This pocket edition of Richard McBrien's acclaimed Lives of the Popes is a practical quick reference tool for scholars, students, and anyone needing just a few concise facts about all the popes, from St. Peter to Benedict XVI.
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FROM PETER TO THE BEGINNINGS OF A UNIVERSAL PAPACY
ALTHOUGH CATHOLIC TRADITION, BEGINNING IN the late second and early third centuries, regards St. Peter as the first Bishop of Rome and, therefore, as the first pope, there is no evidence that Peter was involved in the initial establishment of the Christian community in Rome (indeed, what evidence there is would seem to point in the opposite direction) or that he served as Rome’s first bishop. Not until the pontificate of St. Pius I in the middle of the second century (ca. 142–ca. 155) did the Roman church have a monoepiscopal structure of government (one bishop as pastoral leader of a diocese). Those whom Catholic tradition lists as Peter’s immediate successors (Linus, Anacletus, Clement, et al.) did not function as the one bishop of Rome. (The succession lists were passed down by St. Irenaeus of Lyons [d. ca. 200] and the historian St. Hegesippus [d. ca. 180], and were attested by Eusebius of Caesarea [d. ca. 339], often called the “Father of Church History.”) The Roman community seems instead to have had a corporate or collegial form of pastoral leadership. Those counted among the earliest popes, therefore, may very well have been simply the individuals who presided over the local council of elders or presbyter-bishops. Or they may have been the most prominent of the pastoral leaders of the community. In any case, the popes of the first four centuries—that is, until the watershed papacy of Leo I in the middle of the fifth century—functioned with relatively limited authority beyond Rome and its immediate environs.
For example, Pope Sylvester I (314–35) seems to have exercised no discernible influence over the first ecumenical council held at Nicaea in 325. He neither convened it nor attended it. The same can be said of Pope Damasus I (366–84) with regard to the second ecumenical council held in Constantinople in 381, and of Pope Celestine I (422–32) with regard to the third ecumenical council held at Ephesus in 431. And when the Donatist schismatics in North Africa appealed to the emperor Constantine to overturn a decision of Pope Melchiades, the emperor summoned a council of representatives from all the Western provinces to meet at Arles on August 1, 314. Melchiades died several months before the council actually met, but it is significant that the emperor, in calling the council, did not regard the pope’s decision as final and that neither Melchiades nor his successor took exception to the emperor’s action.
Neither is there any evidence that the bishops of Rome actually governed other local churches, legislated for them, or appointed their bishops. At most, the bishops of Rome during these first four centuries may have exercised a kind of metropolitan authority over neighboring Italian sees, which came to be known as suburbicarian sees. But there is less evidence even for this than there is for the clearly “sovereign” authority exercised by the see of Alexandria over all the churches of Egypt and Cyrenaica. Indeed, when Pope Julius I acted in support of St. Athanasius following his second expulsion from Alexandria in 339, it is significant that Julius justified his intervention not on the basis of the Petrine primacy, to which later popes would appeal, but on the basis of ecclesiastical custom and the collegiality of the episcopate. And when Celestine I (422–32) rehabilitated a presbyter excommunicated by the African bishops and who later admitted his guilt, the African bishops chastised the pope for failing to respect their autonomy and for entering into communion with persons they had excommunicated, a practice, they reminded him, that was expressly forbidden by the Council of Nicaea (325). Not until the pontificate of Leo the Great (440–61) was the claim of universal papal jurisdiction (that is, over the whole Church, East as well as West) first articulated and begun to be exercised in any really decisive manner.
Little is known about these early popes. There is reason to believe, however, that like Peter many, if not all, were married. At least four of these early popes were sons of priests: Sixtus I (ca. 116–ca. 125), Damasus I (366–84), Boniface I (418–22), and Innocent I (401–17), whose father was not only a priest but a pope, Anastasius I (399–401). If Pope Anastasius I were not married, his son would have been illegitimate and, therefore, ineligible for ordination to the priesthood, much less for election to the papacy.
The first pope who reached out to assert his authority beyond the borders of his own ecclesiastical community and its suburbicarian sees was Victor I (189–98), an African. It was Victor who ordered other churches to conform to the Roman practice of celebrating Easter on the Sunday following the fourteenth day of the Jewish month of Nisan (the day of Passover). At his urging synods were held in various parts of the ancient Christian world, from Gaul (modern-day France) to Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), where it became gradually clear that the majority was in agreement with Pope Victor. But when Victor presumed to excommunicate those who disagreed with his ruling, he was rebuked by no less a prominent figure of the early Church than St. Irenaeus of Lyons, who pointedly reminded the pope that all of his predecessors had been indulgent toward diversity of practice and had not dared to resort to the ultimate weapon of excommunication.
When popes did begin to engage in theological disputes with the pastoral leaders of other churches, they were sometimes rebuffed as interlopers or, worse, as having erroneous views. For example, Pope Stephen I (254–57) and St. Cyprian (d. 258), bishop of Carthage, clashed over the question of the validity of baptism administered by heretics and schismatics. Cyprian followed the belief and practice of most of the churches of North Africa, Syria, and Asia Minor, namely, that those baptized by heretics and schismatics had to be rebaptized if they were to enter or be reconciled with the Catholic Church. Stephen represented the tradition of Rome, Alexandria, and Palestine, which held that baptisms by heretics and schismatics are valid and that the only condition required of those seeking to enter or be reconciled with the Catholic Church was absolution of their sins by the laying on of hands. When Stephen threatened to break communion with all the churches that practiced rebaptism, he was implored by Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 264/5), himself a supporter of the Roman position, not to take such a hard line. The situation would surely have worsened had Stephen not died in the midst of the controversy.
This incident was indicative of the papacy’s newly emerging tendency to claim pastoral authority over local churches outside of Rome, but also of the readiness of other bishops to confront and challenge the Bishop of Rome when they felt he was going too far in the enforcement of pastoral practice or discipline. Stephen I seems to have been the first pope to have appealed to the classic “you are Peter . . .” text in Matthew’s Gospel (16:18) as the basis of the Roman primacy. Pope Damasus I (366–84), who secured from the emperor Gratian the right of Western bishops to appeal directly to Rome, customarily designated Rome as “the Apostolic See” and rebutted Constantinople’s claims to equal rank with Rome. Like Stephen before him, Damasus also applied the Matthean text to the Roman primacy. His immediate successor, Pope Siricius (384–99), ruled that no bishop should be consecrated without his knowledge (although not necessarily his approval or authorization). More forcefully than any previous pope had done, Pope Innocent I (401–17) laid claim to supreme teaching authority and he welcomed (and expected) appeals from various churches on matters of doctrinal dispute. Like Innocent, Pope Boniface I (418–22) emphatically promoted the authority of the papal office, once writing: “It has never been lawful for what has once been decided by the Apostolic See to be reconsidered.” And yet his own immediate successor, Pope Celestine I (422–32), played little part in the major Christological council held at Ephesus in 431—a council concerned with the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ and with the question of whether Mary could be considered the Mother of God. Such was the gap that often existed between papal rhetoric and pastoral reality in the early history of the papacy—that is, before the pontificate of Leo the Great (440–61).
1 Peter, Apostle, St.,Galilean,1 d. ca. 64.
Jesus’ chief apostle, whom Catholic tradition regards as the first pope, Peter was born in the village of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee. (The first succession lists, however, identified Linus, not Peter, as the first pope. Peter was not regarded as the first Bishop of Rome until the late second or early third century.) Peter’s original Hebrew name was šim‘ôn, rendered in Greek as Simon (
). It was also rendered as Simeon (
) twice in the New Testament: Acts 15:14 and 2 Peter 1:1. Jesus gave him a new name, the Aramaic word for rock, kêp
’, later transliterated into Greek as
(Kephas). But the name Kephas appears only nine times in the New Testament, once in John and eight times in the Letters of Paul. The name Peter is a Greek translation of the Aramaic word, kêp
’, and is used more than 150 times in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles. This name conveyed to Greek-speaking Christians far more about Peter’s function in the Church than the noncommittal Kephas. The double name Simon Peter occurs about twenty times in the New Testament, mostly in John.
That Peter was married and remained so even after becoming a disciple of Jesus is clear from the account of Jesus’ healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29–31) and from Paul’s reference to the fact that Peter and the other apostles took their wives along on their apostolic journeys (1 Corinthians 9:5). The pious belief that the apostles, including Peter, “put away” their wives once they received the call from Jesus has no historical basis. Rather, it arises from the mistaken, and essentially unchristian, assumption that celibacy is more virtuous than marriage because sexual intimacy somehow compromises one’s total commitment to God and the things of the spirit.
Peter’s Singular Role in the New Testament: Catholic tradition has regarded Peter as the first pope because of the special commission he received from Jesus Christ and because of the unique status he enjoyed and the central role he played within the college of the twelve apostles. He was the first disciple to be called by Jesus (Matthew 4:18–19). He served as spokesman for the other apostles (Mark 8:29; Matthew 18:21; Luke 12:41; John 6:67–69). According to the tradition of Paul and Luke (1 Corinthians 15:5; Luke 24:34), he was the first to whom the Lord appeared after his resurrection. (Mary Magdalene is the primary witness to the Resurrection in the tradition of Matthew, John, and the Marcan appendix, but even in Mark the angel at the tomb instructs Mary Magdalene and the other women to “go and tell his disciples and Peter” [16:7].) Peter is, in fact, the most frequently commissioned of the Twelve following the resurrection. He is also the most frequently mentioned disciple in all four Gospels and is regularly listed first among the Twelve (Mark 3:16–19; Matthew 10:1–4; Luke 6:12–16). This latter point alongside others is of particular significance because, in the ancient world, respect and authority resided in the first of a line, the first born or the first chosen. He is thus prominent in the original Jerusalem community—described by Paul as one of its “pillars” (Galatians 2:9)—and is well known to many other churches (Acts 1:15–26; 2:14–40; 3:1–26; 4:8; 5:1–11, 29; 8:18–25; 9:32–43; 10:5; 12:17; 1 Peter 2:11; 5:13). It was Peter who took the decisive step in ordering the baptism of the Gentile Cornelius without first requiring circumcision (Acts 10). Although Paul spoke of Jesus’ ministry as being directed to the circumcised (Galatians 2:7), Peter’s influence in gentile areas is nevertheless obvious (1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Peter 1:1).
On the other hand, his role was not always so singular. He often shared his position of prominence with James and John, constituting with them a kind of inner elite within the Twelve. All three accompanied Jesus to the raising of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:37), at the Transfiguration (9:2), at the Mount of Olives for a special farewell discourse (13:3), and to the Garden of Gethsemane (14:33).
Peter’s activities are not reported following the Council of Jerusalem, where he exercised an important, though not necessarily “papal,” role in opening the mission of the Church to the Gentiles (Acts 15:7–12). Significantly, it was James, not Peter, who presided over the council and ratified its decisions. However, there is increasing agreement among historians and biblical scholars that Peter did go to Rome and was martyred there (by crucifixion, according to the North African theologian Tertullian [d. ca. 225]). The Roman leader Clement (regarded as Peter’s third successor, ca. 91–ca. 101) describes Peter’s trials in Rome (1 Clement 5:4), and Eusebius of Caesarea (d. ca. 339) reports an ancient story about Peter’s crucifixion there (Ecclesiastical History 2.25.5, 8). St. Irenaeus of Lyons (d. ca. 200) assumes that Peter and Paul jointly founded the church of Rome and inaugurated its succession of bishops (Against Heresies 3.1.2; 3.3.3). However, there is no evidence that before his death Peter actually served the church of Rome as its first bishop, even though the “fact” is regularly taken for granted by a wide spectrum of Catholics and others (for example, in Jesuit scholar Thomas Reese’s otherwise fine book Inside the Vatican [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, p. 11]). Indeed, there is no evidence that Rome even had a monoepiscopal form of ecclesiastical government until the middle of the second century. As was pointed out earlier, among the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. 107) to the seven churches of the ancient Christian world, Ignatius’s letter to Rome was the only one in which he makes no mention at all of its bishop. The ancient text known as The Shepherd, attributed to Hermas, a lay member of the Roman community, contains hints of disputes about rank among church leaders (Visions 2.2.6; 3.9.7), who are sometimes referred to as “the elders who are in charge of the Church” (2.4.3). Significantly, the references are all in the plural. Where bishops are mentioned (again in the plural), they are usually linked with other bishops, teachers, and deacons (3.5.1), as if the Church were a tower under construction and these leaders were numbered among its stones. By the late second or early third century, however, Peter did become identified in tradition as the first Bishop of Rome. But tradition is not a fact factory. It cannot make something into a historical fact when it is not.
Peter is credited with writing two Letters that are part of the New Testament canon: 1 and 2 Peter. While biblical scholars generally accept his authorship of the first, they regard his authorship of the second as unlikely. Nevertheless, as a compendium of highly flattering traditions about Peter, the second Letter is an important witness to the stature he enjoyed and the respect he was accorded in the early Church. He is said, for example, to have had the gift of inspiration (2 Peter 1:20–21) and to have received revelations about future false prophets (2:1–3), special traditions about the Parousia, or Second Coming of Christ (3:8), and the regeneration of the world (3:11–12). A body of apocryphal literature associated with the name of Peter emerged in the second century: the Apocalypse of St. Peter, the Acts of St. Peter, and the Gospel of St. Peter. Even if not authentically Petrine in authorship, these writings attest to Peter’s increasing prestige in the early Church. The account of Peter’s being crucified upside down is derived from this literature.
Peter and the Primacy: In the Catholic tradition, the biblical basis for associating the primacy with Peter is embodied in three texts: Matthew 16:13–19; Luke 22:31–32; and John 21:15–19. The fact that Jesus’ naming of Peter as the “rock” occurs in three different contexts in these three Gospels raises a question about the original setting of the incident itself. Scholars are not sure if the naming occurred during Jesus’ earthly ministry or after the Resurrection, with what is called a subsequent “retrojection” into the accounts of Jesus’ earthly ministry. The conferral of the power of the keys of the kingdom surely suggests an imposing measure of authority, given the symbolism of the keys, but there is no explicit indication that the authority conferred was meant to be exercised over others, much less that it be absolutely monarchical in kind (as claimed and exercised by later popes, especially in the Middle Ages and even into the late twentieth century). In Acts, in fact, Peter is shown consulting with the other apostles and even being sent by them (8:14). He and John are portrayed as acting as a team (3:1–11; 4:1–22; 8:14). And Paul confronts Peter for his inconsistency and hypocrisy in drawing back from table fellowship with gentile Christians in Antioch under pressure from some Jewish Christians who arrived later from Jerusalem. Paul “opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong” (Galatians 2:11; see also 12–14).
Scholars, however, point to a significant trajectory of images relating to Peter and his ministry as an independent basis for the primatial claims. He is spoken of as the fisherman (Luke 5:10; John 21:1–14), an occupation that, in fact, he and his brother Andrew had practiced, as the shepherd of Christ’s sheep (John 21:15–17), as the Christian martyr (John 13:36; 1 Peter 5:1), as an elder who addresses other elders (1 Peter 5:1), as a proclaimer of faith in Jesus as the Son of God (Matthew 16:16–17), as the receiver of a special revelation (Mark 9:2–8; 2 Peter 1:16–18; Acts 1:9–16; 5:1–11; 10:9–16; 12:7–9), as the guardian of the true faith against false teaching and misunderstanding (2 Peter 1:20–21; 3:15–16), and, of course, as the rock on which the Church is to be built (Matthew 16:18).
This trajectory of biblical images continued in the life of the early, postbiblical Church, and these images were enriched by others: missionary preacher, great visionary, destroyer of heretics, receiver of the new law, gatekeeper of heaven, helmsman of the ship of the Church, coteacher and comartyr with Paul. This is not to suggest, of course, that Peter was portrayed always and only in a positive fashion. He is also presented as a weak and sinful man. He is reproached by Paul (Galatians 2:11–14), misunderstands Jesus (Mark 9:5–6; John 13:6–11; 18:10–11), weakens in faith after beginning to walk on water (Matthew 14:30–31), is rebuked by Jesus (Mark 8:33; Matthew 16:23), and, in spite of prior boasts to the contrary (Mark 14:29,31; John 13:37), he denied Christ (Mark 14:66–72). But he is always repentant and was eventually rehabilitated. The Risen Lord appears to Peter and he becomes once again a source of strength to the Church (Luke 22:32).
Peter’s unique importance as Jesus’ first and chief disciple and as the leader of the college of the twelve apostles is clear enough. No pope in history has achieved his status, and it is no accident that none of the more than 260 individuals whom Catholic tradition regards as his successors have taken the name Peter II, including two whose own baptismal names were Peter (John XIV, elected in 983, and Sergius IV, elected in 1009). What can be said, however, about Peter’s enduring significance for the papacy and for the Church itself?
Petrine Succession: History provides a long list of popes following Peter, beginning with Linus (ca. 66–ca. 78) and continuing into the twenty-first century and the beginning of the third Christian millennium with such popes as Pius XII (1939–58), John XXIII (1958–63), Paul VI (1963–78), John Paul I (1978), John Paul II (1978–2005), and Benedict XVI (2005–). Catholic tradition regards all of these popes as successors of Peter. In what sense are they his successors, and in what sense are they not?
In at least two of his apostolic roles, Peter could not have had successors: first, as the traditional cofounder with Paul of the Apostolic See of Rome; and, second, as one of the Twelve who were personal witnesses of the Risen Lord. These are unique, nonrepeatab...
Table of contents
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Time Line: Papal, Ecclesiastical, and Secular Persons and Events
