Transcript

Let's start with this fact: Cardinal Newman said about God's revelation.

He said this: A revelation is not given if there be no authority to decide what it is that is given.

Let me do that again: A revelation is not given if there is no authority to decide what it is that is given.

Do you see that?

Yes, that problem of authority.

How do we know for certain what God has revealed?

That underlies all Christian divisions.

It really, at the root, is what brings us all into the Catholic Church: the issue of authority.

But it's never just an issue of authority as such; it's always the issue of whose authority.

Whose authority?

You know the four main divisions amongst Christians on the issue of authority.

The Protestants really say, Well, it's Scripture alone.

The Anglicans say, Well, it's Scripture and tradition.

The Orthodox say, Well, it's Scripture, tradition, and the episcopate, but only, let's say, the first eight councils, seven councils, eight centuries in the case of the Orthodox; four councils, five centuries in the case of the Anglicans.

The Catholic Church says, Well, all of that's good as far as it goes, but there's one thing which is lacking.

And so it says that we know God has provided the way by which we can know what He has revealed, can know authentically, can know indeed infallibly, because of Sacred Scripture, because it has been interpreted in the light of the Church's whole tradition—not just four or five centuries, not just seven or eight centuries, but twenty centuries interpreted by the Magisterium, the Pope, and the bishops in communion with him.

Now, the standard non-Catholic argument against papal authority is that it was a later development, what they call a fortuitous historical development.

And we're going to take a closer look at those early centuries and see that from the very beginning, the popes acted like and were regarded as though they were divinely inspired and guided as earthly heads of the Church.

Now, we take just a moment to glance again at familiar territory: the structure given by Christ to His Church.

Matthew 16 has been touched on already.

They commissioned to Peter.

Jesus gave Peter a threefold commission: the commission to be the foundation, humanly speaking, of Christ's Church.

You are Peter, and on this rock, I'll build my Church.

He entrusted to him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and He gave Peter authority to bind and loose.

Now, we know that that authority to bind and loose was also given to the other apostles, as we read in a couple of chapters later in Matthew.

Now, let's look at some of the arguments that non-Catholics make against the papacy.

None of these, I think, will be new to you, but let's summarize some of them.

Now, be aware of this about these arguments: they all date from a later time.

A distinguished Russian Orthodox theologian and apologist, Father John Meyendorff, whom I've been reading for years—I’ve read almost everything the man has written—has made an astonishing admission with regard to Eastern Orthodox apologetics against the papacy.

He stated, without recognizing it as a concession, that what he calls a debate between East and West about papacy and authority actually started not until the 13th century.

Now think about that.

In other words, the Eastern Orthodox arguments against the papacy were first raised well over a thousand years after the succession of Peter began exercising that authority given to them by Christ.

Those arguments were not raised in the early centuries.

Those arguments, like those of Protestants many years, many centuries later, are attempts to justify their separation from Roman communion and jurisdiction.

They are, in fact, rationalizations after the fact.

Now, let's have a quick look at those arguments.

For example, when Jesus spoke of Peter as the rock, as the foundation of the Church, He really meant not Peter but Peter's faith.

Heard that one before?

Yes.

They say Jesus, speaking Aramaic, said to Peter, You are Kepha, and on this Kepha, I will build my Church.

Kepha—the first reference to Kepha is surely the antecedent to the second reference.

It's two verses back that Peter made his affirmation of faith.

Furthermore, it's impossible to establish a foundation on a statement of faith; that statement of faith has to have an interpreter.

Or the argument that the power of the keys and the power of binding and loosing were simply two ways of saying the same thing—they were identical.

And the argument goes, therefore—and this is the Eastern Orthodox argument; it's constantly repeated—therefore the argument goes, whatever authority Jesus gave to Peter, He gave to all the apostles on the same basis.

And therefore, further, the commission to Peter was only kind of a generic commission to all of the apostles.

Well, the response to this is that I have yet to find a non-Catholic argument against the papacy which is willing to look at or even think about what the power of the keys really means.

They all must have read their Old Testaments, and so I assume they choose to ignore what the New Testament teaches us about the power of the keys.

The power of the keys is a corporate authority.

It's a power which is very clearly defined.

For example, you read in the 22nd chapter of Isaiah, you see a very clear statement of what the power of the keys was.

The holder of the keys was the master of the palace; he was, so to speak, the prime minister.

He was in charge of the kingdom under the king himself.

You see the same thing in Genesis.

In Genesis 40 and 42, we see the story of Joseph in Egypt.

Joseph was master of the palace, a keeper of the keys; he was second in command to Pharaoh himself.

And that business of trying to equate these two simply misses the whole point.

Keys are to open and shut.

Powers of binding and loosing, as Matthew 18 makes quite clear, have to do with individual cases and individual problems.

Now, another argument which is used is that when Jesus said My Church, He was not referring to the Church as a whole.

Father Meyendorff makes this argument; he said He meant the local Church.

He meant the Church in Jerusalem.

He says Jesus was saying to Peter, I'm putting you in charge of the Church of Jerusalem.

Now, the answer is, first of all, we know from the record that James, and not Peter, was head of the Church in Jerusalem.

Furthermore, over 60 times the New Testament refers to the universal Church, and over 40 times refers to a local Church.

In every single instance when the New Testament was referring to a local Church, it makes perfectly clear where that Church was located, exactly what Church they were talking about.

Jesus was talking, in this case, about the universal Church.

There's no qualification.

Besides, if this is only the local Church in Jerusalem, then Jesus is promising indefectibility only to that one Church, and the rest of them, I guess, could just go hang.

No, no, it doesn't work.

It doesn't work.

Or another argument—and this one I love—let me quote this: The Church in Rome had great prestige because, quote, Rome had rather consistently taken the right side on the area of the Christological controversies.

They had prestige because they happened to be on the winning side.

Now, when we examine those controversies Father Meyendorff mentions, we'll discover that the right side was Rome's side.

We'll discover that the right side turned out to be the right side, and only because it was Rome's side.

Or there's a faulty syllogism sometimes used in arguments against the papacy, and it goes like this—and Father Meyendorff makes this one: If the Pope had had final authority in matters of doctrine, he would have asserted it and would have spared the Church from the dogmatic battles which took place.

That's the first thesis.

The battles did not take place; therefore, he must not have had a papal magisterium in the early centuries.

You see how it goes?

Well, we'll give that answer in the fourth section of this lecture.

And there are two more arguments which we'll pass quickly.

One is that only after the 6th century did the popes consider themselves as the ultimate authority in Christendom.

The second argument is that in the early centuries of the Church—I'm quoting now—the bishops of the East did not consider they were under an obligation to obey the Pope of Rome.

I'm quoting now from another Greek Orthodox bishop, Bishop Callistus Ware.

Our next section, I hope, will refute those two claims.

Let's take a few samplings of the exercise of papal authority—just a few samplings from the early centuries.

Dr. Marschner took us through one of those samplings: the letter of Clement in 96 AD to the Church at Corinth.

He healed the schism.

He mentioned the fact that they could have appealed to the Patriarch of Jerusalem; they could have appealed to the Patriarch of Alexandria.

They also could have appealed to the Apostle John himself, who was still alive, according to Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian.

He was still alive then, and he was much closer geographically to Corinth than was Rome.

They could have had an apostle—the beloved apostle—settle their problems.

To whom did they appeal?

They appealed to the successor of Peter.

Let me read to you what he wrote to them, a section of what he wrote to them.

One of my complaints about the Liturgy of the Hours is that we have several passages in there which we read in the Office of Readings, but none of them ever gives the crucial, the really simple passages from Clement for us to read.

When Clement wrote to them, he said, You, therefore,—he's talking to the insurgents—you, therefore, the prime movers of the schism, submit to the presbyters, and bending the knees of your hearts, accept correction and change your minds.

And he called on them to be obedient to what we have written through the Holy Spirit.

See how the clear implication is there?

Then he spoke of Jesus Christ, and St. Clement said to the insurgents, But should any disobey what has been said to him by Christ through us—get that?—Christ

through us—let them understand they will entangle themselves in transgression and no small danger.

Very clearly, he perceives himself as speaking with the authority of Christ.

In the second century, Pope St. Victor encountered a problem.

His papacy went from 189 to 199. In the East, a number of Jewish converts had brought with them Jewish customs, one of which was to observe Easter on the day of Passover, the 14th of the month of Nisan, even though it fell during the week.

And there were some heretical elements involved in this process—wrongful celebration of Easter.

So Pope Victor, after having called some synods and ascertained what was actually going on there, issued an order saying that the bishops of the East, the churches of the East, and the great portions of the East had to come under the Church's rule for following Easter; otherwise, they would be excommunicated.

Now, if any other bishop had made that threat, he would have been ridiculed; it would have been pointless.

And this is very significant: not one—not even one of those Eastern bishops, under the threat—did not dispute or question the Pope's authority.

They fussed about it; they screamed about it, but they didn't say, You can't do that.

You can't do that.

And so far as we know, that threat was not carried out, and eventually, the whole Church came under the same rule of the service of Easter.

Or to skip down to Pope Dionysius in the middle of the third century, you recall Bishop Callistus Ware's claim that in the early centuries, the bishops of the East were under no obligation to obey the Pope.

Well, the Patriarch of Alexandria, named Dionysius—the same name as the Pope of that time—wrote a letter to two of his bishops condemning Sabellianism, also known as modalistic monarchy.

That's the title in which it held that the persons of the Godhead are only appearances or modes of presenting God, the one God.

Now, the bishops to whom the Patriarch wrote thought that he had overemphasized the humanity of our Lord, and so they complained in the letter to the Pope.

Now, that complaint itself is a recognition of papal authority.

The Pope answered those bishops, setting forth the Church's true faith, and made use of a term, homoousion, namely of one substance, which 75 years later would be taken up by the Council of Nicaea in rejecting Arianism.

He also wrote to Dionysius and said, Let's have an explanation about this.

Dionysius, the Patriarch, wrote right back, very graciously, saying, Of course, of course, and he gave the explanation and satisfied the Pope.

He clearly acknowledged the Pope's authority over him in matters of doctrine.

Or another case—and Father Ignatius, I don't see him out there, but this is about Antioch—Pope Sixtus II, also in the 3rd century, had trouble with a man in Antioch, Paul of Samosata, who was a known heretic.

Three synods of bishops in the East had tried to get rid of him, and they couldn't get rid of him.

Finally, the emperor asked the Pope to intervene.

The Pope intervened, and he was out of there, and that settled the matter.

Or again, in the 4th century, Pope Julius—Pope Julius is the one who really rescued Athanasius.

In my readings of Church history as a Protestant, I always was told about how Athanasius had saved the Church from Arianism, and he was a devout and strong advocate of the true faith.

But without the support of the Pope, he would have gone down and had to stay down.

Two councils in the East—two heretical councils—condemned Athanasius and evicted him from his seat as Patriarch of Alexandria.

When he appealed to the Pope, Pope Julius I condemned both councils and reinstated Athanasius in his seat.

He demanded to know why he had not been consulted beforehand and reminded him of the Church's rule.

And this is what he said: Are you ignorant that this is customary for word to be written to us first and then for a just sentence to be passed from this place?

If any suspicion rested upon the bishop, there ought to have been notice sent to the Church of this place—that is, Rome.

This, that is the council acting on their way, is another form of procedure, a novel practice.

What we have received from the blessed Apostle Peter, that I signify to you.

Or one more illustration before we move on: Pope Hormisdas, farther down in the 6th century.

There had been, for 35 years, from about 418 to about 518, a schism between the East and the West.

The emperors had insisted on rejecting the Council of Chalcedon's statement about the nature of our Lord—two natures, fully human, fully divine—and they kept encouraging the heretics.

So Rome broke off communion with them, and this Monophysitism—that's what it was called, that is, one nature-ism—flourished in the East, encouraged by the emperors.

During that time, a succession of popes repeatedly told the empress these things.

This comes out of their correspondence.

They repeatedly told the empress that the papal office was higher than the emperor's office.

There can be no appeal from the Pope's rulings; no council can revise or contradict their decisions, and that all councils are subject to approval and confirmation by the Pope.

We'll see how this was, in fact, borne out.

Now, the empress would not relent, and the schism went on until about 519. But then a new emperor came along who wanted to reconcile with the West, and so he asked the Pope for them to be reconciled.

The Pope sent a statement to be signed by all the Eastern bishops who wanted to be received in communion with Christ, and they all signed it.

Let me read just a part of that, just the first part.

It says, The first condition of salvation is to keep the norm of the true faith and in no way to deviate from the established doctrine of the fathers, for it is impossible that the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' it’s impossible those words should not be verified.

Their truth has been proved by the course of history, for in the Apostolic See, the Catholic religion has always been kept unsullied, and from this hope and faith, we by no means desire to be separated.

Following the doctrine of the fathers, we declare anathema all heresies.

They named a whole bunch of heresies already condemned by Rome, and for a long time, that was a standard of orthodoxy in the East.

The bishops were under total obligation, you see, to obey the Pope.

Let's talk about the Pope's role in the first seven ecumenical councils.

Remember that the Eastern Orthodox claim is that ecumenical councils are the ultimate authority in the Church.

Father Meyendorff says the churches of the East have always insisted that all doctrinal problems must be settled by debate in ecumenical councils, and this is simply untrue.

We've noted already that Father Meyendorff admitted that the debate, quote-unquote, between East and West, which marks the beginning of Eastern Orthodox apologetics, really dates from the 13th century.

Only after the 13th century did Eastern Orthodox apologists insist that ecumenical councils were to be the final authority of the Church.

That is not a decision of any ecumenical council.

Now, this is all, as I said, an attempt to justify rejecting the authority of the Bishop of Rome.

Nothing in any of those decrees in any way supports this claim.

Not one of the ecumenical councils—if you study the history of it—not one was able to interpret its own decrees; not one was able to enforce its own decrees.

In every single case, the final enforcer, the final interpreter of those decrees, turned out to be the Bishop of Rome.

Now, Father Meyendorff says in one place—and I find it rather puzzling—he says that councils did not arrive at truth simply by show of hands, but that conciliar debates were not governed by majority rule.

He said, and he explains, The minority simply either had to agree with the decision or be excommunicated.

And that does not compute.

And who told the minority they had to agree or be excommunicated?

The minority?

Well, the majority did.

And that's not majority rule?

Well, it sounds like it.

If it smells like it and sounds like it, it must be majority.

Now, you recall the argument that we raised a while ago but didn't answer: if the Pope had final authority in matters of doctrine, he would have settled it at those early dogmatic battles.

The battles took place; therefore, he must not have had papal magisterium.

Q.E.D. The answer, of course, is that the argument is based on a complete misunderstanding of papal doctrinal authority.

Papal infallibility does not mean that the Pope carries around in his head ready-made definitions to every theological problem which can be raised.

It only means that when the Pope does make a decision, he will be divinely preserved from error.

Even though he is divinely protected and guided, the Pope has to use human means to discern the truth to be proclaimed.

Discussion may be necessary—discussion about whether something is really in the deposit of faith, or how it has been previously dealt with, if at all.

Sometimes, convoking or consenting to a general council may be a means of discovering the truth which Christ's Vicar must finally proclaim.

But the fact is that even though they didn't step in with ready-made solutions, their authority did prevail.

Let's run through these first seven councils very quickly and see the decisive role the Pope played in each one of them.

In each instance, we're going to find that one of the popes—one or more—had previously condemned the heresy or heretics which the councils were summoned to combat.

In every single case, the decision of the council had already been made by a successor of Peter.

We start with Nicaea, focused on the heresy of Arianism.

The Arians believed that the Son of God had been created ex nihilo by the Father to serve as creator of the world, and so the Son was not God by nature; he was a creature subject to change, neither fully human nor fully divine.

He was something of a tertium quid, a third something.

Forerunners of this heresy had been condemned in the second century by Pope Victor and in the third century by Pope Dionysius.

Indeed, as we saw a while ago, Pope Dionysius brought up that term which is a key word in the Council of Nicaea's decision.

Despite these condemnations, Arianism was spreading like wildfire throughout the East, and because the popes had previously spoken on this issue, the bishops who came to Nicaea did not come to consider an open question; they came to render a concurrent judgment on the Pope's teaching.

Pope Sylvester presided at the council in the person of his legate, Bishop Hosius of Cordova, and they simply underlined and accepted what the Pope had previously ruled.

In the half-century after the council, it was the Pope who repeatedly defended and upheld the decision of the council, not the council itself.

Or we go on to the Council of Constantinople in 381, the second one.

The heresy they faced there was called the Macedonian heretics; they were called the Pneumatomachians, the killers of the Holy Spirit.

They denied that the Holy Spirit was fully divine.

They had various theologies in the East to try to defend their faith, but every time they got a new theology, they got a new heresy.

The East fostered and provoked almost every single major heresy in the first five, six, seven, or eight centuries.

Almost every single one, and not one of those heresies was combated and overcome except by the power of the papacy.

The second council was called together, and they affirmed the divinity of the Holy Spirit, just as the previous popes had done.

It was composed entirely of Eastern bishops, but because they concurred in the faith taught by Pope Damasus, that fact gave it ecumenical status.

Or the Council of Ephesus, which was called to deal with the heresy of Nestorius.

He rejected the term Theotokos; he said there were two separate persons in the incarnate Christ.

He said Mary would be the mother of Jesus, the human being, but not the mother of God.

He made a split in our Lord's person by that effort.

And so Cyril of Alexandria wrote to Pope Celestine, What are we going to do about this?

He said, It's an ancient custom for such important matters as the deposition of a heretical archbishop—he referred to Rome.

Nestorius was the archbishop or patriarch of Constantinople; it had to be dealt with.

And so Cyril wrote back to the Patriarch of Alexandria and gave him authority to act in his behalf.

He said, Do this: you give Nestorius an ultimatum.

From the time he receives this notice, he has ten days in which to recant, to reject his heresy, and to affirm the full faith of the Church, or he's deposed and excommunicated.

Well, this was communicated to Nestorius, and he remained firm in his heresy.

So the emperor, with the Pope's consent, summoned a general synod, and they gave sentence.

They carried out Pope Celestine's condemnation, his reaffirmation of the faith, and that was the end of it.

It was the Pope's decision which was decisive.

The Fourth Council of Chalcedon: here we have the problem of a man, Eutyches, another patriarch of Constantinople.

There's a theory which Father Meyendorff often refers to; he calls it the Pentarchy theory.

Pentarchy, from the word five.

He says really authority in the early Church was carried out by the patriarchs of Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and I'm missing one—Father Ignatius?

Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople.

Yeah, and I mentioned them.

They were a late comrade.

The fact of the matter is that over a period of centuries, one or more of those patriarchs was always in heresy.

How in the world could heretics deal with their own heresy and uphold the authentic faith of the Church?

Apart from the fact that there is not one recorded instance in history of any time when those five patriarchs agreed as final authority to solve anything, it's a pure theory.

It comes out of the head of an apologist.

It's not based in history at all.

Pope Leo I, Leo the Great, wrote a letter to the archbishop of Constantinople.

Eutyches was a monk; he was not the patriarch.

He was a monk in the patriarchate of Constantinople.

The Pope wrote a letter and set forth the authentic faith, and this letter was to be read at a council there to get them all straightened out.

Well, the emperor convoked a council; he loaded it with heretics, and they rejected the Pope's letter.

That was in 449. Well, when news of the council reached the Pope, he condemned it.

He said, It's a robber's council, the Latrocinium.

It's been known by that ever since—a robber's council.

It was condemned; it was out.

So the emperor tried again.

This time he got a council with the Pope's guidance, the Council of Chalcedon.

The Council of Chalcedon accepted and concurred in what the Pope had taught, and that settled the issue again.

The Pope's decision was decisive.

Or the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. Now we're down to number five.

The heresy of Nestorius persisted, so they called a fifth ecumenical council, and it reaffirmed what Pope Leo had taught on the two natures of Christ and condemned the persons who were teaching contrary to that faith.

Again, it was the teaching of the Pope which was decisive.

Or come down to the Third Council of Constantinople, way down in 680-681. Another Eastern council—they were so good at devising these; they just couldn't settle any of them.

It was called Monothelitism, one-will-ism, another Eastern heresy which claimed that in the Incarnation, though He was fully divine and fully human, still He only had one will.

His divine will sort of swallowed up His human will, and of course, this is contrary to the Church's teaching.

So the emperor fined some of the council at Constantinople.

And the Pope at that time, Pope Agatho, following Pope Leo's example, sent a lengthy dogmatic letter to the council, setting forth the orthodox doctrine.

His letter several times reminded the council that he spoke with the authority of Peter, that the Church of Rome had never embraced any error, and that she must be obeyed.

The council received the letter and concurred with the contents of the letter.

In a letter to the Pope, signed by the whole council—this is the Council of Constantinople, 680-681—this is what the council said to the Pope: Christ, our true God, has revealed your holiness as a wise physician, mightily driving away the disease of heresy by the medicine of orthodoxy.

We leave to you what is to be done with the heretics, since you occupy the first seat of the universal Church.

By the writing of the true confession from your paternal blessedness to the most pious king, we recognize as pronounced by the chiefest head of the apostles.

And the council, we have it in the record, begged the Pope to give his confirmation to their decisions.

By that time, the Pope had died, but his successor, Pope Leo II, did confirm the condemnation and thereby asserted the inviolability of the Roman Catholic faith.

And the last council—yes, the last council, the Second Council of Nicaea in 787—this was the council dealing with iconoclasm.

In 726, the Emperor Leo the Isaurian issued an edict ordering all images in all the churches to be removed.

Now, he may have been following the example of the Muslims, whose caliph had just recently destroyed all images in the churches in the territory which he controlled.

The Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Germanus, wrote to Pope Gregory II, appealing for help.

The Pope condemned the heresy immediately in a council in Rome.

A little bit later, the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem—you see all the other four being heard from—they also begged the Pope to intervene and put an end to the heresy.

But the emperor was using the military force—the military might, I might say—of the empire to maintain that heresy, so the Pope was unable to rescue the East for a while.

But in 780, a new emperor ascended to the Byzantine throne under the guardianship of his mother, who was not an iconoclast, and a new orthodox patriarch asked for a general council.

The Pope consented, and 350 bishops gathered at Nicaea.

A letter from the Pope was read, a long document setting forth the doctrine to be held by the council.

The council's response was, We follow, we receive, we accept.

The Pope eventually confirmed the decree of the council.

In every single case, the ecumenical council simply confirmed what the popes had decided.

In every single case, the ecumenical councils were ecumenical precisely and only because the Pope had confirmed and approved them.

Now let me say just a word about non-papal councils in the East.

In the first eight centuries, there were many councils held in the East quite apart from the Pope's supervision or approval—quite a number.

Not one of those councils ever solved one doctrinal controversy.

Almost all, if not all, were in fact motivated by heresy.

Every single one of them was either ignored or rejected by the successors of Peter.

Now, in light of these facts, think about this statement by Bishop Callistus Ware, the Greek Orthodox bishop.

He has written that the whole body of the Church is a bearer of infallibility.

In a sense, of course, a Catholic would agree with that.

In a sense, he goes on to say that the councils of bishops are the mouth of the Church.

The councils of bishops are the mouth of the Church.

And if that's true, then I would say, following his metaphor, in the light of history, we'd have to say that if the councils are the mouth of the Church, then the papacy is the tongue and the teeth and the lips of the Church.

Now try talking without using your tongue or your teeth or your lips.

And now, as Henry VIII said to his wives, I won't keep you much longer.

Let's think for just a few moments about some eminent witnesses of the East.

Witnesses of the East—and again, Father Ignatius, here’s your beloved St. John Chrysostom, the great theologian and patriarch and doctor of the Church, an Antiochian man.

Commenting on Matthew 16, St. John Chrysostom, in the 4th century, said, Which are the greater gifts: those which the Father gave to Peter, speaking about revealing the faith to Peter, or those which the Son gave him?

The Father gave to Peter the revelation of the Son, but the Son gave him to spread that of the Father and His faith Himself throughout the world.

And to a mortal man, He entrusted the power over all that is in heaven in giving the keys to him who extended the Church throughout the world and showed it stronger than the world.

St. John Chrysostom, the great Eastern saint, was born and raised in Antioch, and he preached most of his famous homilies there.

In one of the homilies, he said, God has had great account of this city of Antioch.

He has shown indeed, especially when He ordered Peter, the ruler of the whole world, to whom He entrusted the keys of heaven, to whom He committed the office of bringing all in.

God ordered Peter to pass a long time here too, so they had some claims.

But notice what he says about Peter.

Or let's take a quick look at St. Maximus the Confessor, also known as St. Maximus the Theologian, dating from the latter part of the 6th and into the 7th century.

He was one of the chief theologians of the Incarnation, a great theologian of ascetic mysticism, a monk persecuted and tortured for obedience to the faith and to the papal teaching.

He was, in fact, by order of the emperor, his tongue was cut out and his right hand was severed.

This is what—I guess this was before his right hand was severed—he wrote this.

But not to make light of his suffering, a heretic had tried to gain St. Maximus' approval for his teaching.

He thought, I'll get him on my side; that will give me some weight when I go to Rome, try to get them on my side.

They always went to Rome trying to enlist the Pope's side if they could.

Writing about this man, St. Maximus said, If the Roman Sea recognizes Pyrrhus to be not only a reprobate but a heretic, it is certainly plain that everyone else who anathematizes those who have rejected him anathematizes the Sea of Peter; that is, he anathematizes the Catholic Church.

I need only add that he excommunicates himself also.

If indeed he’d be in communion with the Roman Sea and the Church of God, then he says, 'Let him hasten first of all to satisfy the Roman Sea,' that is, the Apostolic Sea, which from the incarnate Son of God Himself and also by all holy synods, according to the holy canons and definitions, has received universal and supreme dominion, authority, and power of binding and loosing over all the holy churches of God which are in the whole world.

For with it, the Word, who is above the celestial powers, binds and looses in heaven also.

No stronger statement is possible, and this is from one of those bishops about whom the present Eastern Orthodox apologists say they do not regard themselves as bound to obey the Pope.

One final saint here: St. Theodore of Studium, a monk who organized his monastery in the most remarkable way.

In fact, his monastic rule was the model for the Byzantine world for a long time, and it still exists on Mount Athos.

He was persecuted, of course, and exiled for his orthodoxy and fidelity to papal teaching.

Writing to Pope Leo III against heretics known as the Moacians—we won't go into that one—he said, Since to great Peter, Christ our God gave the office of chief shepherd after entrusting him with the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, to Peter or his successors must of necessity every novelty in the Church be referred.

Save us, most divine head of all heads, chief shepherd of the Church under heaven.

Writing about councils, St. Theodore said—he referred to the Pope—he said, To whom is given the authority over an ecumenical synod?

The authority in an appeal for help from Pope Pascal, he wrote, and finally, when he received the Pope's reply to his letter, he wrote back, In truth, we have seen that a manifest successor of the apostles presides over the Roman Church.

We truly believe that Christ has not deserted the Church here—that is, His Church in Constantinople—for assistance from you has been our one and our only aid from of old and from the beginning.

By the providence of God, in the critical times, you are indeed the untroubled and pure font of orthodoxy from the beginning.

You are the calm harbor of the whole Church, far removed from the waves of heresy.

You, the God-chosen city of refuge.

In light of that, when you hear this business of, Well, the Pope only had a primacy of honor because he had to be on the winning side, when you hear apologists say that papal authority really began in the 6th or 7th century because of fortuitous historical circumstances, then you have to ask the person who says that to please go back and read the facts of history.

It's simply wrong.

He's not only the first of bishops; he's not that at all.

He's much more than that.

Thanks be to God, he's not just the first among equals.

From the moment our Lord Jesus Christ ascended, Peter and each of his successors have been a living sacrament—a living sacrament of the unity and the indefectibility and the infallibility of Jesus Christ's one true Church.

And thanks be to God for that.