What the Early Church Believed: Peter's Primacy

Another tract shows that the Fathers recognized Peter as the rock on which Christ built his Church. This one shows a practical consequence they also recognized: Peter's primacy among the apostles.

The witness of the early Church

• Clement of Alexandria (200): Peter is "the chosen, the preeminent, the first among the disciples," for whom alone with himself the Savior paid the tribute (Matthew 17:27; see Matthew 19:27; Mark 10:28).
• Tertullian (211, 220): the Lord left the keys of heaven to Peter and through him to the Church; Christ said he would build his Church on Peter and give the keys to him (Matthew 16:18-19).
• The Letter of Clement to James (221): Simon was set apart to be the foundation of the Church, named Peter by Jesus, first of the apostles.
• Origen (248): Peter received the keys of all the heavens, a preeminence over the other apostles.
• Cyprian (251): Christ builds the Church on Peter and commands him to feed the sheep (John 21:17). Though all the apostles share like power, a primacy is given to Peter, showing there is one Church and one chair. Whoever deserts Peter's chair cannot be confident he is in the Church.
• Cyril of Jerusalem (350): Peter is "the first and foremost of the apostles," "the chief of the apostles and the keeper of the keys" (Matthew 16:19), who healed Aeneas (Acts 9:32-34).
• Ephraim the Syrian (351) has Jesus call Simon the foundation of the Church, head of the fountain of his teaching, chief of his disciples, to whom he gave the keys.
• Pope Damasus I (382): the Roman Church received the primacy not by councils but by Christ's words in Matthew 16:18-19; the first see is Peter's.
• Jerome (393): one of the twelve was chosen head to remove any occasion of division.
• Pope Innocent I (408): the episcopate and its authority emerged from Peter.
• Augustine (411–416): Peter alone represented the whole Church because of his primacy among the disciples; he is the first of the apostles.
• The Council of Ephesus (431): the papal legate called Peter head of the faith and of the apostles, foundation of the Catholic Church, who received the keys and lives and judges in his successors.
• Pope Leo I (445): Christ placed the principal charge on Peter, from whom as head his gifts flow to the whole body; whoever separates from Peter's rock has no share in the divine mystery. Though the apostles were alike in honor, one was given preeminence, so that the care of the universal Church converges in Peter's see.