Again all speculation and fine have fun with it. One person we know was there was St. Matthew who recorded and no one questioned his recollection. All you have done arbitrarily drawn blanks where convenient and then played a little scripture mad libs. It sounds fun when done responsibly.AgLiving06 said:jrico2727 said:Why appeal to the EO here when you clearly ignore their teachings elsewhere? And why would them bering wrong in conjunction with you make you right? Since there are many Eastern rites in the Catholic Church it isn't a fully disputed by the East either. Only one Church has the authority to make those claims and it is the one you will reject no matter what I write.AgLiving06 said:jrico2727 said:1. Ok it's been debated, and so have most scriptures that is why you need a body that can provide a definitive answerAgLiving06 said:
I've never understood the fascination with Matthew 16:16-18 as a prooftext for Peter.
1. The text itself and the role of Rome have been highly debated throughout Church History. Anybody wanting to debate this has to admit that.
2. The primary challenge is this is the moment in Matthew where Jesus is finally proclaimed as the Christ in Matthew. Yet Rome sees this as the moment when Peter is exalted.
3. We aren't even out of chapter 16, and Jesus calls Peter Satan.
4. I actually think Luke 9:18-20 is the strongest rebuttal. Luke is writing after the fact. He clearly is meeting and interviewing people (likely Mary), and he leaves that part out. As the historian, it seems like it would have been of utmost importance to announce who the new leader of the Church was.
So all that to say, I think Rome likes to see this as "the verse" to prove the Pope nowadays, and if we are honest, it just doesn't work.
2. To be fair Our Lord did speak highly of Simon at the moment: And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.
We see St Peter moved by the Holy Spirit to provide the answer that the others given everything else he had been given couldn't. It shows that there was a special charism granted to St. Peter by the father.
3. And he never took away his title or office. We see after the 3 fold rejection of Christ, Peter being forgiven and being commanded to feed my sheep the flock he was given charge to.
4. Something being omitted isn't proof of a rebuttal, and if that is the strongest rebuttal it is pretty week. Luke glances over the narrative of the scene likely due to the fact most of the readers would have been familiar with the narrative from Matthew.
What you are leaving out is St Peter is given the Keys of Heaven. This is singularly the distinction given to him alone. All the other apostles were given the power to loose and bind. The keys are significant as his post in the Kingdom. Following the model of the Davidic Kingdom the chief steward, held the keys which was a sign of the Masters authority which the chief steward will have in the absence of the Master. When paralleled Isaiah. 22:20-22 we see striking similarity to Mark 16.
These are the typical responses from Rome. Yes and they are less convincing.
Lets take point 1. What body provided the definitive answer? Rome itself declared it. To this day the EOdox do not agree with that claim. So how much weight should we put behind someone self declaring themselves to be something? Typically that's considered a weak argument from authority.
Your point 3 is contingent on your answer to points 1 and 2 and so itself becomes weak. If you don't see strength in Church history or the verse itself, then we have no reason to believe he has a special title or office. So again, not a strong argument.
On point 4, I'm really glad you said it this way. Because that becomes problematic for Rome because we have next to no documentation about a Bishop of Rome in the early church. So if you're arguing that an absence of something isn't sufficient, that's going to create additional challenges for you. The typical Rome apologist response is that they weren't mentioning the Bishop of Rome to protect him, but that as you said would be a weak response.
However, I do think, in this case, it holds more weight that Luke specifically does not mention it. It seems pretty clear he spent time with at least Mary (based on the details he provides) and then the Apostles. For him, of all people, to leave out any proclamation about Peter is interesting because that tends to go against the thoroughness he showed.
The rest of your points are basically interjection of what isn't there, then speculation on what may be said and more injection of what is absent. But clearly your hypothetical points are incredibly convincing. Was Our Lady even present for the events in Matthew? She isn't mentioned there maybe if you assert that she was Luke's source, it could have been Paul as well, neither were there likely we don't know. Again this is all speculation to fill your narrative. There is more proof that Peter was at Rome than wasn't. Do the EO dispute that since you appeal to their authority when convenient? There are clear records of the order Popes within the Early Church.
If you only appealed to sources that 100% agree with yourself, you'll only be agreeing with yourself.
In this case, my disagreement with EO is not relevant to the topic. You, not me, made an appeal that a body to provide the definitive answer. My response was very clear to specify who that body is. Rome is appealing to Rome to declare that the Bishop of Rome is the supreme leader. That's your argument from authority. A self declared statement.
Notice, I never said Mary alone was someone who Luke met with. I also said the Apostles. I think a fair argument could be made that Luke met with Peter and the Paul, due to how Acts is written and the words he used.
So I actually don't even think it's out of the realm of reasonability that Luke talked with Peter as he was writing his Gospel.