✝ Catholic Treasury Network
Home ›Apologetics›The Church and the Pope›Where Is the Papacy in the Bible?
Apologetics · The Church and the Pope

Where Is the Papacy in the Bible?

The Short Answer

The word “pope” is not in the Bible, but the office is. Jesus renamed Simon “Rock”, said He would build His Church on that rock, gave him the keys of the kingdom, prayed for him alone to strengthen the others, and told him to feed His sheep. Peter is always named first among the apostles and leads the early Church in Acts. Catholics believe that role was given for the Church’s whole life, not only for Peter’s, and that the bishops of Rome, Peter’s successors, have exercised it from the first century.

The Central Dispute

Few issues divide Catholics and Protestants more sharply than the papacy. Catholics believe that Jesus Christ appointed St Peter as the visible head of His Church, and that the Pope is Peter’s successor. Many Protestants believe the papacy grew up gradually as a human institution, with no real basis in Scripture. The Orthodox, for their part, accept that Rome held a special place of honour in the early Church, but not the authority Catholics claim for it.

The question can be tested by looking at what the Bible actually says. And the Bible says more than many people, on both sides, realise.

What the Church Does and Does Not Claim

The Church does not claim:

The Church does claim that the Church of Christ “subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him” (Lumen Gentium 8), and that this is what Christ intended when He made Peter the rock.

Why Catholics Believe It

Matthew 16:17–19: the rock and the keys

The most important passage is the most direct. At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks His disciples who they think He is. Peter answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus responds:

“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:17–19).

Three things happen here that are without parallel elsewhere in the Gospels.

Jesus changes Simon’s name to Peter. In the Bible, a name change signals a new role. Abram became Abraham, father of many nations; Jacob became Israel, father of God’s people. Simon becomes Peter, Petros in Greek and Kepha (Cephas) in Aramaic, meaning “rock.” Jesus is not giving him a nickname. He is defining his role.

Jesus builds His Church on Peter. “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” Jesus has just renamed Simon “Rock” and immediately says “on this rock”: the connection is hard to miss. Many early Christian writers read it as referring to Peter, and today a number of Protestant scholars agree.

Jesus gives Peter the keys. The image comes from Isaiah 22, where the king’s household is entrusted to a new steward, Eliakim: “I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open” (Isaiah 22:22). The steward acts with the king’s authority, and the office passes from one holder to the next. By giving Peter the keys, Jesus appoints him chief steward of His kingdom. The authority to “bind and loose” is later given to all the apostles together (Matthew 18:18), but the keys are given to Peter alone.

Luke 22:31–32: the one who strengthens

At the Last Supper, Jesus says to Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.”

In the Greek, the first “you” is plural: Satan wants all the apostles. The second is singular: Jesus prays for Peter. And He gives Peter a particular task towards the others: “strengthen your brethren.”

John 21:15–17: feed my sheep

After the Resurrection, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Each time Peter says yes, and each time Jesus gives him a charge: “Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep.”

The threefold question mirrors Peter’s threefold denial. It is a restoration, and also an appointment. The sheep are Christ’s (“my sheep”), but their care is entrusted to Peter. In the Bible the shepherd is the leader of God’s people.

Peter in the Book of Acts

In the early chapters of Acts, Peter leads. He proposes the choice of a replacement for Judas (Acts 1:15–26). He preaches at Pentecost (Acts 2). He performs the first miracle after the Ascension (Acts 3). He is the one to whom God reveals that Gentiles are to be received, and he baptises the first of them (Acts 10–11). At the Council of Jerusalem, after much debate, it is Peter who stands up to give the decisive argument (Acts 15:7–11), and James then proposes a decision in line with what Peter has said.

St Paul, after his conversion, “went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days” (Galatians 1:18).

Peter first among the apostles

Every time the New Testament lists the twelve apostles, Peter is named first, and Judas last (Matthew 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:14–16; Acts 1:13). Matthew makes the point explicitly: “first, Simon, who is called Peter” (Matthew 10:2). Peter was not the first to be called; Andrew was (John 1:40–42). “First” here marks his place.

The early Church

By the end of the first century, the Church at Rome, through its bishop Clement, wrote to settle a dispute in Corinth, and the letter was treasured there for generations. Around 110, St Ignatius of Antioch addressed the Roman Church as the one “which presides over love” (Letter to the Romans, greeting). Around 180, St Irenaeus wrote: “For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority” (Against Heresies III.3.2), and he listed the bishops of Rome in succession from Peter and Paul. Around 251, St Cyprian called Rome “the throne of Peter, and the chief church whence priestly unity takes its source” (Letter 54.14).

These are not yet the fully developed papacy of later centuries. But they show the bishop of Rome holding a recognised place of leadership from the beginning, rooted in Peter.

Common Objections

”The rock is Peter’s faith, or Christ Himself, not Peter.”

Christ is indeed the foundation of the Church (1 Corinthians 3:11), and Peter’s confession of faith matters in this passage. But the natural reading of “you are Peter, and on this rock” is that the rock is Peter, the man who has just made that confession. Christ is the one foundation, and He chooses to make Peter the rock on which He builds, just as He is the one Shepherd (John 10:11) and yet tells Peter to feed His sheep.

”In Greek, petros means a small stone and petra a large rock.”

Jesus spoke Aramaic, in which the word is the same both times: Kepha. In Greek, Matthew had to give a man’s name a masculine ending, so petra became Petros. In the Greek of the time the two words were used largely interchangeably. And John’s Gospel keeps the Aramaic: “You shall be called Cephas” (John 1:42).

”Even if Peter had a special role, nothing says it was passed on.”

The keys in Isaiah 22 belong to an office, handed from one steward to the next. Jesus promised that the Church would endure, that the gates of Hades would not prevail against it, and that He would be with His disciples “always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20). A role given to hold the Church together would be needed as long as the Church exists. And the early Church, as we have seen, treated the Roman see as holding Peter’s place.

”Paul opposed Peter to his face at Antioch.”

He did: “when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned” (Galatians 2:11), for withdrawing from table fellowship with Gentile Christians. But this was a failure of conduct, not of teaching; Peter had himself defended the Gentiles’ place in the Church (Acts 15:7–11). Catholics have never claimed that popes cannot be corrected for their behaviour. Paul’s rebuke shows Peter’s importance: his example carried so much weight that his inconsistency was leading others astray.

”Peter called himself just a fellow elder” (1 Peter 5:1).

He did, and it is a beautiful example of humility. Popes have long used the title “servant of the servants of God.” Humility in the way authority is exercised does not mean the authority is absent.

In Summary

Jesus renamed Simon “Rock”, promised to build His Church on him, gave him the keys, prayed for him to strengthen the others and charged him to feed His sheep. Peter led the apostles and the early Church, and from the first centuries the Church of Rome was recognised as holding his place. The Catholic answer to “Where is the papacy in the Bible?” is that it is there in its roots, in Peter, and has grown from them ever since.

See also Why Be Catholic? and What Did the Early Church Fathers Believe?

This article follows the method St Robert Bellarmine used in his Controversies*: state the question fairly, clear away misunderstandings, make the case, then answer each objection. Bellarmine’s own treatise on this subject,* De Romano Pontifice (On the Roman Pontiff), works through these same passages. See How We Answer Objections.

Sources