Revelation and Rome

This note is interpretation, not translation. What it examines is a doctrine, and not a people.

Jon’s position, stated first, because everything below should be read inside it. Anyone who trusts the gospel is saved on the same terms as anyone else, and that includes Catholics. Nothing here is a claim about who belongs to Him. What is examined is what an office teaches, set beside what the scriptures say — and the man the office is named for wrote some of those scriptures, which makes his own letters the fairest place to test it.

It makes no identification of any institution with anything seen in this book. That is a different question, and this note does not answer it.

What Peter’s own letters contain. The office is built on one sentence about a rock, so the first thing worth counting is what he does with that word. Petra occurs fifteen times in these writings. Exactly one of them is his, and it is not about himself: lithos proskommatos kai petra skandalou, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence (1 Peter 2:8), which is Isaiah 8:14 quoted, and which is about Christ.

The paragraph it stands in is the one to read whole. He comes to Him as a living stone, rejected by men and chosen by God; and you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house (2:4–5). Lithos is used five times in those five verses, every time of Christ or of the people he is writing to, and never of himself. He then quotes Isaiah 28:16, Psalm 118:22 and Isaiah 8:14 in a row.

And what he does with priesthood. Hierateuma, a priesthood, occurs twice in all of these writings. Both are his, and both mean everyone he is writing to: a holy priesthood (2:5), and a royal priesthood (2:9). Against that, hiereus, a priest, occurs thirty-one times and archiereus, a high priest, a hundred and twenty-two times, and neither word appears anywhere in his letters.

This book does the same thing with the same word. It calls God’s people priests three times — at 1:6, here at 5:10, and at 20:6 — and it never uses the word of anybody else.

And what he calls himself. Writing to elders, he introduces himself as sympresbyteros, a fellow-elder (5:1). That word occurs once in all of these writings, and he made it. He then tells them to shepherd the flock mē katakyrieuontes, not lording it over those in their charge (5:3) — a verb that occurs four times, two of the others being Jesus saying that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and that it will not be so among you (Matthew 20:25; Mark 10:42). One verse later he names who the chief shepherd is, and it is not him: archipoimēn, when He is revealed (5:4). His own name appears twice in both letters together, and both are greetings.

The verse the office rests on, stated fairly. Kagō de soi legō hoti sy ei Petros, kai epi tautē tē petra oikodomēsō mou tēn ekklēsian — and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly (Matthew 16:18). Two words: Petros, masculine, for him, and petra, feminine, for what is built on. One reading takes the change as a pun on one thing; another takes it as a deliberate distinction. The Greek does not settle it, and anyone who says it plainly does is overstating: in Aramaic kepha would serve for both, and Matthew wrote Greek, which has two words. What the passage does say for itself is that the thing just called blessed is the revealing — flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father (16:17) — and that five verses later the same man is called a stumbling-block and told to get behind (16:23).

When the titles appeared. Dates rather than exegesis, and checkable. Papa, father, was used of bishops and senior clergy generally; the earliest bishop named with it is Heraclas of Alexandria (227–248), and the Coptic patriarch still holds the title today. Gregory VII reserved it to the bishop of Rome in 1073, and the Dictatus Papae of 1075 states that the Roman pontiff alone is to be called universal. Vicar of Christ was in use from the third century, of emperors and of bishops generally, and became the pope’s exclusive title under Innocent III (1198–1216), displacing Vicar of St Peter. Pontifex Maximus was a Roman priestly office held by the emperors, declined by Gratian around 379.

Peter and Paul died at Rome under Nero, whose reign ran 54–68 and who died in June of 68; the traditional date for both apostles is 67, and recent work tends to put Peter’s nearer 64. So the men the office is named for died roughly a thousand years before the title was reserved to Rome.

Where the doctrinal difference actually is. Not in the titles. It is assurance, and it can be set out as two documents. The Council of Trent, in its sixth session (1547), decreed that no one can know with a certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God (Session 6, chapter 9). Its canons put the opposite under an anathema: If any one saith, that it is necessary for every one, for the obtaining the remission of sins, that he believe for certain, and without any wavering arising from his own infirmity and disposition, that his sins are forgiven him; let him be anathema (canon 13); and If any one saith, that he will for certain, of an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift of perseverance unto the end, — unless he have learned this by special revelation; let him be anathema (canon 16). Canon 15 does the same for holding that one is certainly among the predestined. The session is short enough to read.

Paul, writing to Rome, says: ouden ara nyn katakrima, there is therefore now no condemnation (Romans 8:1); tis enkalesei kata eklektōn Theou, who will bring a charge against God’s chosen (8:33) — enkaleō being the word for laying a formal charge, six of whose seven uses in these writings are courtrooms in Acts; and pepeismai, I am persuaded that neither death nor life will be able to separate us (8:38–39). John writes that he wrote his letter so that you may know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:13).

That is the disagreement, and it is a real one. It is also the reason the first paragraph of this note says what it says: on the account Paul gives, a person is not saved by holding the right view of assurance, but by trusting what was done for him.

Asking the saints, and the one mediator. This is also a doctrine that can be set out as two documents. Rome’s own: the Council of Trent, in its twenty-fifth session (December 1563), decreed that the saints, who reign together with Christ, offer up their own prayers to God for men; that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and that they think impiously, who deny that the saints, who enjoy eternal happiness in heaven, are to be invocated; or who assert either that they do not pray for men; or, that the invocation of them to pray for each of us even in particular, is idolatry; or, that it is repugnant to the word of God; and is opposed to the honour of the one mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus. The Catechism says we can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world (2683) and they do not cease to intercede with the Father for us (956). It condemns the other thing in the same breath: all forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future (2116). So Catholic teaching draws a line, between asking a departed saint to pray and conjuring the dead for knowledge, and says the first is allowed and the second is forbidden.

The scripture side. The Hebrew forbids consulting the dead: one who asks a medium or a spiritist, or consults the dead (Deuteronomy 18:11, doresh el-hametim), and Isaiah sets it against seeking God: should not a people seek its God — on behalf of the living, to the dead? (8:19). Nothing in scripture mentions asking departed believers to pray for the living: no command, no example, and no prohibition. What bears on it: one God, and one mediator of God and people, a man, Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5); he always lives to intercede for those who approach God through him (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:34); let us approach the throne of grace with confidence (Hebrews 4:16); come to me, all you who are weary (Matthew 11:28); and in the account of the rich man and Lazarus, Abraham says there is a great chasm fixed between, and they have Moses and the prophets (Luke 16:26, 29). When John falls at the feet of a messenger, he is told don’t do that. I am a fellow servant … Bow to God (Revelation 19:10; 22:8–9). The Catholic side cites this book: the elders and a messenger offer the prayers of God’s people before the throne (5:8; 8:3–4), the lives under the altar cry out to God (6:9–10), and Hebrews speaks of a cloud of witnesses around us (12:1). Those show heavenly beings presenting or voicing prayers to God. They do not show anyone on earth addressing them.

Going to God, not to the dead — Jon’s reading. Jon reads Isaiah 8:19 as the principle, a people seeks its God, and the one mediator as the reason no one else is needed: Jesus says come to me.

Red flag That asking departed saints to pray for us is what Isaiah 8:19 or Deuteronomy 18:11 forbids. Both are about consulting the dead, for knowledge or guidance, and Catholic teaching condemns that too (Catechism 2116). Neither mentions asking the departed to pray. The nearest texts for Jon’s reading are 1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 4:16 and 7:25, Matthew 11:28 and Revelation 19:10; the nearest for the other side are Revelation 5:8, 6:9–10 and Hebrews 12:1.

Not in the canon, and yet binding. Is a pope’s writing added to the Bible? Rome says no: the canon is closed, and the teaching office is not above the word of God but serves it (Dei Verbum 10). The second question is what a believer owes those writings, and Rome’s own documents answer in tiers. Both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence (Dei Verbum 9). What the church proposes as revealed must be believed with divine and Catholic faith; what it proposes definitively is also to be firmly embraced and retained, and one who rejects those propositions which are to be held definitively is opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church (canon 750 §1–2). Even teaching that is not defined is owed a religious submission of the intellect and will, although not an assent of faith (canon 752). The Council says that submission must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra, and that his definitions are irreformable, of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church (Lumen Gentium 25). Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith (canon 751), and the penalty is one line: An apostate from the faith, a heretic or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication (canon 1364 §1).

The Catholic side answers from scripture, and it is a real answer. Jesus says to Peter whatever you bind on the earth will be bound in the heavens (Matthew 16:19; to the disciples together at 18:18); to the seventy, the one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me (Luke 10:16); Hebrews says be persuaded by your leaders and yield to them, for they keep watch over your souls (13:17); and Paul himself says stand firm, and hold the traditions you were taught, whether by word or by a letter of ours (2 Thessalonians 2:15), with the same verb, stēkete, as Galatians 5:1. The apostles and elders at Jerusalem also issued dogmata, decrees, which Paul and his company handed to the cities to keep (Acts 16:4).

On the other side. The same letter that says stand firm (Galatians 5:1) names whom Paul stood against: the false brothers slipped in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, so that they will enslave us (2:4; katadoulōsousin, which says what they were aiming at). To Corinth: not that we lord it over your faith, but we are fellow workers of your joy, for by faith you stand (2 Corinthians 1:24; kyrieuomen). To Colossae: if you died with the Anointed from the world’s elementary things, why, as though living in the world, are you made subject to decrees — do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, and he calls these commands and teachings of people (Colossians 2:20–22; entalmata, as at Mark 7:7). The verb, dogmatizesthe, is built on dogma and occurs once in the New Testament; the noun occurs five times (Luke 2:1; Acts 16:4, 17:7; Ephesians 2:15; Colossians 2:14). And Jesus says of the Pharisees they bind heavy loads and lay them on people’s shoulders (Matthew 23:4), with a verb, desmeuousin, from the same root as the bind of Matthew 16:19, though the text does not connect the two. For a measure Paul writes not beyond what has been written (1 Corinthians 4:6); the Greek is terse and its sense is debated, so this note gives what the words say and no more. The Jerusalem decree the other side cites is itself one that lightens: it declines to lay on a baros more than the necessary things (Acts 15:28), the word this book uses at 2:24.

Binding, against standing free — Jon’s reading. Jon reads the tiers above, with a penalty for refusing, as the contrast to Paul’s stand firm in the freedom by which Christ made us free (Galatians 5:1): the church requires, under penalty, what Paul tells believers to stand free of.

Red flag That the required beliefs of a church are the yoke of slavery of Galatians 5:1. Paul’s yoke there is circumcision and keeping the law (5:2–4); no verse says a church’s defined teaching is that yoke, and 2 Thessalonians 2:15 uses the same stand firm for holding what was taught. The nearest texts for Jon’s reading are Acts 15:10, Colossians 2:20–22, Matthew 23:4 and 2 Corinthians 1:24; the nearest for the other side are 2 Thessalonians 2:15, Luke 10:16, Hebrews 13:17 and Acts 16:4.

What this note does not claim. Four things, and they matter.

That late vocabulary proves a late office. It does not. The answer given is that an office may be apostolic even where its words developed later, and that is a fair answer that the dates alone do not defeat.

That silence is proof. An argument from what Peter does not say would be weak on its own. The version that survives is narrower, and it is the only one this note makes: he is not silent. He writes the opposite down.

That Catholic teaching puts the pope in Christ’s place. It does not; Christ is held to be the invisible head and the pope the visible one, and saying otherwise is answered in a sentence.

And that any of this identifies anyone with anything in this book. It does not, and nothing above should be read that way.

Why this was written — Jon’s own words. I wrote this mostly for Catholics, and I want to encourage you of two things.

The first is liberty. Paul writes: “It was for freedom that Christ freed us. Stand firm, then, and do not be held again in a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). And Christ is the head — “he is the head of the body, the assembly” (Colossians 1:18) — so that what Paul names as the way things go wrong is not holding fast the Head (2:19).

At Nazareth, in the synagogue, the scroll Jesus was handed was Isaiah’s, and this is what He chose to read out of it:Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back and sat down, with every eye in the synagogue fixed on Him, and began by saying: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (4:20–21).

The word for liberty there is aphesis, and it stands twice in that one verse — release for captives, and the crushed sent away in release. It is the same word these writings use for the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; Acts 2:38). And the last clause, to send the crushed away in release, is not from the Isaiah passage Luke is reading from. It is Isaiah 58:6 — apostelle tethrausmenous en aphesei — which Luke sets into the middle of that reading.

What that liberty means for you is yours to decide, including whether it means staying with the Catholic traditions or not. I am not deciding it for you. What scripture says is that you are connected directly to Christ Himself, and that you are not obligated to stay under anything that may have been a source of abuse — and we know that, for many, it has been.

The second is that the new covenant is made with you directly. The promise is old, from Jeremiah 31, and the letter to the Hebrews quotes it whole:Hebrews is quoting Jeremiah 31:31–34, and the words are Jeremiah’s. That is where the phrase new covenant comes from — berit chadashah (31:31) — and the line about no one teaching his brother is his too: de’u et YHWH, ki kullam yed’u oti lemiqtanam ve’ad gedolam, know the LORD, because all of them will know me, from their least to their greatest (31:34).

That is a promise made to all of them, from the least to the greatest.

How I came to this — Jon’s own words. I have been reading the Bible for twenty years — not every day, but sometimes for several hours a day, and sometimes not directly but through other preachers teaching it. In all that time I never heard of many of the things in this note, and when I looked into them they seemed only to contradict it. I find it hard to believe that the people who write and enforce these teachings are doing any of it honestly.

A prayer — Jon. My prayer for Rome, and for Leo XIV, is its own reading: A Prayer for Rome.

How sure I am — Jon. I am not fully confident of the readings flagged above. They are my best explanation of what I have studied here. If I learn otherwise, I will take them down, and my email is on the About page of this site if you want to show me.