. . . And when Christ said to Peter
“Thou art Peter and upon this rock,” etc., we understand the word, rock, as a
reference to Christ in him he [Peter] had confesses his belief. And if the
word, rock [petram], is to be understood as a reference to Peter’s role
as the foundation stone of the church, according to Jerome the other apostles
were also foundation stones of the church. When these things are discussed in
the next to the last book of the Apocalypse no one doubts that it refers to the
apostles when it speaks of the twelve foundation stones of the city of
Jerusalem. And if Christ said to Peter “Feed my sheep,” it is clear that this
feeding is by word and example. Similarly according to St. Augustine’s gloss on
the same passage, the same command was given to all [when Christ said] “Going
into the whole world” in the last chapter of Matthew and Mark. Nothing else is
said to Peter which implies any power. Therefore we are correct in saying that all
the apostles are equal to Peter in power. (Nicholas of Cusa, The Catholic
Concordance, Book II, paragraph 115 [trans. ed. Paul E. Sigmund; Cambridge
Texts in the History of Political Thought; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991], 90)
Indeed we say that all the
apostles are equal in the grace of the apostolate just as in the grace of the
priesthood all priests are equal, but we say that Peter was first among the
apostles by virtue of a superabundance of grace. Augustine says in his last
sermon [on the Gospel of] John, that because of abundant grace Peter was both
the first apostle and on account of his primacy among the apostles also represented
the church as a symbol of the whole. And the sacred writings describe the
primacy with which Peter was endowed with a superabundance of grace by Christ,
in the first chapter of John were Christ says, “Thou shalt be called Cephas,”
which is interpreted Peter. Augustine in his seventh sermon comments on this
passage as follows: “He made a great change when he changed Simon’s name to
Peter. But Peter is now from rock [petra] and the rock is the church.
Therefore the name of Peter symbolized the church.” Observe that according to
the interpretation of the great and learned Augustine, the change in name was
important. When Christ said, “Thou art Peter,” he used the present tense, where
he had said earlier—in the future tense—“Thou shalt be called Cephas.” He did
not say then, “Thou art named or called Peter” but “Thou art Peter.” From this
it is evident that the promise of Christ that Simon would in the future be
called Cephas was a promise of a real primacy. Hence when Augustine says that
Peter had the primacy among the apostles he can not be interpreted as speaking
of the time of his conversion or his recognition of the Messiah, as the name Peter
is interpreted (according to Bede, incorrectly) to mean “the one who recognizes”
by writers such as Alexander of Hales commenting on John. He adds on the same
point that his brother, Andrew, who told him earlier that he had found the
Messiah had already preceded him in that recognition, as we read in the first
chapter of the Gospel of John. Therefore Augustine himself understands the
primacy among the others in the church as necessarily referring to the
rulership and eminence which Peter received after the college of the apostles
had been created when Christ said, “Thou art Peter.”
