Chapter 1 On the institution of the
apostolic primacy in blessed Peter
We
teach and declare that,
according
to the gospel evidence,
a
primacy of jurisdiction over the whole church of God
was
immediately and directly
promised
to the blessed apostle Peter and
conferred
on him by Christ the lord.
[PROMISED]
It
was to Simon alone,
to
whom he had already said
You
shall be called Cephas42,
that the Lord,
after
his confession, You are the Christ, the son of the living God,
spoke these words:
Blessed
are you, Simon Bar-Jona. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to
you, but my Father who is in heaven.
And
I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and
the gates of the underworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you
the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven43.
[CONFERRED]
And
it was to Peter alone that Jesus,
confided the jurisdiction of
supreme pastor and ruler of his whole fold, saying:
Feed
my lambs, feed my sheep44.
To
this absolutely manifest teaching of the sacred scriptures, as it has
always been understood by the catholic church, are clearly opposed the
distorted opinions of those who misrepresent the form of government which
Christ the lord established in his church and deny that Peter, in
preference to the rest of the apostles, taken singly or collectively, was
endowed by Christ with a true and proper primacy of jurisdiction.
The
same may be said of those who assert that this primacy was not conferred immediately
and directly on blessed Peter himself, but rather on the church, and
that it was through the church that it was transmitted to him in his
capacity as her minister.
Therefore,
if
anyone says that
blessed
Peter the apostle was not appointed by Christ the lord as prince of all
the apostles and visible head of the whole church militant; or that
it
was a primacy of honour only and not one of true and proper jurisdiction
that he directly and immediately received from our lord Jesus Christ
himself:
let him be anathema.
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