CIRCA
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180 Irenaeus pens Against Heresies and describes Rome as a faithful preserver of apostolic doctrine, but there is no mention of papal primacy: “For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church on account of its preeminent authority... inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.” 1
by TOM WENGER
CIRCA
251 In response to Pope Stephen’s appeal to Matthew 16 to justify his authority as “the rock” on which the church is built, Cyprian of Carthage argues: “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 us as one; which one Church, in the Song of Songs, doth the Holy Spirit design and name in the Person of our Lord.”2
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CIRCA
381 Refuting Arianism, Ambrose argues that Matthew 16 established faith in the divinity of Christ, and not Peter’s authority, as the foundation on which the church is built: “That is the primacy of his confession, not of honour; the primacy of belief, not of rank. This, then, is Peter who has replied for the rest of the Apostles; rather before the rest of men. And so he is called the foundation, because he knows how to preserve not only his own but the common foundation.…Faith, then, is the foundation of the Church, for it was not said of Peter’s flesh, but of his faith, that ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”3 SAINT AMBROSE, 1833 (STATUE), LUIGI SCORZINI, MILAN. PHOTO BY GIOVANNI DALL’ORTO
