Commenting on the question of successors to the apostle Peter and its relationship to the later development of the Papacy, Markus Bockmuehl wrote the following, which is rather devastating to the claims of Pastor Aeternus (1870), Satis Cognitum (1896), and other dogmatic and encyclical works affirming that Vatican I’s dogmatic teachings have always been the teachings of the ancient church and only denied by heretics:
That a figure like Peter may nevertheless have identified one or more successors—whether in Rome, Antioch, or elsewhere—is perhaps more likely than many contemporary critical scholars are prepared to countenance. Antiquity, like Middle Eastern societies to this day, did quite readily expect the appointment of successors and the formation of dynasties, and by the end of the second century agreed upon lists of apostolic succession were apparently accepted in Rome, Jerusalem, and other churches. At the same time, the specific Petrine predicates of the foundation, the keys of the kingdom and the authority to bind and loose seem unique and non-transferable in Matthew. And, of course, neither Peter nor the other apostles were ever remembered to have passed on their own apostolic status. Specifically, Petrine authority was not claimed by the bishop of Rome until much later, and the self-understanding of that church and office remained for a long time linked to the idea of both Peter and Paul as the twin founding apostles. Where the early commentators do seek a contemporary application of Matt. 16:18-19 to anyone other than the apostle Peter, they tend to see his role as paradigmatic for all the believers or at least all bishops (So, very clearly, Origen, Cels. 6.77; Comm. Matt. 12.10-11; Tertullian, Paul, 21, Cyprian, resisting Pope Stephen’s claims [AD 254-257] for Roman papal authority as an innovation, stressed the application of Matt. 16:18-19 to all bishops [Unit. Ecc. 4-5]. It may be that Tertullian and Origen already opposed the emergence of positions analogous to that of Stephen). There is no evidence prior to the third century of a Roman assertion of primacy specifically on the basis either of this passage or of genuine claims to Petrine memory; indeed, everything we have seen suggests that the potential for any such appeal to living memory ceases not later than the year 200 . . . this need not rule out a priori the potential legitimacy of a later Roman relecture (rereading) of Matt. 16:18-19 in papal terms, particularly when this is linked with other NT passages such as John 21, but such an argument would need to be established in open reflection on well-documented patristic alternatives. (Markus Bockmuehl, Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory: The New Testament Apostle in the Early Church [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2012], 86, emphasis in original)
