Peter's Successor

Modern Roman Catholic apologists never tire of quoting (normally out of context) the early church fathers and their praise of St. Peter. One such example that is apparently meant to influence people of an eastern persuasion can be found here.  What they hope to effect in the mind of the reader is clear.  They hope that by listing a plethora of quotes attributing to Peter a primacy in the apostolic community the reader will come away impressed, and will apply these quotes to Peter's successor, who is, in their mind, the bishop of Rome.  By quoting the eastern fathers in this context it demonstrates that the apologists are playing their audience, hoping that they don't do their research.  It is routinely acknowledged that the later western papal claims were never part of the eastern church's understanding.

Catholic Cardinal and theologian Yves Congar stated

"The East never accepted the regular jurisdiction of Rome, nor did it submit to the judgment of Western bishops. Its appeals to Rome for help were not connected with a recognition of the principle of Roman jurisdiction but were based on the view that Rome had the same truth, the same good. The East jealously protected its autonomous way of life. Rome intervened to safeguard the observation of legal rules, to maintain the orthodoxy of faith and to ensure communion between the two parts of the church, the Roman see representing and personifying the West...In according Rome a ‘primacy of honour’, the East avoided basing this primacy on the succession and the still living presence of the apostle Peter. A modus vivendi was achieved which lasted, albeit with crises, down to the middle of the eleventh century."

In fairness it should be pointed out that Petrine Primacy is not disputed.  What is disbuted is Petrine Supremacy which is a later western development.

Getting to the quotes it is not at all apparent from the selected quotes who the fathers considered Peter's successor.  During the patristic era there were three views of who was Peter's successor.  The three views were:  Everyone who confessed that Jesus was the "Christ, the Son of the living God," (Mat 16:16) was a successor of Peter.  Another view is that every bishop was a successor of Peter, and the third view was that the successor of Peter were the bishops of Rome, Antioch, and Alexdria which were considered the three Petrine sees. 

Consider, for example, this quote from one of the great western fathers, St. Augustine:

When you hear the words: 'Peter, do you love me?' imagine you are in front of a mirror and looking at yourself.  Peter, surely, was a symbol of the Church.  Therefore the Lord in asking Peter is asking us too.

To show that Peter was a symbol of the Church remember the passage in the  Gospel: 'You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hades will not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Has only one man received those keys?  Christ himself explains what they are for: 'Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.' If these words had been said only to Peter, now that he is dead who would ever be able to bind and loose?

I make bold to say that all of us have received the keys.  We bind and loose.  And you also bind and loose.  Whoever is bound is separated from your community: he is bound by you.  When he is reconciled, however, he is loosed, thanks to you because you are praying for him.  We all in fact love our Lord, we are all his members. 

And when the Lord entrusts his flock to shepherds, the whole number of shepherds is reduced to one individual body, that of the one Shepherd.

Peter is undeniably a shepherd, but without doubt Paul also is a shepherd, each Apostles is a shepherd.  All the holy bishops are shepherds, without a shadow of a doubt. Serm. Morin, 16 (Miscellanea Agostiniana, 493ff.)

Vatican I tells us in Pastor Aeternus in chapter 2 no 2

 For no one can be in doubt, indeed it was known in every age that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, the pillar of faith and the foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our lord Jesus Christ, the savior and redeemer of the human race, and that to this day and for ever he lives and presides and exercises judgment in his successors the bishops of the Holy Roman See, which he founded and consecrated with his blood

Was it St. Augustine's understanding that holder of the keys was the bishops of the Holy Roman See?  If this was not known by such an illuminary as St. Augustine how can Vatican I say that it was known in every age?

In the near future I will supply additional quotes from the fathers regarding Peter's successor and their interpretation of Mat 16, but bear in mind that short of a consensus we cannot dogmatize quotes from the fathers.  While the quotes offer us insights the formal dogmas of the church were given at the seven ecumenical councils.  It is wrong headed then for apologists to anachronistically attempt to read the Vatican I definition of papal infallibility back into the fathers.