An example of distortion of truth by popes to suit their political agenda

The founding of Christianity by Jesus based on his telling Peter “You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church” (Mathew 16: 18) is a total distortion of the truth.

In 382 Pope Damasus I commissioned his secretary St. Jerome to translate the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. The result of Jerome's scholarly labor was the Vulgate ('common version'), the Bible in Latin that was to guide Holy Mother Church for the next thousand years. In the original Greek, ‘You are Peter (petros meaning small rock) and upon this rock (petra meaning bedrock or much bigger rock foundation) are two different Greek words. In Jerome’s Latin translation these two words mean the same thing. That is how and where Jesus’ words to Peter were misinterpreted to justify apostolic succession and papal authority.

In the original Greek, what Jesus meant was the following: he told Peter, “I say to you that you are a small stone, and upon this bedrock I will build my church”. Peter was just a small stone built atop the bedrock of something much bigger than himself: namely, the truth that Jesus is Christ, the Son of the living God. As Peter testified to the truth about Christ, that he is the Messiah (which Peter did in verse 16), the church was built upon this belief as its foundation.

According to Hans Kung, the promise to Peter ‘You are Peter,...’ is “not once quoted in full in any of the Christian literature of the first centuries”. He continues: “Far less is there any evidence of a successor of Peter (also in Rome) in the New Testament. In any case, the logic of the saying about the rock tends rather to tell against it: Peter’s faith in Christ (and not the faith of any successor) was to be and remain the constant foundation of the church.

Regarding the word “church” (ekklesia in Greek meaning ‘assembly’) in Jesus’ promise to Peter "I will build my church", this is what Kung has to say: “The original meaning of ekklesia, ‘church’ was not a hyper-organization of spiritual functionaries, detached from the concrete assembly. It denoted a community gathering at a particular place at a particular time for a particular action – a local church…” As we shall see, popes of the fourth and fifth centuries reinterpreted the word to consolidate their temporal and spiritual power over Christendom.

Now, a little early church history:

According to Catholic church history, there were, starting with Peter, 36 popes plus 3 antipopes (someone who makes claim to be pope against a legitimately elected pope) till AD 366. In the early church, the Bishop of Rome, elected by the people of Rome, was regarded as the head of the entire Catholic church.

Bitter rivalries showed themselves at the death of a pope. Peter De Rosa describes one such incident in his book Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of Papacy. When Pope Liberius died in AD 366, each of two warring factions of believers, elected its gangster leader as successor. Ursinus was one pope, Damasus the other. After a lot of street fighting, Ursinus’ followers locked themselves in the Basilica of St. Mary Major. Damasus’ supporters climbed on the roof and bombarded the occupants with tiles and stones. Other followers of Damasus were attacking the main door. When this caved in, a bloody fight ensued lasting for three days. When it was over, ‘137 bodies were carried out, all of them followers of Ursinus’.

Ursinus was exiled and Damasus I ascended the papal throne. However, the gangland rivalry would last another fifteen years, from time to time arbitrated by the pagan city prefect and forcing Pope Damasus to move about the city with a bodyguard of armed gladiators.

Baigent in his book The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History has more on this. The massacre was a blot on his reign; to compensate, Pope Damasus termed Rome “the apostolic see” – the only place in the entire church that might claim a continuous succession from the apostles.  He claimed to be the true and direct successor to Peter and rightfully inherited the church that Christ had supposedly founded upon Peter. Only from his time was the text ‘You art Peter…’, as translated by Jerome, began to be used as a scriptural base for the primacy of Rome and apostolic succession. 

Pope Leo I (440-461) formally established the primacy of Rome based on the inherited authority of the apostle Peter. He claimed that this heritage gave Rome the right to lead Christendom. It is to be noted that without this claim the entire edifice of the Vatican and the papacy would crumble into dust.

Peter was retrospectively designated as the first pope. (Baigent)

Postscript 1: I have used information mostly from the following three books:

1.       De Rosa, Peter. Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of Papacy.

2.       Kung, Hans. The Catholic Church: A Short History.

3.       Baigent, Michael. The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History

Who are these three?

Peter De Rosa

Was born in 1932 in London; ordained priest in 1956 but left the priesthood in 1970. He was Professor of Metaphysics and Ethics at Westminster Seminary and Dean of Theology at Corpus Christi College, London.

Hans Küng

Was born in 1928; he is a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian and prolific author. He was appointed as an expert theological advisor between 1962 and 1965 to the Second Vatican Council by Pope John XXIII. He rejected the doctrine of Papal Infallibility and for this, he was banned in 1979 by Pope John Paul II from teaching theology.

Michael Baigent

Religious historian and a leading expert in arcane knowledge.

Postscript 2: After his death, the mass murderer Damasus was declared ‘Saint Damasus’ and his feast day is celebrated on December 11. He is the patron saint of archeologists.