It also shows that they judged Rome, as well as consulted each other. That is far closer to the stance of the East today than to that of Rome.
I have shown examples that even long predate Nicaea.
Catholicism does not teach that every papal act is infallible or that a pope cannot be condemned for a fallible act. Vatican I restricts infallibility to a pope definitively teaching faith or morals to the universal Church. So Constantinople III’s condemnation of Honorius ( later confirmed by Pope Leo II ) is not a contradiction of Catholic doctrine.
More importantly, first-millennium Eastern Christians repeatedly treated Rome as possessing an asymmetrical authority over cases already handled in the East, not merely as another bishop to be consulted:
c. 340 — Athanasius/Julius: Athanasius records that the Eastern Eusebian bishops themselves asked Pope Julius to summon a council and “be himself the judge, if he so pleased.” Julius’s Roman judgment then restored communion with Athanasius.
449 — Theodoret of Cyrus: after being condemned in the East, this major Eastern bishop appealed to Leo’s “fair and righteous tribunal,” wrote “I await the sentence of your Apostolic See,” and explicitly said that if Leo ordered him to accept his condemnation, he would accept it. That is recognition of a tribunal above the one that had condemned him.
519 — Constantinople and the Formula of Hormisdas: Patriarch John II of Constantinople and numerous Eastern bishops signed a formula linking Matthew 16 directly to the Roman Apostolic See and declaring that the Catholic faith had remained unstained there. Whatever qualifications one adds about the political context, this is hardly an Eastern theory of Rome as merely an honorary equal.
680–681 — Constantinople III: the ecumenical council calls Rome the “first see of the Universal Church,” says that Peter spoke through Agatho, describes Agatho as Peter’s successor, says it acted in accordance with the sentence already contained in his letter, and finally asks the pope to confirm its decree. The very council that condemned Honorius therefore simultaneously recognized a unique Petrine authority in the Roman See.
817 — Theodore the Studite: this Constantinopolitan saint says that because Christ gave Peter the keys and the chief-pastoral office, innovations in the universal Church must be referred to Peter’s successor. He tells the pope that Christ commanded him to “strengthen your brethren,” calls him the rock of the Church, and says he possesses power from God because he is “foremost of all” in his office.
861 — Constantinople itself: most striking institutionally, the Photian Council of Constantinople accepted the Sardican canons as recognizing the bishop of Rome’s right of cassation in cases already judged at Constantinople. This is acknowledged even by the official Catholic–Orthodox Chieti document.
So yes: Eastern Christians could resist, examine, or condemn a fallible pope. Catholicism allows that (because the idea that a Pope is always infallible is a caricature of the teaching, it was never the actual teaching).
But the same first millennium also contains Eastern recognition that Rome could judge Eastern bishops, receive appeals against Eastern judgments, overturn cases already decided at Constantinople, intervene against Eastern synods, and exercise a unique Petrine role in universal doctrine.
That is not adequately summarized as “they judged Rome and consulted one another.” The historical relationship was asymmetrical.
I expected no less from you.
Actually I was going to PM you to ask for a definitive meaning of Jesus said he was the Truth, as in the word used for Truth and whether it had a specific or varied undestanding. As you are here…
Going back to the ridiculous notion about different Gods There is only one. And the Mormons trace back through Abraham. Still your judgment seems to be final
Richard
How does something from the beginning of a course show where it ends?
Their “God the Father” is a human being who beat out other human beings, who rapes women; their Jesus is the brother of Satan; their “Holy Spirit” is a man as well.
That is a different god.
You’re reasoning like the guy who said he has a horse in his barn because it’s a horse barn but what he has is an electric tricycle.
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We already know that it can’t end bad in that regard. “The gates of Hell will not prevail” are Jesus’ words.
Which is why not even their “Baptism” is recognized by the Church.
That has nothing to do with teaching authority, it has to do with evangelism if anything. It was pronounced a the location called (among other things) “the gates of Hell” in a context of what some regard as the birth of the church.
Heiser mentions that in: Why Jesus Was Transfigured on Mount Hermon
That reading is much too simplistic, and it actually ignores the immediate context of the passage.
For one thing, Matthew never says Jesus was standing at a location literally called “the Gates of Hell.” He says Jesus was in the region of Caesarea Philippi (Matt. 16:13). Yes, there was a pagan sanctuary of Pan and a famous cave there, and that may well add symbolic background to the scene, but that is very different from claiming that “the Gates of Hades” was simply the name of the place and that Jesus was only making a geographical reference. Matthew himself never says that.
And even if the location is relevant, it does nothing to prove your conclusion.
The real problem is that you are isolating one phrase from what Jesus says immediately afterward. Jesus doesn’t merely say that the gates of Hades will not prevail against His Church. He then says to Peter: “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 heaven.”
That is plainly authority language.
The “keys” are not random imagery either, as Isaiah 22 gives the key of the Davidic house to the royal steward as a sign of delegated authority: “what he opens, no one shall shut; what he shuts, no one shall open.” Matthew’s Jewish audience would not have heard “keys of the kingdom” as a vague metaphor for evangelism.
The same is true of “binding and loosing”: those were established Jewish expressions for making authoritative judgments about what was forbidden or permitted, and Matthew uses the same language again in chapter 18 in a context involving the Church making binding disciplinary judgments. So reducing “bind and loose” to “go evangelize” simply doesn’t fit the language or the context.
Nor does the early Church support that reduction. Origen discusses the passage in connection with ecclesial authority and binding and loosing. Cyprian uses Matthew 16 in discussing the unity and authority of the Church. Chrysostom treats the keys as real authority entrusted to Peter. Augustine, despite interpreting the “rock” somewhat differently from other Fathers, still speaks of the Church receiving the keys and the power of binding and loosing through Peter.
So no, the passage cannot honestly be dismissed as having “nothing to do with authority.”
But Matthew 16:18–19 is not six isolated words. It is one continuous passage: Christ establishes His Church, promises that Hades will not overcome it, gives Peter the keys of the Kingdom, and grants the power to bind and loose with a corresponding heavenly ratification.
You can debate the exact scope of that authority. You can debate how it relates to Peter personally (even if the behaviour of other Churches towards Rome was very clear in the first millennium, even as early as 96 AD, just a little more than 30 years after Peter’s martyrdom, when Clement had to deal with the Church of Corinth), but saying the passage has “nothing to do with teaching or ecclesial authority” is not a serious reading of the whole text, and It only works if you stop reading at verse 18 and ignore verse 19.
Christ gave authority to His disciples and apostles during His earthly ministry and definitively commissioned them after His resurrection.
To Whom Christ Gave Authority
- The Twelve Disciples/Apostles: Jesus first gave power and authority specifically to His twelve disciples during His public ministry to heal the sick and cast out demons (Luke 9:1-2), and later extended this worldwide in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).
- Simon Peter: Jesus singled out in Matthew 16:18-19, giving him the “keys to the kingdom of heaven” and later charging him to “feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17), which Christian traditions (particularly Catholic) interpret as special pastoral and leadership authority.
When Christ Gave Authority
- During His Ministry (Luke 9 / Matthew 10): Jesus delegated local and immediate authority to the twelve disciples before sending them out to preach and perform miracles during His travels through Galilee.
- After the Resurrection (Matthew 28:18-20): Right before His ascension into heaven, Jesus stated that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” and formally commissioned all the apostles to go and make disciples of all nations.
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Of course He wasn’t making just a geographical reference, He was saying that the place that rebellious spirits (cf. Gen. 6) started their earthly rebellion, where those spirits were first worshipped, and where demons came into the world, and all which that represented was going to be conquered by His church.
Those decisions were made according to Torah.
Yes – nothing about teaching authority.
That is the context: it tells is that the message Peter uttered, as the foundation of the church, would prevail against all the old rebellious spirits and their offspring.
There is no guarantee of teaching authority here – that comes only in John with the promise to the Apostles.
And the authority which is given here is given to all the apostles.
In what other field does the initial or historic view take precedence over later ones.
Richard
You are talking about human fields. The Church wasn’t founded by humans. You seem to think that Jesus left a merely “human” Church with absolutely no guarantee of special protection from errors. That’s not what the Gospel (in its plain meaning, without convoluted interpretations) says, nor is it what Christians believed. To the point that in the early creeds they stated that they believed the Church (among other things even obviously more important such as the trinitarian God), and not Scripture (much less their own individual interpretations of Scripture).
Subjectivism is about as compatible with Christianity as Wicca is.
You’re now making a much more specific claim than merely saying the geography is significant, and that is exactly where the evidence needs to be distinguished from the interpretation.
Genesis 6 never mentions Mount Hermon. It is 1 Enoch 6:6 that places the Watchers’ descent and oath on the summit of Hermon. Caesarea Philippi is indeed at the foot of Hermon, so an Enochic association is certainly possible, but Matthew himself never says that Jesus is invoking that episode.
The claim that this was “where those spirits were first worshipped” is even harder to establish. The archaeological evidence at Paneas documents the worship of Pan and other Greco-Roman deities, not the Watchers of 1 Enoch. There is no evidence in the excavated cultic material that the Enochic Watchers were worshipped there, much less that this was the first place where they were worshipped.
And in 1 Enoch’s own account, the Watchers are not simply the demons. The Watchers father the giants, and the evil spirits arise from the dead giants. So “this is where demons came into the world” is a theological inference from the broader Enochic story, not something either Genesis 6, 1 Enoch, or Matthew explicitly says about Caesarea Philippi.
So I have no problem saying that the Hermon/Bashan background may add a cosmic dimension to Matthew 16. What I object to is turning that possible background into the statement, “Jesus was saying X.” That goes beyond the text.
And it still does nothing to establish your original claim that the passage has nothing to do with ecclesial authority. Whatever symbolic background you assign to verse 18, verse 19 still gives Peter the keys of the kingdom and the authority to bind and loose. “Binding and loosing” was established Jewish language for authoritative permitting and forbidding.
So the Enoch/Hermon reading and the authority language are not mutually exclusive. Even if I granted your entire cosmic-geography reading of verse 18, it would not erase verse 19.
Exactly. According to Torah. That does not weaken my point; it confirms it.
“Binding and loosing” did not mean inventing revelation independently of God’s law. It meant exercising authoritative judgment in interpreting and applying that law, deciding, for example, what was permitted or forbidden in cases where the Torah required interpretation.
So when Jesus gives Peter, and later the disciples, authority to “bind and loose,” the relevant contrast is not authority vs. Torah. It is authoritative interpretation vs. no authority at all.
And that is also why your objection does nothing against the Catholic understanding of teaching authority. Catholic doctrine does not claim that the Magisterium can invent doctrine contrary to revelation. Vatican II explicitly says that the teaching office is “not above the word of God, but serves it,” teaching only what has been handed on.
That’s a very big negative, chief.
You’re confusing the immediate application in Matthew 18 with the meaning and range of the expression itself.
Yes, Matthew 18 applies “binding and loosing” specifically to Church discipline, that was exactly my point: the phrase describes an authoritative ecclesial judgment whose decision is ratified in heaven. I never needed Matthew 18, by itself, to mean “teaching authority.”
But “therefore it has nothing to do with teaching authority” simply doesn’t follow. In Jewish rabbinic usage, “binding and loosing” was used both for disciplinary decisions and, very commonly, for authoritative halakhic judgments, declaring what was forbidden or permitted under the Law. That is absolutely an exercise of authoritative interpretation.
So Matthew 18 shows the disciplinary exercise of that authority; it doesn’t exhaust the meaning of the expression. And Matthew 16 places the same language alongside the keys of the Kingdom, given specifically to Peter.
In other words: “Matthew 18 is about discipline” is true. “Therefore binding and loosing has nothing to do with authoritative teaching or interpretation” is false. You’ve taken one application of the expression and mistaken it for its entire semantic range.
And the way the Church of Corinth behaved with Clement as early as 96 AD speaks for itself: they absolutely, clearly, believed that Clement had a very real authority.
Unfortunately you are collapsing three different arguments into one: whether the Church possesses authority, whether that authority is shared by the apostles, and whether Peter nevertheless occupies a distinctive position within that apostolic body.
The New Testament answers all three affirmatively.
First, Matthew doesn’t say that merely “Peter’s message” will prevail against the rebellious spirits. Christ says: “I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Whatever symbolic background you want to attach to Caesarea Philippi or Hermon, the explicit object of Christ’s promise is His ekklesia, not simply one proposition Peter has uttered.
And verse 19 cannot simply be absorbed into “evangelism.” Jesus turns directly to Peter:
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind … whatever you loose…”
The Greek is singular throughout: soi, dēsēs, lysēs. Jesus is speaking specifically to Peter.
“Binding and loosing” is not a synonym for “preach the Gospel.” In Jewish legal usage it means forbidding and permitting, that is, exercising authoritative judgment in the interpretation and application of divine law. The Jewish Encyclopedia explicitly describes it as rabbinic “power and authority” and directly connects the formula with Matthew 16:19 and 18:18. BINDING AND LOOSING - JewishEncyclopedia.com
Yes, those judgments were made according to Torah, but that proves my point: Authority does not mean inventing revelation; it means authoritatively interpreting and applying revelation.
And yes, Matthew 18 later gives binding and loosing to the disciples in the plural. Again, that doesn’t remove Peter’s distinctive role. Matthew 16 has soi / dēsēs / lysēs, singular; Matthew 18 has hymin / dēsēte, plural. What Matthew 18 does not repeat is the gift of the keys.
So the actual structure is that the apostolic body genuinely shares authority, while Peter is singled out within that body (which is only in accordance with how even the eastern churches behaved with Rome in the first millenium).
The rest of the New Testament reinforces exactly that pattern.
In Luke 22 Jesus first speaks about Satan demanding to sift you all ( hymas, plural ) and then immediately turns to Peter personally: “But I have prayed for you” (sou, singular ) “and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.” The whole apostolic group is involved, but Peter is given a particular responsibility toward the others.
In John 21 Christ doesn’t address the Twelve collectively when He says “Feed my lambs … shepherd my sheep … feed my sheep.” He addresses Peter personally, three times. Chrysostom later asks precisely why Christ passes over the others and speaks to Peter, and answers that Peter was “the chosen one of the Apostles,” “the mouth of the disciples,” and “the leader of the band.”
Acts shows the same combination of collegiality and Petrine prominence (and this combination has never been denied). Peter speaks for the apostolic group at Pentecost. The opening of the Gentile mission is dramatically associated with him in Acts 10. And at the Jerusalem council, after “much dispute,” Peter rises and gives the theological judgment that the Gentiles must not be subjected to the Mosaic yoke; only afterward do Barnabas, Paul and James speak. The final decree is then issued corporately by the apostles and elders. That is shared authority, not solitary papal government, but neither is Peter portrayed as merely interchangeable with everybody else.
Your statement that teaching authority “comes only in John” is also simply false. Matthew itself ends with Christ commissioning the Eleven to make disciples of all nations by “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you,” immediately followed by the promise, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Whatever further theological conclusions one draws from that text, teaching authority and Christ’s continuing assistance are plainly present in Matthew.
Nor did the early Church read Matthew 16 as merely “go evangelize.”
Tertullian is especially inconvenient for that claim because, in De Pudicitia, he is actually arguing against extending Peter’s prerogatives indiscriminately to every bishop. Yet precisely while opposing his Catholic opponents, he says that the gift in Matthew 16 was conferred personally upon Peter. Even more importantly, he interprets Peter’s intervention in the controversy over the Mosaic Law as an actual exercise of binding and loosing: Peter’s judgment, he says, “loosed” the parts of the Law that were abandoned and “bound” those retained. That is normative doctrinal/legal judgment, not merely evangelism.
Origen is also revealing, as he does believe that others participate in what was given to Peter; nevertheless, when comparing Matthew 16 with Matthew 18, he explicitly says there is a “great difference and a pre-eminence” in what is said to Peter, precisely because the keys are specially given to him.
Cyprian makes almost exactly the distinction you are denying: he says that the other apostles were indeed what Peter was and possessed a like fellowship of honor and power, yet Christ arranged the origin of ecclesial unity as beginning from one. Shared apostolic authority and a distinctive Petrine function were therefore not mutually exclusive in his ecclesiology. The same can be said about Christianity in the first millenium, even the eastern Churches.
Long story short:
Matthew 16: Peter is individually given the keys and binding/loosing authority.
Matthew 18: the apostolic body genuinely shares binding and loosing.
Luke 22 and John 21: Peter is nevertheless given a distinctive responsibility toward Christ’s brethren and flock.
Acts: apostolic authority is exercised corporately, while Peter repeatedly performs a leading role.
The late first century: the Roman church associated by early tradition with Clement intervenes authoritatively in a grave dispute at Corinth, defends apostolic succession and expects compliance.
Second- and third-century Fathers: even writers who differ sharply on the precise implications of Matthew 16 still recognize something distinctive in what Christ said to Peter.
The claim Matthew 16 contains merely an evangelistic commission, that binding and loosing has nothing to do with normative authority, that Peter possesses no distinctive role because the other apostles also possess authority, and that the earliest post-apostolic Church shows no corresponding Roman responsibility, is untenable.
Shared apostolic authority does not cancel Petrine primacy. The New Testament itself presents both, and the earliest post-apostolic evidence is entirely compatible with that structure.
And?
How an God control His church and still allow personal freedom. God has never guaranteed that sort of protection.
So we are back to a specific (and true) view of Scripture. What tangled web you weave. Unfortunately if you pull one strand the whole thing collapses into ball of nothing,
So on one hand God is protecting and guiding and the other the humans pat is somehow sacrosanct and beyond the Fall you claim to believe in. if only you could see the ambiguities and paradoxes you have incorporated into your view of both the church and God. And this goes beyond the RCC. It is you who is defending them (and God). Whether you like it or not, it is down to your own final decision about who to believe. Claiming that it is supported by the RCC is no defence. You are the one being judged not the RCC (not by me of course)
Subjectivism is unavoidable. You are subject to your blind belief in the RCC and what it has indoctrinated. At the end of the day, you stand by your beliefs as I do and claiming human support and agreement will do you no good.
Technically God founded Judaism. He approached Abraham, and the Patriarchs. He guided Moses and gave the Law. He did His level best to keep them on the straight and narrow. Can you not read Scripture beyond the text?
History repeats itself, it has to, No one listens.
You appear to have learned nothing from the Old Testament.
RIhard
There are things of greater value than personal freedom. The Church is not free to officially teach falsehoods to Christians, neither is Peter.
I disagree. Completely. If that were the case we would have no way of knowing that the Arians were wrong (as they couldn’t be refuted with Scripture alone, the Church had to use a non scriptural term to affirm the truth about God).
“You will KNOW (not “guess”, “debate” or “surmise”, KNOWING has a very clear meaning and I’m sorry but you can’t change it N.D. R) the truth and the truth will set your free. Guess Who said those words? Because I didn’t.
The fact that YOU intepret those words in a way that basically nullifies and empties their plain meaning doesn’t do you any favour.
Absolutely. Just like if one removes Christ’s resurrection our faith becomes useless (as was said by Paul himself), if you think that the Church has no special assistance from the Holy Spirit (contrary to what JESUS said) and that it’s not true that we WILL KNOW the truth (again, these words come directly from Jesus) and that the Spirit would guide us to the whole truth, again if you remove these passages (which unfortunately come from Jesus Himself) then everything collapses, sure.
“you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”
“"I will send to you the Spirit of truth, says the Lord; he will guide you to all truth." (Jn 16,5-11)
JESUS said those words. Richard Gillett, who may as well be nicknamed “modern man in a nutshell”, said the opposite.
Guess who’s right?
I’m sorry to break it to you in a very blunt way but Jesus is far more important than Richard and you can’t empty and reinterpret His words to the point that they mean the exact opposite of the obvious reading of the text.
I know that you have an incredibly high view of yourself but that’s the truth. Your word means absolutely nothing when it contradicts Jesus.
I’m sorry, you’re no special snowflake.
Which is why there is a New Testament. Unless you believe that someone wrote a “newer testament” what you are saying falls completely flat.