Protestant controversialists are masters at eisegesis. Sometimes, though, it makes them look pretty silly. Read this little interesting dialogue between one of them and Art Sippo. Art's comments are in blue; the claimant's are in purple.
I understand that the claims of the Roman Church to be "the Mother and Mistress of all churches" (to quote the Council of Trent) is based on the claim that Peter was the Founder or cofounder of the Church of Rome and her first Bishop. If Peter never was Bishop of Rome, the claims of those who posture as Peter's successors in the See of Rome must also be fraudulent.
No, it isn't. There are some traditions which indicate that at St. Peter founded the See at Rome, but this is immaterial to Papal Claims. The reason why the Church at Rome was (and is) the central See of Christendom was because St. Peter was martyred there while acting as the head of the Universal Church. His office was therefore assumed by his chosen successor St. Linus who had been working with him. Your heirs are generally the people with whom you are living when you die. St. Peter was A bishop of Rome in the First Century and definitely THE ranking bishop anywhere he went in Christendom. Tradition in East and West is clear on this. There are no alternative traditions.
Peter's usual residence during apostolic times was Jerusalem.
So what? He moved away later. In fact my Lord and Savior prophesied about this:
And if any one will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomor'rah than for that town. (Matt. 10:14-15)
Jerusalem had rejected Christ and his followers. They had been arrested, stoned, flogged and expelled from synagogues. St. Peter himself was arrested and marked for death by Herod. He only escaped with divine assistance (Acts 12:6ff) and thereafter did not return to Jerusalem except for the Council that was held there (Acts 15). What was he doing during that time? Tradition says that he went on the road to different Roman cities and made a trip to Rome. The Bible says nothing to contradict this. In the Early 60's, the Jews ultimately martyred St. James of Jerusalem whom even Josephus recognized was a holy and just man. Eventually, St. Peter took the hint and left the center of the Jewish world to perdition shaking the dust from his feet. He then centered his attention on the center of the Gentile World, Rome. It all makes perfect sense.
Peter was not so high in stature among the Apostles that Paul would have hesitated to take him "in hand" [Gal 2] when Peter got off track. Yet even at Antioch, Peter was nowhere near Rome.
St. Paul did not confine his activities to Jerusalem. He traveled throughout the Empire. Why couldn't St. Peter do the same? Tradition says he did. Now onto the slander about St. Peter and the conflict in Gal 2. St. Paul was out of line. St. Peter was doing nothing wrong. While St. Paul was right IN PRINCIPLE, the early Church was much more pastorally oriented and sensitive to the scruples of weaker brethren. St. Paul eventually capitulates on this matter in Rom 14:1-23 and 1Cor 10:23-31 which prots seem to miss. St. Peter did the right thing at Antioch for PASTORAL reasons. St. Paul was being excessively tiresome and legalistic. In the midst of St. Paul's pastoral insensitivity, he outlined the proper way to theologically understand why St. Peter should not have had to do what he did. St. Peter was the better man in this instance as St. Paul's later admissions indicate. Besides, even if St. Peter were wrong (which he wasn't) St. Paul had the obligation to speak up. This would not violate St. Peter's dignity but prove that he was important enough that fraternal correction was necessary. Several time the Popes have needed to be scolded for their own good or that of the Church. Please do not project your own megalomaniacal delusions onto the real office of the Papacy.
Peter is not mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, which would have been very odd, if Peter had been in Rome. Paul greets various believers in Rome in the 16th Chapter of Romans, but Peter is not among them.
St. Peter was a wanted man. Herod and the Roman authorities would have loved to get their hands on him. Do you really think that St. Paul would be stupid enough to address a letter to St.Peter telling them EXACTLY where to look for him? Besides, you are too naive about all of those greetings at the end of the epistles. This was a movement under persecution. Those "greetings" may have been coded messages dealing with completely unrelated matters. (The OSS used to broadcast such coded messages on open radio broadcasts to their operatives on the continent during WWII.) St. Peter MAY have been addressed in code in Rom 16 if he was there at the time. Even if he was not there at the time so what? We know he ended up there eventually. He may have been there previously.
This gave the Christians in Puteoli time to send messengers to the Roman church to tell them that Paul was on the way. ". . .when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and The Three Taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage" (Acts 28:15) Here Peter is not mentioned, because Peter was not in Rome and could not come to meet Paul. When Paul and his escort neared Rome:
St. Paul is in Roman custody awaiting trial and possible execution, so now St. Peter exposes himself to greet him? Grow up.
Not once, in any of the Epistles that he wrote from Rome, does Paul mentioned having seen Peter or being visited by Peter. The most probable reason was that Peter was not in Rome at that time.
The most probable reason was that St. Peter was not that stupid.
Since Peter is not mentioned as being in Rome, Peter could not have been a founder of the Church in Rome, either.
St. Paul clearly says that the Roman Church was founded by another MAN (singular):
For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyr'icum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ, thus making it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another man's foundation, but as it is written, "They shall see who have never been told of him, and they shall understand who have never heard of him." This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. (Romans 15:18-22)
Who was that? Possibly St. Peter. St. Peter had both motive and opportunity and tradition indicates that he did found the Church organization at Rome. This doesn't mean that he was the first Christian missionary to preach there or even the first Bishop to minister there (though he could have been). It means that the Church at Rome was at one point organized under his leadership. St. Irenaeus tells us that there was a clear line of succession of Bishops at Rome starting from St. Peter. I believe St. Irenaeus. I do not believe you or your apostate forbears. You weren't there. He was. He had no reason to lie or misrepresent the truth. You do.
[Gal 2:7-8 says that] "the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me" means that the other Apostles recognized that Jesus Christ had given Paul a primacy of ministry and evangelism to the Gentiles.
Read the text. It says that everyone recognized that St. Paul had a TALENT in preaching to the Gentiles and that St. Peter had a TALENT in preaching to the Jews. There is no mention of primacy at all.
So this was an area in which Jesus Christ had given Paul foremost responsibility, not Peter.
That would have come as news to Cornelius from Acts 10. I think you are really out of line here. I defy you to give me a single biblical text in which it says that St. Paul was given primacy by Christ or the Apostles to preach to the Gentiles. It doesn't exist because he was never given any such authority. You have to stop reading into the text and start reading out of it. Jesus gave a commission to the Eleven Apostles in Matt 28:19 to make disciples of ALL nations, not just the Jews. No one was ever given special primacy over certain ethnic groups. It is obvious that the Apostles divided up their labors and tried not to compete with one another (though this didn't always work out in practice). This was a practical assignment, not the granting of primacy.
Since Rome was not a Jewish city, although some Jews lived there, Rome would have been part of Paul's particular responsibility of ministry, which is one reason why it was Paul who wrote an epistle to the Roman Church and not Peter.
Rubbish. St. Paul did not found the Church at Rome. He said so in Rom 15. The main Christian presence in Rome was among the Jews anyway as far as we can tell. There were 12 known sysnagogues in Rome at the time of Chirst. Under Claudius we are told that there were riots in the Jewish section of town over "Chrestus." Both Tacitus and Suetonius acknowledge this. Sorry, your thesis goes up in smoke.
2Cor:11:5: For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. In other words, that no one, not even Peter, had more authority than Paul in this area.
The term there is not "chiefest apostle" [singular] but "Superapostles" [plural]. If you actually read 2Cor, you see that there were some SPECIFIC people claiming to be apostles with better credentials than St. Paul. St. Paul was refuting them because they were Judaizers whose views contradicted his. This has nothing to do with St. Peter who was a champion of the rights of Gentile Christians (See Acts 10 & 15).
The Popes are the successors of Linus, but the claims to be Peter's successors could better be borne by other bishops.
Rubbish. Read St. Irenaeus. You are arguing from silence. The fact that St. Clement did not call himself a successor of St. Peter proves NOTHING. He clearly says that Apostolic succession was established in the Church by the Apostles who assigned their own successors. Everybody in his day knew who his founding bishop had been. It would have been redundant (and immodest) for him to brag about it. Tradition is clear on this and there is no alternative. You want to justify disobedience to the successor of St. Peter and so you are deliberately creating fables to obfuscate the clear historical facts. I am disappointed (though not surprised).
IF Peter had a primacy among the Apostles (why I do not want to deny here) that primacy would have passed on to another apostle as long as any of the Apostles survived.
Where does the Bible say that? Who are you to tell St. Peter whom he should name as his successor? He picked St. Linus. Live with it.
That last survivor was John, and church history gives indications that the See of Ephesus enjoyed a certain primacy and a certain leadership in missions.
Yet it was St. Clement Bishop of Rome who settled the dispute in Corinth over Apostolic Succession. He did not appeal to St. John whom we know was still alive at that time.
The gospel, for example, went to Britain originally from Ephesus rather than Rome, and Roman influence did not become prominent in England until the Synod of Whitby.(620 A.D.?)
A lot of Anglican lying has been used to justify their defiance of the authority of the Successor of St. Peter. I am afraid that you have been misinformed. There were several outreaches to the British Isles. Some from Rome and some from elsewhere. In itself that proves nothing. Ephesus was NEVER the center of the Christian Church and never claimed to be. Rome always has been and has always claimed to be.
That Apostolic leadership would have passed from Peter to Linus rather than from Peter to John is simply unthinkable.
Not Apostolic leadership, PETRINE PRIMACY! St. John did not possess the Primacy. Only St. Peter did. St. Peter transferred it to his choice for a successor. Everyone believed it until apostates wanted to deny it. So these enemies of the Church invented vain mythologies and rationalizations to justify their sinful disobedience. I remain unimpressed. For a thorough refutation of all prot nonsense on the papacy, the book "Jesus, Peter, and the Keys" published by Queenship Press.
Art Sippo
The Catholic Legate