope, but let us not forget that the last person sending letters to advice and admonition to Corinth was St. Paul, and no one said he was Pope. But before we get carried away in the other direction, let us not try to make great claims for the so-called Pentarchy either. Jerusalem lost its important very early and never recovered its authority; Antioch’s first bishop was St. Peter, but no one there ever based any claims to general authority on it; Alexandria, which housed a famous theological school, never claimed authority outside of North Africa; and Constantinople was a late-comer which owed its authority solely to the Emperor.

If our understanding of anything has developed, it is the understanding of the position of the Pope. A recent scholarly book by Susan Wessel shows how Leo the Great (Pope 440-41) was the first Pope to make systematic use of the Petrine verses to show that Rome did, indeed, have authority over other Sees. It shows at least one example of that being accepted, at Chalcedon in 451 with Leo’s famous Tome. It is true, as the Orthodox like to claim, that the acceptance of the Tome depended upon Leo teaching what St. Cyril taught, but since that had been dependent upon approval by Pope Celestine, that point might not be quite as effective as is sometimes thought. There can be no doubt that the Fathers at Chalcedon declared that ‘Peter speaks through Leo’ – which, according to taste, means they thought what they said, or that they didn’t. As with the Petrine verse in St. Matthew, when one has to strain to avoid the plain meaning, it may be better not to.

But, to go from that to an acceptance of the claims of the modern Papacy? Is that a developed understanding or a forced one?

The Origins of the Authority of the Pope (Part 2)

20 Thursday Jul 2017

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The Early Christian writing show us what Christianity believed from the time of the Apostles on through the centuries. Many of the First Christians were disciples of the Apostles and also their successors. Their writings show us Christian thinking of the first centuries, and how Christ’s teaching was understood. Who better to express the Apostles’ teaching than their own students? They certainly believed that Peter held a place of primacy among the Apostles.

Tatian the Syrian

“Simon Cephas answered and said, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah: flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee also, that you are Cephas, and on this rock will I build my Church; and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it” (The Diatesseron 23 [A.D. 170]).

 

Tertullian

“Was anything withheld from the knowledge of Peter, who is called ‘the rock on which the Church would be built’ [Matt. 16:18] with the power of ‘loosing and binding in heaven and on earth’ [Matt. 16:19]?” (Demurrer Against the Heretics 22 [A.D. 200]).

“[T]he Lord said to Peter, ‘On this rock I will build my Church, I have given you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [and] whatever you shall have bound or loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. . . . What kind of man are you, subverting and changing what was the manifest intent of the Lord when he conferred this personally upon Peter? Upon you, he says, I will build my Church; and I will give to you the keys” (Modesty 21:9–10 [A.D. 220]).

 

The Letter of Clement to James

“Be it known to you, my lord, that Simon [Peter], who, for the sake of the true faith, and the most sure foundation of his doctrine, was set apart to be the foundation of the Church, and for this end was by Jesus himself, with his truthful mouth, named Peter” (Letter of Clement to James 2 [A.D. 221]).

 

The Clementine Homilies

“[Simon Peter said to Simon Magus in Rome:] ‘For you now stand in direct opposition to me, who am a firm rock, the foundation of the Church’ [Matt. 16:18]” (Clementine Homilies 17:19 [A.D. 221]).

 

Origen

“Look at [Peter], the great foundation of the Church, that most solid of rocks, upon whom Christ built the Church [Matt. 16:18]. And what does our Lord say to him? ‘Oh you of little faith,’ he says, ‘why do you doubt?’ [Matt. 14:31]” (Homilies on Exodus 5:4 [A.D. 248]).

 

Cyprian of Carthage

“The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven . . . ’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is 0831cyprian-of-carthage0012.jpgmade clear that there is but one Church and one chair. . . . If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?” (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; 1st edition [A.D. 251]).

“There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering” (Letters 43[40]:5 [A.D. 253]).

“There [John 6:68–69] speaks Peter, upon whom the Church would be built, teaching in the name of the Church and showing that even if a stubborn and proud multitude withdraws because it does not wish to obey, yet the Church does not withdraw from Christ. The people joined to the priest and the flock clinging to their shepherd are the Church. You ought to know, then, that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop, and if someone is not with the bishop, he is not in the Church. They vainly flatter themselves who creep up, not having peace with the priests of God, believing that they are secretly [i.e., invisibly] in communion with certain individuals. For the Church, which is one and Catholic, is not split nor divided, but it is indeed united and joined by the cement of priests who adhere one to another” (ibid., 66[69]:8).

 

Firmilian

“But what is his error . . . who does not remain on the foundation of the one Church which was founded upon the rock by Christ [Matt. 16:18], can be learned from this, which Christ said to Peter alone: ‘Whatever things you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth, they shall be loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:19]” (collected in Cyprian’s Letters 74[75]:16 [A.D. 253]).

“[Pope] Stephen [I] . . . boasts of the place of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession from Peter, on whom the foundations of the Church were laid [Matt. 16:18]. . . . [Pope] Stephen . . . announces that he holds by succession the throne of Peter” (ibid., 74[75]:17).

 

Ephraim the Syrian

“[Jesus said:] ‘Simon, my follower, I have made you the foundation of the holy Church. I betimes called you Peter, because you will support all its buildings. You are the inspector of those who will build on earth a Church for me. If they should wish to build what is false, you, the foundation, will condemn them. You are the head of the fountain from which my teaching flows; you are the chief of my disciples’” (Homilies 4:1 [A.D. 351]).

 

Optatus

“You cannot deny that you are aware that in the city of Rome the episcopal chair was given first to Peter; the chair in which Peter sat, the same who was head—that is why he is also called Cephas [‘Rock’]—of all the apostles; the one chair in which unity is maintained by all” (The Schism of the Donatists 2:2 [A.D. 367]).

 

Ambrose of Milan

“[Christ] made answer: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church. . . . ’ Could he not, then, strengthen the faith of the man to whom, acting on his own authority, he gave the kingdom, whom he called the rock, thereby declaring him to be the foundation of the Church [Matt. 16:18]?” (The Faith 4:5 [A.D. 379]).

“It is to Peter that he says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’ [Matt. 16:18]. Where Peter is, there is the Church. And where the Church is, no death is there, but life eternal” (Commentary on Twelve Psalms of David 40:30 [A.D. 389]).

 

Pope Damasus I

“Likewise it is decreed . . . that it ought to be announced that . . . the holy Roman Church has not been placed at the forefront by the conciliar decisions of other churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it; and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. . . . ’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. The first see, therefore, is that of Peter the apostle, that of the Roman Church, which has neither stain nor blemish nor anything like it” (Decree of Damasus 3 [A.D. 382]).

 

Jerome

“‘But,’ you [Jovinian] will say, ‘it was on Peter that the Church was founded’ [Matt. 16:18]. Well . . . one among the twelve is chosen to be their head in order to remove any occasion for division” (Against Jovinian 1:26 [A.D. 393]).

“I follow no leader but Christ and join in communion with none but your blessedness [Pope Damasus I], that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that this is the rock on which thecopy_of_st_jerome_writing_by_boelberner.jpg Church has been built. Whoever eats the Lamb outside this house is profane. Anyone who is not in the ark of Noah will perish when the flood prevails” (Letters 15:2 [A.D. 396]).

 

Augustine

“If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them [the bishops of Rome] from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer it.’ Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement. … In this order of succession a Donatist bishop is not to be found” (Letters 53:1:2 [A.D. 412]).

 

Council of Ephesus

“Philip, the presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See [Rome], said: ‘There is no doubt, and in fact it has been known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him was given the power of loosing and binding sins: who down even to today and forever both lives and judges in his successors’” (Acts of the Council, session 3 [A.D. 431]).

 

Sechnall of Ireland

“Steadfast in the fear of God, and in faith immovable, upon [Patrick] as upon Peter the [Irish] church is built; and he has been allotted his apostleship by God; against him the gates of hell prevail not” (Hymn in Praise of St. Patrick 3 [A.D. 444]).

 

Pope Leo I

“Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . has placed the principal charge on the blessed Peter, chief of all the apostles. . . . He wished him who had been received into partnership in his undivided unity to be named what he himself was, when he said: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’ [Matt. 16:18], that the building of the eternal temple might rest on Peter’s solid rock, strengthening his Church so surely that neither could human rashness assail it nor the gates of hell prevail against it” (Letters 10:1 [A.D. 445]).

 

Council of Chalcedon

“Wherefore the most holy and blessed Leo, archbishop of the great and elder Rome, through us, and through this present most holy synod, together with the thrice blessed and all-glorious Peter the apostle, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic Church, and the foundation of the orthodox faith, has stripped him [Dioscorus] of the episcopate” (Acts of the Council, session 3 [A.D. 451]).

Both history and the Scriptures point to Peter being made the leader of the earthly Church. Why object to it? Scripture teaches it; the first Christians believed it. A person who makes an attack on the papacy is either ignorant or wrongly informed. I would next like to study the one of the specifics of the teaching power of the pope, that is, infallibility.

{To be continued in The Origins of the Authority of the Pope (Part 3) Papal Infallibility}