Peter the First Pope
Literary and Historical Evidence Disputes the Catholic Claim
Ever since the Catholic Church became an institutional organization during the waning years of the Roman Empire, it has steadfastly held that the Apostle Peter was the first “pope,” a distinction based on a passage in the Gospel of Matthew.
Neither history nor archaeology confirms this and the often cited passage in Matthew may be misinterpreted.
"Upon this Rock I will Build My Church"
The primary passage used by Catholicism to support the claim that Peter was the first pope is found in Matthew’s Gospel, 16: 13-19. The most salient part of the passage has Christ responding to Peter’s declaration that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the Living God…”
Christ’s response includes the phrase, “thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church….” The name Peter is masculine, Petros, but this was not the term used by Christ.
Rather, he used the feminine term petra that is never applied to a person but refers to a small pebble. Metaphorically, the pebble forms the groundwork of a strong foundation.
The Church’s One Foundation
One of the most popular hymns in both the Catholic and Protestant hymnal begins, “the Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord…” This statement conforms to numerous New Testament passages that very clearly identify Christ as the foundation of the Church (Ephesians 2:20; I Corinthians 3:11).
This contradicts the interpretation in Matthew 16 that either Peter or the papacy serves as the foundation of the Church. In fact, Peter never claimed this right for himself and in the Acts of the Apostles exclaims that he was merely a man like everyone else.
Had Peter been viewed as the first pope by the other disciples, the argument among these men as to who was the greatest, as found in Mark 9: 33-35, would never have taken place. Finally, the Church has only “tradition” to rely upon for the claim that Peter was ever in Rome to begin with; no historical or archaeological evidence exists.
The First Popes
Historians differ as to when the term “pope” first came to be associated with the bishop of Rome, although it was probably in the late 6th or early 7th centuries. One source indicates that Boniface III first appropriated the term in AD 607.
It is also known that the term pope was applied to bishops in Asia Minor in the first centuries of the Christian Church and that in AD 250 the bishop of Alexandria, in North Africa, took the title for himself. Leo the Great (440-461) not only applied the term to himself, but initiated the idea of the “primacy of Peter” as applying to the Roman pontiff.
The term “pontiff” was taken from the old Roman term for high priest, Pontifex Maximus. The term has been traced to the ancient Etruscans and means “bridge builder” or “path maker.” Scholars point out that the term had metaphorical implications in that the high priest was a mediator between the gods and men.
Expansion of Papal Claims
The growth of the early Catholic Church was marked by fierce debates over theological points and addressing heretical views. In the early 5th Century, Innocent I first enunciated the universal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome. At the end of the century, Gelasius, in a letter to the Eastern Emperor Anastasius, referred to the “sacred authority of the pontiffs.”
On a purely historical scale, the claim that Peter was the first pope or that literary evidence exists to support this view is baseless. The growth and power consolidation of the medieval papacy was based on other developments.
Sources:
- Basic Sources of the Judaeo-Christian Tradition, Fred Berthold, Jr., editor and others, (Prentice Hall, 1962).
- Loraine Boettner, Roman Catholicism (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973).
- W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (Fortress Press, 1984).
- New American Standard Bible (Moody Press, 1973).
- Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970).
St. Peter's Square, Rome
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