Annotation CCLXIX

”Paul, an Apostle, not from men, neither through man,” etc. — Galatians 1:1

Whether Peter was superior in dignity to Paul and the rest of the apostles.

Jerome, beginning the commencement of the commentaries on the epistle to the Galatians from the exposition of this title [heading], seems to hold that Peter was not superior to Paul in authority and dignity, writing thus: “IT can be taken obliquely against Peter and against the rest, that the gospel was handed to him [Paul] not by the Apostles, but by Jesus Christ himself, who had chosen both them and the Apostles. And all this he prepares for this [reason], that no one may be able to object to him — [as he is] disputing, against the burdens of the law, for the grace of the gospel — ‘But Peter said this, but the Apostles established this, but thy predecessors decreed otherwise.’ Which indeed, now preluding in what follows as [it were] by a hidden discourse, he makes more manifest, when he reckons that nothing was conferred on him by those who seem to be something. And he writes that he resisted Peter himself to the face, saying that he was compelled by no necessity, that he might not yield to the hypocrisy of the Jews.” And below, expounding that [text], “The gospel I received not from man,”

—[I received], nor did I learn [it],” etc. — the same he repeats, saying: “IT CAN, moreover — as we said in the beginning, when we were expounding, ‘Paul, an Apostle, not from men’ — so also in the present place, be taken obliquely against Peter, and against the rest [who are] his predecessors, [namely] that he is moved by the authority of no one as [by] a law, [he] who has Christ alone [as] the preceptor of [his] gospel.” Likewise, in other commentaries inscribed with his name, upon that [text] from chapter 2, “For he who wrought in Peter unto the apostleship,” etc., speaking under the person of Paul, he says: “I am in nothing inferior to Peter, because we are both, by one God, ordained in [the] ministry.” Again, [in] the first book against Jovinian, he seems to indicate that Peter is not greater than the rest of the Apostles, but has power equal with the rest, in these words: “THE CHURCH — although it be founded upon all the Apostles, and all receive the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and the strength of the Church be established equally upon them — yet, on that account, one is chosen among the twelve, that, a head being constituted, the occasion of schism may be taken away. But why was John not chosen, [who was] a virgin? Deference was made to age [seniority]: because Peter was the elder; lest [one] still an adolescent, and almost a boy, should be preferred to men of advanced age. And the good Master, who ought to have removed the occasion of quarrel from [his] disciples, would seem to furnish a cause of envy against the adolescent [John] whom he had loved.” Again, in the epistle to Evagrius, he seems to take away from the successors of Peter the power over other bishops, and to equal any bishop whatever to the Roman pontiff, writing in this manner: “THE Church of the city of Rome is not to be esteemed one [thing], [and] that of the whole world another. And the Gauls, and the Britains, and Africa, and Persia, and the East, and India, and all the barbarous nations, adore one Christ, observe one rule of truth. If authority is sought, the world [orbis] is greater than the city [urbs]. Wheresoever there shall have been a bishop — whether at Rome, or at Gubbio, or at Constantinople, or at Rhegium, or at Alexandria, or at Tanis — he is of the same merit, of the same priesthood. The power of riches, and the humility of poverty, makes [a bishop] either more sublime or lower; but otherwise all are successors of the Apostles.” These sayings of Jerome Calvin abuses, and the heretics of our times, against the primacy of Peter, and the primary power of the apostolic see and the Roman Church — the definition of the Ecumenical Council of Florence crying out against [them], whose decree, received by the common consent of all the Latins and Greeks, and promulgated in the last Session, runs thus: “We define that the holy apostolic see, and the Roman pontiff, hold primacy over the whole world; and that the Roman pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and the true vicar of Christ, and head of the whole Church.”

BUT if anyone unrolls the writings of Jerome, he will find that he, with a free and constant asseveration, preferred the faith, authority, and sentence of Peter and of his apostolic see to the judgment of all the churches — and that especially in the epistle to Pope Damasus, whose beginning is “Since the East,” etc.; in the epistle to Pammachius; in the epistle to Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria; in the invective against Rufinus; and in the dialogue against the Luciferians.

WHEREFORE, lest anyone judge that he wrote [things] fighting among themselves, it must be known that there was a threefold power in Peter — namely, of Order, of Apostolate,

—and of the Kingdom [Rule]. If we regard the Apostolate — that is, the office of teaching, and the care of evangelical preaching — Jerome rightly said, in the commentaries on the Galatians, that Paul was not inferior to Peter; because Paul was chosen for the evangelical office not by Peter, but by God, equally as Peter, that he himself might evangelize among the gentiles, as that one [Peter] among the Jews. But if we look to the power which is conferred in the sacrament of Order, Jerome skillfully pronounced, against Jovinian, that all the Apostles equally received the keys and established the foundations of the Church. Most truly also he wrote to Evagrius that all bishops are equal: because all the Apostles were equal in the same order of priesthood, and in the same excellence of the sacrament; and all bishops [are] their successors — whether of Gubbio, or of Tanis, or of any lowlier little town — [and] are equal to the bishop of the city of Rome, namely in the order of the sacrament, and in the spiritual power of that same order. Finally, if the discourse be of the power of the Kingdom [Rule], and of that primary authority over all bishops and churches, Jerome most excellently wrote — against Jovinian, and against the Luciferians, and elsewhere — that Peter alone was chosen among the twelve Apostles, and constituted head of all, that by his supreme authority, and [his] power more eminent than the rest, the contentions of the Church might be settled, and every occasion of schisms taken away. We have annotated [things] akin to this argument further on, [in] Annotation 271.

Primasius, in the Collectanea on the first chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, excerpted from the commentaries ascribed to Jerome this period: “HE who wrought in Peter unto the apostleship, wrought also in me among the gentiles. I am not inferior to him, because we are both, by one [God], ordained unto one ministry.” The sense of this clause is plain from [the things] which have been said.