June
17, 2012
David Timbs
The
Reinvention of the Fisherman
Part
One
By
any stretch of the imagination, it’s a long way from operating a fishing boat
on the Sea of Galilee in the first century CE to sitting on an ornate throne in
Vatican City in 2012 CE, but Peter has made it. The beginning of the story
paints a picture of a rather flawed character but lovable character who is
gradually redeemed not so much by his own efforts but by the help of Jesus his
Teacher, sheer grace, and by some very sympathetic and creative script writers.
Peter
in the Narrative – promise and failure
The
New Testament offers a strikingly honest and relatively unadorned depiction of
Peter. He is shown on the one hand to be generous and spontaneous in answering
Jesus’ call to discipleship. He leaves everything behind to follow someone he
does not know and for something he does not as yet understand. He is, on the
other hand, the one who, despite having been chosen by Jesus to be the first
among his followers, always flawed and inadequate in both faith and example. In
many ways, Peter is the representative persona for those who do not appreciate
what they are getting into or what will be asked of them despite their original
enthusiastic responsiveness.
One
of the enduring strengths of the Judeo-Christian tradition is that it has an
enormous capacity to tolerate and absorb failure and embarrassment. The central
characters in their narratives are anti-heroes and are, in the conventional
sense, scripted for spectacular failure and shame well ahead of any grand
achievements. Jesus is depicted as such and so are his followers. The Christian
story was a hard one to promote and sell both in its original cultural milieu
and abroad in often resistant host societies.
In
many ways, Peter is a powerful example of how not
to be a disciple. Jesus calls him a man of
little faith when he took his eyes off Jesus during a tempest at sea. He is
even rebuked as Satan when he rejects Jesus’ prediction of his destiny as
suffering messiah. Peter’s ambivalence is most graphically illustrated when
Jesus endures acute isolation and is in greatest need of support from his
closest friends. Peter’s nerve fails him; his faith and loyalty desert him. He
sleeps as Jesus begins his final struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane and he
flees with the rest when the Teacher is betrayed, arrested and taken into
custody.
Dramatically,
while Jesus is under interrogation on the inside and bearing public witness to
the truth about himself, Peter is outside in public telling lies about him.
Despite Peter’s earlier unambiguous and resolute affirmations of loyalty to
Jesus even unto death, he becomes apostate,
denying Jesus so abjectly in the public square.
The
rehabilitation of Peter
In
the synoptic tradition, the nearest Peter comes to a reconciliation with Jesus
is in his tears of contrition; Matthew and Luke recall that on recognising his
denials he wept bitterly. Despite
this, his now typical incomprehension clicks in again when he fails to recognise
the risen Christ. It is only in John’s
narrative that the location of Peter’s three fold denial of Jesus beside a
charcoal fire, is dramatically contrasted with his three times affirmation of
his faith, loyalty and love for Jesus, again at a charcoal fire. He is
reaffirmed by Jesus in his position of trust. Peter is commissioned to be
guardian of and principal carer for the other disciples of Jesus. This, however,
is at the high end of the New Testament tradition.
Peter’s
position in the rest of the story is somewhat more nuanced and modest. Luke,
writing the Acts of the Apostles in the 80s features Peter as the principal
speaker at Pentecost and a key player in the resolution to the Gentile question.
It is also very clear that it is James, the brother of the Lord, head of the
Jerusalem community, who makes the authoritative decisions. The symbolic status
of Peter in the primitive Jesus Movement
must be more accurately evaluated by contrasting Peter’s crucial intervention
and witness in Jerusalem with the near disaster for Paul’s mission to the
Gentiles that his actions in Galatia occasioned.
The
Galatian affair – Peter breaks faith with the Church
In
a text which powerfully illustrates the biblical principle of embarrassment,
Paul of Tarsus confronts Peter over his backsliding on a matter of crucial
ecclesial policy and practice regarding the admission of Gentiles into the
Judeo-Christian community. Paul recounts that he had visited Peter and James in
Jerusalem where he conferred with them for two weeks (Gal 1: 18-24). Presumably
they were not discussing the price of fish in Galilee. They were
focused on the Mission not only to Jews but also to Gentiles.
Peter
had previously mixed freely with these Galatian converts and had shared the
common table with them but had bowed to pressure from the hardliners of the
Jerusalem based James Party. Peter separated himself from Gentile company and,
by his actions, caused confusion and scandal to the new converts, outraged Paul
and nearly scuttled the mission to the Gentiles.
Peter
effectively broke faith with the Church and compromised its Gospel message. He
ruptured the communio and conciliar
spirit of the whole Church gathered in Jerusalem. For Paul, this was a serious
reneging on the teaching of the Apostles.
It amounted to yet another betrayal of Jesus. Paul’s collegial response to
Peter was understandably blunt, direct and uncompromising,
For
when Cephas (Peter)
came to Antioch I opposed him to his face,
because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he ate with
the Gentiles, but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the
circumcision party. And with him the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically,
so that even Barnabas was carried away by their pretence. But when I saw that
they were not straight forward about the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas,
‘If you, though a Jew, live
like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you
compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’.......I do not nullify the grace
of God; for if justification were through the law (Torah), then Christ died to no purpose. (Gal 2: 11-14, 21)
Paul
was hounded by the legalistic James Party
to his dying day. One can only imagine what would have happened if Peter had
stood by him in Galatia, providing authentic leadership and lending collegial
support on a matter of critical importance at a crucial time.
The
See of Peter and the beginnings of Roman authority
While
it is true that in Matthew’s narrative Jesus renames Cephas as Peter, the rock
on which the Church will be built, there is no indication that this authority is
Peter’s alone. All of the Apostles, witnesses of the Resurrection, together
with their disciples are commissioned to exercise the authority of Christ and to
preach his Gospel. There is nothing in the rest of the New Testament narrative
which would clearly indicate that Peter is anyone more than one singularly
acknowledged by Jesus nor anything to suggest that he is more than that. Later
development is a combination of extrapolation from the text, the legend that
Peter became the first bishop of Rome and theological reflection on both. This
tradition of the central importance of the Bishop of Rome as the ultimate
reference point to divine authority was long in the making.
One
of the most popular mantras long used by many to support Rome’s ultimate and
supreme authority is, Roma locuta est,
causa finita est. It has been employed for centuries as a kind of throw-away
apologetic knockout blow against opponents. The actual historical origin of the
expression is somewhat more modest, even pedantically bureaucratic and it in
fact illustrates the legitimate
authority and autonomy of the local Church not the primacy of Rome. Today it is
called subsidiarity.
Augustine,
in Sermon 131.10, makes reference to
two local African Councils which had been convened in 416 CE to pass judgment on
the teachings of the priest theologian Pelagius concerning original sin, grace
and salvation. They found Pelagianism to be unorthodox, prepared reports on
their actions, sent them to Rome as an expression of unity and continuity in
Church doctrine and acknowledgment was made.
Augustine recounts,
….iam
enim de hac causa duo concilia missa sunt ad sedem apostolicam; inde etiam
rescripta venerunt, causa finita est.
‘…for
already on this matter two councils have sent (reports) to the apostolic See,
whence rescripts (receipts have come). The matter (causa)
is finished.’
Today
the successor of Peter, the Pope, is head of a global ecclesial community, the
Catholic Church, over which he has absolute legislative, executive and judicial
authority. This is a huge step up from the humble beginnings of a Galilean
fisherman two millennia ago.
[Next
week in Part Two, the modern Papacy will be examined in the light its history
over the past one hundred years or so. Today
it is in a state of crisis and on a scale perhaps never witnessed before. The
article will examine some of the principal challenges that the Papacy and the
Church are facing from both internal and external quarters; how it struggles to
defend its position, credibility and its claim to supreme moral authority in a
skeptical, even hostile world.]
David
Timbs writes from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.