may have done, what is certain is that at Antioch he did not strengthen his brethren. All human analogy would suggest a more or less imperfect human endeavour to fulfil a divinely appointed ideal.
iv. The fourth and last point for consideration is Peter's Successors.
1. Now, first, our Lord does not mention them. They are not mentioned even by implication. There is no necessary implication, unless we assume, à priori, as some Roman writers do, that such a prerogative could not be restricted to a single generation, nor to the Apostolic Age;[1] and therefore that the function of Peter in strengthening his brethren must be continued to his successors to the end of time. But by no process of interpretation can this be derived from the words of Christ. It can be read into them: it cannot be read out of them. Whether false or true, it is certainly not what our Lord has said.
Moreover, since the prerogative here conferred on Peter was the prerogative of sympathy learnt by the humiliations of failure, not the gift of Infallibility, its perpetuation among his successors could not confer upon them what it did not confer on him. If our exposition of this prayer of Christ be correct, the extension of the prerogative over a series of successors would be doubtless morally valuable but of no dogmatic use.
2. Moreover, if the words, "strengthen thy brethren," apply to Peter's successors, so do the words "when thou art converted." Bellarmine himself saw this, and was disturbed by it. He suggested that "converted" must not be understood as moral renovation and repentance, but as an adverb equivalent to, "in turn," as if the passage
- ↑ So Vat. C., cf. Knabenbauer in Luc.
