Catholic Saint Augustine says Christ, you see, built his Church not on a man but on Peter’s confession. What is Peter’s confession? ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ There’s the rock for you, there’s the foundation, there’s where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer. (Sermon 229)
none of the fathers indicate papal supremacy.rather all of them indicate equality of the successors of the Apostles the bishops.
lets take Saint Cyprian Bishop of Carthage, who considered peter the rock(but saw every bishop as owning the chair of peter) he says:
Certainly the other Apostles also were what Peter was, endued with an equal fellowship both of honour and power; but a commencement is made from unity, that the Church may be set before as one; which one Church, in the Song of Songs, doth the Holy Spirit design and name in the Person of our Lord: My dove, My spotless one, is but one; she is the only one of her mother, elect of her that bare her (Cant. 9:6) (A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church (Oxford: Parker, 1844), Cyprian, On The Unity of the Church 3, p. 133).
Saint John Chrysostom
For the Son of thunder(John), the beloved of Christ, the pillar of the Churches throughout the world, who holds the keys of heaven, who drank the cup of Christ, and was baptized with His baptism, who lay upon his Master’s bosom, with much confidence, this man now comes forward to us now (Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Volume XIV, Saint Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homily 1.1, p. 1).
St. Bede: “Although it may seem that this power of loosing and binding was given by the Lord only to Peter, we must nevertheless know without any doubt that it was given to the other apostles…Indeed even now the same office is committed to the whole Church in her bishops and priests.”[Bede the Venerable, Homilies on the Gospels: Book One: Advent to Lent, Hom. I.20, p. 202.]
St. Isidore of Seville: “So Peter first received the power of binding and loosing, and he first led people to faith by the power of his preaching. Still, the other Apostles have been made equal with Peter in a fellowship of dignity and power. They also, having been sent out into all the world, preached the Gospel. Having descended from these apostles, the bishops have succeeded them, and through all the world they have been established in the seats of the apostles”(De Ecclesiasticus, II.5, M.P.L., Vol. 83, Col. 781-782).
Origen: But if you think the whole church to be built by God upon that one Peter only, what would you say of John the son of thunder or each of the Apostles? Are we to venture to say that the gates of Hades do not prevail against Peter by a special privilege, but prevail against the other Apostles and the perfect? What is said surely belongs to each and all of them, since all are ‘Peter’ and the ‘Rock,’ and the church of God has been built upon them all, and against none who are such do the gates of Hades prevail. Is it to Peter alone that the Lord gives the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and will no other of the blessed receive them? But if this privilege, ‘I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ is common to the others, so also are all the preceding words addressed as it were to Peter (Origen on Matthew XII, 10 as cited in eyendorff J. The Primacy of Peter: essays in ecclesiology and the early church St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1992, p. 61).
Saint Chrysostom “For (John) the Son of thunder, the beloved of Christ, the pillar of the Churches throughout the world, who holds the keys of heaven, who drank the cup of Christ, and was baptized with His baptism, who lay upon his Master’s bosom, with much confidence, this man now comes forward to us now”Homilies on the Gospel of John. Preface to Homily 1.1
There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors. Canon 1, Fourth Lateran Council,
So a Catholic ‘infallible’ecumenical council declared that peter did not alone receive the keys of heaven but also the apostles and their successors.
”If, however, Jovinianus should obstinately contend that John was not a virgin, (whereas we have maintained that his virginity was the cause of the special love our Lord bore to him), let him explain, if he was not a virgin, why it was that he was loved more than the other Apostles. But you say, Matthew 16:18 the Church was founded upon Peter: although elsewhere the same is attributed to all the Apostles, and they all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the strength of the Church depends upon them all alike, yet one among the twelve is chosen so that when a head has been appointed, there may be no occasion for schism. ”St. Jerome, Against Jovianus, Book I: 26
”St. Bruno of Segni : Here in fact this statement is said principally to Peter, and it ought to be understood as being said to the rest of the apostles. And not only to the apostles, but truly also to the bishops and priests. In fact, the keys and powers themselves have been given by the Lord to not only will free the Church, but also to open the heavens to others.
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if the keys are the powers of binding and loosing,did not the Lord give this privelage to all the apostles in Matthew 18:18? “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
One pope, venerated as a saint by Catholics is Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604), whom famously opposed Patriarch John of Constantinople’s desire to add the term “Ecumenical” to his title, writing to the patriarch that” Whoever calls himself the universal bishop, or desires this title, is, by his pride, the precursor of Antichrist, because he thus attempts to raise himself above the others. The error into which he falls springs from pride equal to that of Antichrist; for as that Wicked One wished to be regarded as exalted above other men, like a god, so likewise whoever would be called sole bishop exalteth himself above others.”
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