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Wisdom from the Ages

This Rock Volume 18, Number 1   January 2007     Reasons for Hope By Cherie Peacock   A Pope’s Answer to the Problem of Pain By Christopher Kaczor   How to Talk to (and about) a Bishop By Leon Suprenant   Puny Humans, Vast Universe: Does Christianity Make Sense? By Mark Shea   What Does Church Mean? By Anthony E. Clark   Wisdom from the Ages   Should Catholics Go to Non-Denominational Bible Studies? By Steve Ray   Before Chapter and Verse   Bible Resources   Damascus Road A Thirst for Reverence By Karl Bjorn Erickson   By the Book According to Scripture By Tim Staples   Truth be Told Catholic Conspiracy Theories By Robert P. Lockwood   Classic Apologetics Devotion to the Blessed Virgin By Fr. M.D. Forrest   Quick Questions   Last Writes By Karl Keating    Preview (pdf; 3MB)    Subscribe    Permissions

"To it [the Church] belong all the saints: from Abel and Abraham and all the witnesses of hope whom the Old Testament tells us, through Mary, the Mother of the Lord, and the Lord’s apostles, through Thomas Becket and Thomas More all the way to Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein, and Pier Giorgio Frassati. The Church includes all the unknown and unnamed ‘whose faith is known to him alone,’ it embraces the men of all places and all times whose hearts stretch out in hope and love to Christ, the ‘author and finisher of faith,’ as the letter to the Hebrews calls him (12:2)."
—Pope Benedict XVI, Called to Communion, 154

"Peter, who is called ‘the rock on which the Church should be built,’ who also obtained ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven. . .’"
—Tertullian, On the Prescription against the Heretics, 22 (c. A.D. 200)

"And Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. . ."
—Origen, Commentary on John, 5:3 (A.D. 232)

"By this Spirit Peter spake that blessed word, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ By this Spirit the rock of the Church was established."
—Hippolytus, Discourse on the Holy Theophany, 9 (ante A.D. 235)

"‘Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church.’ . . . It is on him that he builds the Church and to him that he entrusts the sheep to feed. And although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single Chair, thus establishing by his own authority the source and hallmark of the (Church’s) oneness. . . . If a man does not fast to this oneness of Peter, does he still imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he still confidence that he is in the Church?"
—Cyprian, De Unitate Ecclesiae (Primacy text), 4 (A.D. 251)

"We have considered that it ought be announced that although all the Catholic Churches spread abroad through the world comprise one bridal chamber of Christ, nevertheless, the holy Roman Church has been placed at the forefront not by conciliar decisions of other churches but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.’ . . . The first see, therefore, is that of Peter the apostle, that of the Roman Church, which has neither the stain nor blemish nor anything like it."
—Pope Damasus, Decree of Damasus, 3 (A.D. 382)